Infinite Cashback System

Chapter 265: 265 | The Asshole Upgrade

The door clicked shut behind Jordan.

Eliza sat alone in study room 3B with her laptop closed and her carefully constructed world in ruins around her.

She didn’t cry. She wanted to. The pressure behind her eyes had been building since Jordan first sat down and looked at her like she was a stranger on a bus, someone whose existence required no emotional investment whatsoever. But Eliza Hartwell did not cry in public spaces. Eliza Hartwell maintained composure. Eliza Hartwell had been taught from birth that emotional displays were weaknesses to be exploited by competitors.

Her grandmother had built an empire on that principle.

Her mother had refined it.

Eliza had inherited it like a genetic condition she couldn’t cure.

She stared at the door where Jordan had disappeared and tried to process what had just happened. The conversation replayed in her head like a movie she couldn’t pause. Every word. Every expression. Every moment where the boy she’d dismissed as pathetic had somehow become a man who dismissed her without effort.

The kind of person who needs to figure that out on their own.

The words echoed in the empty study room.

Eliza had spent three weeks preparing for this meeting. Three weeks of watching Jordan transform from a hunched, desperate, box-dye disaster into someone who walked across campus like he owned it. Three weeks of noticing that other girls noticed him now. Three weeks of seeing Chloe Kim attached to his arm like a designer accessory.

Three weeks of realizing she had made a catastrophic miscalculation.

Her phone buzzed. Cameron’s name lit up the screen.

where u at babe

Eliza stared at the message. She didn’t respond.

Cameron Mitchell was supposed to be the upgrade. The logical choice. The Tier One boyfriend who could elevate her status from social climber to social arrival. His family owned property in three states. His father golfed with senators. His BMW cost more than Jordan’s Honda Civic was worth.

Cameron was exactly what Eliza had been taught to want.

The problem was that Cameron was also an asshole.

Not in the obvious way. Not in the way that would make her friends question her choices or her parents express concern. Cameron’s asshole tendencies were subtle. The way he interrupted her sentences. The way his eyes tracked other women when they walked past. The way he sometimes forgot her name mid-conversation and covered it with a generic pet name that could apply to any girl.

Sweetheart. Babe. Honey.

Never Eliza.

Jordan had always called her by her name. Every single time. Like it mattered. Like she mattered.

Eliza pressed her palms against her eyes until she saw stars.

This was stupid. She was being stupid. Jordan McKnight had been a convenience. A source of free dinners and expensive gifts while she positioned herself for something better. He had served his purpose. She had moved on. That was how the game worked. That was how her mother had explained it would work.

Men are resources, Eliza. You extract what you need and you move on before they realize what’s happening. The ones who figure it out too late are the ones you win against. The ones who figure it out early are the ones you avoid.

Jordan had figured it out.

Last Christmas, when Jordan had followed her to that hotel parking lot outside Cameron’s BMW, Eliza had watched something fundamental break in his expression. She had watched the desperate, hopeful boy who would have emptied his bank account for five more minutes of her time just shut down completely. Not gradually. Not with the messy unraveling she’d expected. Just an immediate flatline. Like someone had unplugged him from whatever power source kept his pathetic devotion running.

She had braced herself for the scene. For tears and raised voices and the kind of public spectacle that would require her to perform sympathy for witnesses. For accusations and pleas and the exhausting performance of letting him down gently while Cameron waited inside.

Instead, Jordan had stood motionless in that parking lot for almost twenty minutes after she’d walked away with Cameron. She knew because she’d glanced back through the hotel lobby windows. Just standing there. Staring at nothing. Like a computer that had tried to run too many programs at once and finally crashed.

And then he had vanished.

Weeks of silence. Weeks of absence from class. Weeks where she’d almost convinced herself that she’d broken him permanently, that he’d dropped out or transferred or done something drastic.

Then he’d walked into Professor Delgado’s class looking like a completely different person.

The transformation was impossible. Eliza had seen him less than a month ago. People didn’t change that much in a month. People didn’t develop visible abs and confident postures and the kind of jawline that made other girls whisper when he walked past. People didn’t go from Box Dye Disaster to Campus Heartthrob in twenty-one days.

But Jordan had.

And now Jordan had a girlfriend.

Meanwhile Eliza had Cameron Mitchell, who couldn’t remember her birthday and called her sweetheart because he’d probably called his last three girlfriends the same thing.

Her phone buzzed again.

hello??

Cameron’s impatience bled through the text. Eliza could picture him frowning at his phone, annoyed that she wasn’t responding within his expected timeframe. Cameron expected immediate attention. Cameron expected obedience dressed up as affection.

Jordan had never expected anything from her.

Eliza’s hands trembled slightly as she gathered her research papers. The pages scattered across the table, carefully organized arguments about economic mobility and the American Dream that suddenly felt hollow and performative. She’d spent hours preparing for this meeting. Hours choosing the right outfit. The cream top with the strategic neckline. The black skirt that showed her thighs. The lace garter visible at certain angles.

She had dressed to remind Jordan what he’d lost.

Jordan had looked at her like she was wearing a burlap sack.

No. Worse than that. Jordan had looked at her like her appearance was completely irrelevant to anything he cared about. Like she could have shown up in a ball gown or a trash bag and it wouldn’t have changed anything about how he treated her.

The old Jordan would have stared. The old Jordan would have stuttered and blushed and tried desperately to compliment her without sounding creepy. The old Jordan had worshipped her body like it was a religious experience just being in the same room.

This Jordan had not looked below her collarbone once.