Story code: ST-000018
Part 1: The Price of Aesthetics
I was dragging the color-correction slider on Chloe’s Mediterranean vacation vlog, trying to make the water behind her chartered yacht look a little more turquoise, when my phone vibrated against the desk. A push notification from Liberty Community Bank flashed on the screen.
Auto-draft alert. $900.00 withdrawn by Oak Creek HOA. Current balance: -$142.50.
My hand froze on the mouse. The timeline on the editing software kept playing, looping Chloe’s voice talking about manifesting financial freedom and building an empire through sheer grit. The audio mocked me as the negative sign next to my checking balance burned into my retinas.
Before I could even process what had just happened, a heavy piece of cream-colored cardstock slapped down directly onto my keyboard. It covered the spacebar and the entire lower row of letters.
Chloe leaned over my shoulder. She smelled like santal perfume and expensive espresso, completely out of place in my dingy home office.
“It is for the window AC unit, babe,” Chloe said, her tone as breezy as the yacht video playing on my monitor. “I told you last week that it ruins the neighborhood aesthetic. As the new HOA president, I have to set an example.”
I stared at the thick paper. It was a formal citation, complete with a gold foil seal. Then I looked at the bank alert on my phone. Finally, I looked at my childhood best friend, the woman whose entire self-made billionaire mindset brand I built from the ground up from the cramped desk of my cheap rental house.
I tried to speak, but my throat was completely dry. I swallowed hard, pointing a shaking finger at my phone screen. I told her that was my rent money.
Chloe sighed. She straightened up and brushed a speck of imaginary dust off her silk blazer. She told me choices have consequences. She said I could not just stick an ugly metal box out my window and expect the rest of the board to let the property values tank. She reminded me that she loved me, but business was business.
I looked out my small, single-pane window. The offending AC unit was barely visible behind a large overgrown rhododendron bush. My rental was the oldest house on the block, grandfathered into the affluent Oak Creek subdivision long before Chloe bought the sprawling property three doors down. I only lived here because Chloe insisted I be close by to manage her channels at all hours. I could not afford central air. I could barely afford groceries on the flat weekly rate she paid me to be her personal videographer, editor, and ghostwriter.
I told her the fine was nine hundred dollars. I explained that setting it up as an auto-draft from the account I used to pay the basic HOA dues had over-drafted me. I stated very clearly that I was going to be evicted.
Chloe reached over and pressed the spacebar through the citation paper, pausing her own video. Her digital face froze mid-laugh, white teeth gleaming against a Mediterranean tan.
She told me she needed the vlog uploaded by noon because the sponsors were waiting. She added that I needed to take down the AC unit by tonight, or it would be another nine hundred dollar fine tomorrow, advising me to read the new bylaws.
She walked out of my cramped home office. The click-clack of her designer heels echoed down the hallway. The front door shut with a solid thud.
I sat in the silence of my suffocatingly hot room. The AC unit was turned off anyway to save electricity, doing absolutely nothing but sitting in the window frame. Without my rent money, I had exactly four days before my landlord initiated eviction proceedings. I had no savings. Everything I made went into surviving while I worked eighty-hour weeks maintaining Chloe’s fake empire.
My phone buzzed again. An overdraft fee of thirty-five dollars had just been added to the negative balance.
I looked back at the dual monitors. On the left, Chloe’s face was plastered across a dozen different timeline clips. On the right, her main social media dashboard was open. I had the master passwords to everything. Her Instagram, her YouTube, her brand deal portals. Three million followers believed she was a self-made genius who started with nothing and built a fortune through sheer willpower.
They did not know her parents bought the Oak Creek house. They did not know I wrote every script and edited out every flaw.
The heat in the room was becoming unbearable. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck.
I minimized the video editing software and dragged the browser window with her main account dashboard to the center of the screen. The sponsor for the Mediterranean vlog was a massive financial app, paying her fifty thousand dollars for this integration alone. The contract stipulated that any breach of public trust or severe brand damage would nullify the payment.
I stared at the little green button that said publish.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I moved the paper citation aside and opened a new text document right next to her pristine, color-corrected yacht video. I began typing out the exact timeline of the HOA extortion, attaching the screenshots of the auto-draft and my negative bank balance.
My phone rang loudly, shattering my focus. The caller ID flashed my landlord’s name. I ignored it, moving my cursor toward the master upload directory, my finger pressing down on the left mouse button right as a heavy fist began pounding on my front door.
