Blair broke up with me again. This time, I thought I’d do what I did the first time she dumped me when we were eighteen: head down to the riverwalk to cool off. But the wind coming off the water was biting, a sharp, physical reminder that I wasn’t a teenager anymore. Forget it, I thought. Just go home. On the walk back, I passed that greasy spoon diner on the corner. I expected my stomach to be in knots, the way it was when I was twenty and heartbreak felt like a terminal illness. Instead, the smell of grilling onions hit me, and I realized the cook was on his A-game. I was starving. Finally back in my apartment, I sat down, ready to do what I’d done at twenty-two, twenty-three, and twenty-four: draft The Essay. The long, groveling text message begging Blair to take me back. But then I opened my phone and saw a notification from my boss. I was being deployed on a business trip. I spent the next month buried in work in a neighboring city, practically revitalizing my career. Blair, finally losing patience with my silence, called me. "Why haven't you come to apologize yet?" That was when it hit me. I’d forgotten something. I’d forgotten to care. Getting dumped when you’re a little older is a strange thing. It’s less of a tragedy and more of an administrative hassle. I tested the waters, keeping my voice light. "My bad, my bad. Honestly, I’ve been so swamped I forgot to write The Essay." I paused, letting the silence stretch just enough to be dangerous. "How about... we just leave it broken this time?" 1 We were at drinks with friends when the rumor started floating around that Blair was planning to propose to me. Blair laughed, that cool, dismissive sound that used to make me nervous. She looked completely unbothered. "Why would I need to propose? Griffith isn’t going to marry anyone but me. besides, I need Carter to be the best man. He’s been booking that slot since we were kids." The sentence was so off-balance I couldn't tell what mattered more to her: marrying me, or securing a spot for Carter, her childhood soulmate, in the bridal party. I took a sip of water, trying to keep my voice steady. "I have my own friends for groomsmen. My college roommates. We made a pact years ago—we all stand up for each other. No exceptions." Blair didn’t even look at me. She just swirled her drink. "So add another groomsman." "I can’t. There are four of them. An odd number doesn't work for the procession. It’s messy." She snapped, a flash of irritation breaking her composure. "Then just find some random guy to even it out. Carter has never been a best man before. Can’t you just satisfy him this one time?" The table went quiet. Our friends were used to these inexplicable arguments. They never interfered because they knew the script: I would apologize specifically and profusely, Blair would freeze me out for two days to prove a point, and then she’d graciously allow us to make up. Nobody wants to be a spectator to a relationship where one person is the clown. But this time, something inside me had calcified. "No. It’s not necessary. It’s my wedding, and I want to make the call." Blair walked over to me, looming slightly. "And if I insist?" I didn't answer, but the look on my face must have been answer enough. Humiliated and furious, she slammed her hand on the table. "Fine! Let’s break up then! Griffith, don't you dare contact me." She stormed out, the door rattling in its frame. The remaining friends looked at their drinks, the floor, anywhere but me. I smoothed things over, murmuring some excuses. The tension broke, and the teasing started. "Griffith’s got this under control. He’s confident," one guy laughed. "Blair is just... you know. Go buy her a bag, smooth it over. It’s fine." "Griffith, you can’t spoil women like that," another said, shaking his head. "The more you indulge them, the worse they get. You’re too soft on her." "Hey, that wedding date you guys were looking at? My uncle says it's bad luck. I’ll have him calculate a new one for you. He’s amazing—no one he’s picked a date for has ever gotten divorced." I smiled, polite and hollow, and didn't say a word. 2 I walked home alone, stopping every now and then just to breathe. My head was a supercut of the last ten years. High school sweethearts. The brutal years of long-distance during college. The friction of moving in together. We had failed at every stage, and every single time, I had fought tooth and nail to glue us back together. I asked myself, Why? Does loving someone mean you have to strip yourself of all dignity? Shouldn't love be about mutual compromise? About holding each other up? But whenever I resolved to leave, a treacherous little voice would whisper in my ear: "If you give