Chapter 1: Bound by the System

Ten years. That’s how long I’d let my life orbit around Natalie—high school to my thirties, every stage of my life stuck on repeat.

It sounds impossible—ten years slipping away in a blur of midnight texts and desperate phone calls, my whole existence locked into her gravitational pull. Sometimes it all went by in a flash; other times, it felt like I was stuck in traffic on a never-ending highway, chasing a mirage that always shimmered just out of reach.

In high school, I got expelled for throwing a punch in her name. When I started working, I maxed out every credit card for her. Guys filtered in and out of her life like faces at a bus stop, but I was never one of them—always just the one holding her coat, waiting by the curb.

I’d open my battered old wallet and stare at the receipts: dinners, birthday gifts, last-minute gas station roses that wilted before she ever picked them up. I was the guy who just kept circling the block, waiting for her to call me back.

To Natalie, I was just a pathetic simp.

And on those nights, lying in my shoebox apartment while the ceiling fan clicked and the world felt too heavy, I couldn’t argue. I was the one who picked up her dry cleaning, bailed her out after bad dates, and never once got to call her mine.

Whenever she kissed another man, I’d find myself wondering which lipstick she wore—the one I’d bought for her, probably. I could spot every shade: Plum Passion, Rose Seduction, Midnight Kiss. I still had the receipts, tucked in a shoebox under my bed.

Every time she walked away with someone else, it was like someone twisted a key in my chest—jealousy, shame, hope, all tangled up until I could barely breathe. I’d picture her laughing, leaning in close, lips painted with something I’d paid for.

Whenever she slapped me, I’d find myself asking if her hand hurt—like that made me noble, like it would soften the blow. Once, at a backyard barbecue in front of all her friends, she smacked me so hard my cheek burned. “Did that hurt your hand?” I asked, voice shaking. That’s what the System demanded: my devotion, total and humiliating.

Everyone pitied me, but none of them knew about the Simp System. As long as I kept simping for Natalie for ten years, I’d get a billion in cash. All I had to do was surrender my pride, my self-respect, and my sanity.

People in town would see me trailing after Natalie at the grocery store, arms full of her bags. “Poor Derek,” they’d mutter. They thought I was just desperate. They didn’t know I was stuck in the weirdest, most twisted get-rich-quick scheme ever invented.

When the ten years finally ended, I became a billionaire and left her. Only then did she realize what she’d lost.

I remember the night everything changed. The weight that had pressed on my chest for a decade suddenly vanished, and my phone buzzed with the message I’d been waiting for. And Natalie? She realized what she’d thrown away just as I walked out the door.

"Derek, I’m begging you, just love me one more time. I’d even give you my life."

She stood under the porch light in my driveway, mascara streaked down her cheeks, voice trembling. It was the most honest thing I’d ever heard from her.

"Your life isn’t worth much—why give me something worthless?"

I didn’t want to be cruel, but ten years had hollowed me out. Her words didn’t mean what they used to. I turned away, hearing the screen door creak behind me, and for the first time in a decade, I felt truly free.