I was dragging the color-correction slider on Chloe’s Mediterranean vacation vlog, trying to make the water behind her chartered yacht look a little more turquoise, when my phone vibrated against the desk. A push notification from Liberty Community Bank flashed on the screen.
Auto-draft alert. $900.00 withdrawn by Oak Creek HOA. Current balance: -$142.50.
My hand froze on the mouse. The timeline on the editing software kept playing, looping Chloe’s voice talking about manifesting financial freedom and building an empire through sheer grit. The audio mocked me as the negative sign next to my checking balance burned into my retinas.
Before I could even process what had just happened, a heavy piece of cream-colored cardstock slapped down directly onto my keyboard. It covered the spacebar and the entire lower row of letters.
Chloe leaned over my shoulder. She smelled like santal perfume and expensive espresso, completely out of place in my dingy home office.
“It is for the window AC unit, babe,” Chloe said, her tone as breezy as the yacht video playing on my monitor. “I told you last week that it ruins the neighborhood aesthetic. As the new HOA president, I have to set an example.”
I stared at the thick paper. It was a formal citation, complete with a gold foil seal. Then I looked at the bank alert on my phone. Finally, I looked at my childhood best friend, the woman whose entire self-made billionaire mindset brand I built from the ground up from the cramped desk of my cheap rental house.
I tried to speak, but my throat was completely dry. I swallowed hard, pointing a shaking finger at my phone screen. I told her that was my rent money.
Chloe sighed. She straightened up and brushed a speck of imaginary dust off her silk blazer. She told me choices have consequences. She said I could not just stick an ugly metal box out my window and expect the rest of the board to let the property values tank. She reminded me that she loved me, but business was business.
I looked out my small, single-pane window. The offending AC unit was barely visible behind a large overgrown rhododendron bush. My rental was the oldest house on the block, grandfathered into the affluent Oak Creek subdivision long before Chloe bought the sprawling property three doors down. I only lived here because Chloe insisted I be close by to manage her channels at all hours. I could not afford central air. I could barely afford groceries on the flat weekly rate she paid me to be her personal videographer, editor, and ghostwriter.
I told her the fine was nine hundred dollars. I explained that setting it up as an auto-draft from the account I used to pay the basic HOA dues had over-drafted me. I stated very clearly that I was going to be evicted.
Chloe reached over and pressed the spacebar through the citation paper, pausing her own video. Her digital face froze mid-laugh, white teeth gleaming against a Mediterranean tan.
She told me she needed the vlog uploaded by noon because the sponsors were waiting. She added that I needed to take down the AC unit by tonight, or it would be another nine hundred dollar fine tomorrow, advising me to read the new bylaws.
She walked out of my cramped home office. The click-clack of her designer heels echoed down the hallway. The front door shut with a solid thud.
I sat in the silence of my suffocatingly hot room. The AC unit was turned off anyway to save electricity, doing absolutely nothing but sitting in the window frame. Without my rent money, I had exactly four days before my landlord initiated eviction proceedings. I had no savings. Everything I made went into surviving while I worked eighty-hour weeks maintaining Chloe’s fake empire.
My phone buzzed again. An overdraft fee of thirty-five dollars had just been added to the negative balance.
I looked back at the dual monitors. On the left, Chloe’s face was plastered across a dozen different timeline clips. On the right, her main social media dashboard was open. I had the master passwords to everything. Her Instagram, her YouTube, her brand deal portals. Three million followers believed she was a self-made genius who started with nothing and built a fortune through sheer willpower.
They did not know her parents bought the Oak Creek house. They did not know I wrote every script and edited out every flaw.
The heat in the room was becoming unbearable. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck.
I minimized the video editing software and dragged the browser window with her main account dashboard to the center of the screen. The sponsor for the Mediterranean vlog was a massive financial app, paying her fifty thousand dollars for this integration alone. The contract stipulated that any breach of public trust or severe brand damage would nullify the payment.
I stared at the little green button that said publish.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I moved the paper citation aside and opened a new text document right next to her pristine, color-corrected yacht video. I began typing out the exact timeline of the HOA extortion, attaching the screenshots of the auto-draft and my negative bank balance.
My phone rang loudly, shattering my focus. The caller ID flashed my landlord’s name. I ignored it, moving my cursor toward the master upload directory, my finger pressing down on the left mouse button right as a heavy fist began pounding on my front door.