up now, doesn't that make the last decade a waste? Doesn't that make you a joke?" So I gritted my teeth. I endured. I hoped that if I just loved her enough, I could move her. I hoped for a happy ending. My wandering took me past the river again. I used to call it the "River of Tears" because it was close to our campus. Since our very first breakup, this water had witnessed more of my crying jags than my mother had. But tonight, the wind was just cold. Before I could spiral into melancholy, the physical chill snapped me out of it. I pulled my jacket tighter. Forget it. I’ll go be sad in the warmth of my living room. I turned the corner and saw the burger joint again. Funny. I came here a lot. Once, after a fight with Blair, I angrily ordered five double cheeseburgers, intending to eat my feelings, but my throat was so tight from holding back tears I couldn't swallow a bite. The cook really had improved. The smell of grease and charred beef was hypnotic. I ordered cautiously this time, afraid of repeating history, but after two burgers, I realized I could easily handle a third. Mouth busy, stomach full. The emptiness in my chest didn't feel quite so vast. It was only when I stood in front of my apartment door that I hesitated. We had lived together for so long; that small space was a museum of our shared life. But when I opened the door, I didn't feel nostalgia. I saw the trash bag, full to bursting, that she hadn’t taken out. The empty soda bottles on the coffee table. The shoes kicked off in the middle of the hallway. The anger flared hotter than the sadness. The fire in my chest seemed to dry up my tears. I cleaned everything in a frenzy. I sat down to mute her on social media—so I wouldn't have to see her updates—when a notification popped up. My boss, tagging me in the group chat with feedback on a proposal. By the time I closed the document, the sky outside was turning the color of a bruised peach. Morning. I was surprised to find that the first day of heartbreak had passed so easily. So, in the quiet of that brand-new morning, I did something I had never done before. I blocked Blair on everything. 3 Blair didn't come back. I knew the drill. She was waiting for me to kneel. I assumed I would, eventually. It was a habit, like biting my nails. Bowing down for love didn't feel shameful anymore; it just felt like Tuesday. But every time I picked up my phone, life intervened. A proposal needed rewriting. A client called. One day turned into two, then eight, then nine. I hadn’t contacted her. I had accidentally achieved the impossible, and to my shock, I wasn't in agony. During the morning meeting that day, my director announced a critical project. A client needed a representative on-site, a permanent placement until the project closed. A year and a half, minimum. I raised my hand before the sentence was even finished. He looked at me over his glasses. "Single candidates preferred." "I'm single," I said immediately. The conference room erupted in laughter. My "epic saga" with Blair was office folklore. They assumed this was just another dramatic chapter. But the director asked around, and no one else volunteered. Leaving headquarters for eighteen months was a risk. You could come back to find your desk gone and your influence evaporated. For a career trajectory, it wasn't the optimal move. But for me? It was an escape hatch. And more than that, the client was in San Francisco—a city I had always dreamed of living in. Blair had refused to ever leave our current city. She was comfortable here; her family was here, her world was here. She wouldn't even let me travel to San Francisco for vacation. Friends joked she was afraid that if I went, I’d realize how big the world was and never come back. I just smiled when they said that. In the end, the director gave it to me. "Don't bail on me," he warned me privately before I left. "I don't care how the soap opera with your girlfriend plays out. You finish this eighteen months." I smiled. "Mission accepted." 4 The first weeks in San Francisco were a blur of adrenaline and caffeine. I worked two weeks straight, living out of the corporate hotel because I didn't have time to apartment hunt. By the third weekend, I finally came up for air. The city was everything the blogs and magazines promised, but being there—feeling the steep hills in my calves, smelling the salt and eucalyptus—was different. I realized I had made the right choice. When my mother called, I was actually surprised. We hadn't spoken since a blowout argument a year ago. My parents had started the "marriage pressure campaign" when I was twenty-five. By twenty-eight, with no ring on my finger, they had snooped through my phone, found Blair’s number, and called her directly to harass her. I can only imagine the toxic things they said. Blair refused to speak to me for a solid month after that. My mother has a beautiful voice, melodic and soft, which makes the cruel, invasive things she says land with even more dissonance. "You're not really going to wait until you're thirty to get married, are you?" she started, skipping the pleasantries. "We dug through the family tree for eight generations and couldn't find anyone as useless as you." "Well, I'm breaking new ground then." "I don't have time for your sarcasm. Your sister saw on your social media that you broke up with that Blair girl. True or false? Usually, you two are back together by now, but it's been quiet. Is it done?" "Say what you want to say, Mom. I'm working." "That temper. Just like your father. No wonder you two can't be in the same room." "I'm hanging up." "Wait, wait!" Her voice pitched up. "Look, if you're free this weekend, your aunt found someone for you. A nice girl. She works in your city." "She probably doesn't," I said. "I forgot to tell you. I moved." 5 "You moved?" Her volume spiked. "Why do you always do this? You have these big ideas and you just do whatever you want!" I didn't have the energy to argue. "Who is she? A client of Auntie’s? Or her boss? There’s always an angle with her." My mother, usually so strident, suddenly mumbled. "They say it's your cousin’s boss's daughter. But her conditions are excellent. Would your aunt hurt you?" I genuinely wondered how she could ask that without choking. "Are you sure about that?" I asked. "Why do you have to be so cynical? Just because she introduced you to someone last year and took a little advantage... she apologized to you crying! She didn't know about that person’s situation." I didn't bother arguing. If she didn't know the situation, why did she set us up? My aunt had introduced me to a literal con artist. When I rejected the woman, my aunt gave her my home address. If Blair hadn't come home early that night, finding me cornered in the dark stairwell by a woman demanding money... I don't know what would have happened. I later found out the woman was the niece of a major client my aunt was trying to woo. She sent my photo without asking, the niece liked it, and my aunt served me up on a platter. When I tried to go to the police, my aunt explicitly told me she wouldn't testify because she couldn't afford to offend the client. And now, here we were again. "Tell Auntie to stop using me as currency. Or I’ll come home for Thanksgiving and act so crazy everyone will think it runs in the family." "You ungrateful child!" 6 The silence after hanging up was exquisite. I finished a proposal, dropped it in the work group chat, and basked in the shower of "thumbs up" emojis from the team. Feeling bold, I posted on my personal feed: [Another day, crushing it.] Usually, I kept a low profile, but the response was immediate. [Griffith is a career man now! I tried to get you out for a week, didn't know you were grinding.] [Working? Don't you know your fortress is under siege?] [Why haven't you deleted the breakup post? You haven't made up yet? Is the apology gift not big enough this time? You never listen to us.] I replied one by one. [Traveling for work. Drinks when I’m back.] [My fortress is empty. No one lives there anymore.] [Not making up.] As soon as I hit send, my phone rang. It was the boyfriend of one of Blair's best friends. We used to hang out all the time. "Where are you living the high life, Griffith?" "Working. Just busy." He paused, lowering his voice. "Are you out of town? I walked by your place the other day, knocked, no answer." "Yeah, out of town. What’s up?" "Nothing, nothing. Just haven't seen you. Wanted to grab dinner." "I'll hit you up when I'm back." "Cool, cool." He hesitated again. "Hey... did you hear about Blair and Carter?" "Not really," I said honestly. "Like I said, busy." He didn't take the hint. "Blair and Carter have been super loud about it. Going to parties together. I heard Blair bought him a massive gold watch for his birthday." "Everyone’s guessing they’re finally together. Blair hasn't confirmed it. We figure she’s just waiting for you to come beg for forgiveness." I laughed. A genuine, short laugh. "What exactly am I apologizing for?" He stammered. "Huh? I mean... you always apologize. I just assumed..." "I apologized when I cared," I said. "What if I don't care anymore?" I heard a loud door slam on the other end of the line. And then, Blair’s friend's voice yelling, "Blair!"
? Continue the story here ?? ? Download the "MotoNovel" app ? search for "390684", and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel