During the years when our love was at its most pure, Oliver spent an entire night kneeling in the freezing rain beside my mother’s grave. He was terrified I was going to break up with him. He prayed to her spirit, begging her to visit my dreams and convince me to stay. My heart softened. I took him back and uprooted my entire life to move to his city. Five years after that grand gesture, he cheated on me with a beautiful, much younger girl. For her, he was ready to quit his job, pack up his apartment, and move across the country. It was snowing heavily the day he officially asked for a break. I had walked block after block in the freezing wind just to buy a bag of hot roasted chestnuts from his favorite street vendor. My hands were numb as I asked him, "Can we just fix this? What am I supposed to do if you leave?" He stared at his phone, his face twisted with impatience. "Lily, are you seriously this obsessed? Can you really not survive without me?" I stopped begging. I wiped my tears, walked away, and erased every trace of him from my existence. Six months later, he crawled back. He was completely broke, looking like a ghost of the man I knew. He dropped to his knees, sobbing into his hands. "Can we just fix this? I can't survive without you." I looked down at him and spoke with perfect calm. "Then go die." 1 Discovering Oliver’s infidelity happened on an utterly unremarkable Tuesday. I was in the kitchen prepping dinner. He had been out in his car taking a phone call for three hours. By the time he walked back through the front door, the food was ice cold. I was sitting quietly at the dining table, typing away on my laptop to finish an urgent marketing deck for my boss. I didn't even look up. "Just microwave your plate," I said, my voice tight with work anxiety. He gave a faint grunt of acknowledgment and headed straight for the bathroom. Maybe it was just a woman’s intuition. Something felt incredibly wrong. The old Oliver never hid in his car to take phone calls. Suddenly, the marketing deck didn't matter. My mind was racing, searching for clues. It wasn't until he stepped out of the steaming bathroom that I spotted it. Wrapped around his left wrist was a thin, red woven thread. It was cheap. Basic. Not a single bead or charm on it. Oliver worked in high-end fashion merchandising. He was borderline obsessive about his image and aesthetic. He coordinated his luxury watches and tailored cuffs with surgical precision. If he wore something out of place, his colleagues in Manhattan would eat him alive. There was absolutely no logical reason for him to be wearing a dollar-store friendship bracelet. He noticed me staring at his wrist. Smoothly, almost casually, he slid his hand behind his back. "I'm cutting carbs this week. Think I'll skip dinner." "Make sure you heat up your food when you're done working," he added. "Don't eat it cold." Then he vanished into the bedroom. I watched his back disappear as the door clicked shut. It felt like someone had just swung a baseball bat into my chest. I sat frozen at the dining table, staring at that closed white door. A horrific, prickling numbness washed over my skin. A voice echoed in the back of my skull, screaming a truth I didn't want to hear. He is cheating on you. I don't know how long I sat there. It was December in New York, and my entire body felt turning to ice. Fighting through the nausea, I forced myself to walk over to the bedroom. I took a deep breath and pushed the door open. Oliver jumped. He clearly hadn't expected me to come in. His reflexes took over. He slammed his phone face-down onto the duvet. As I walked closer, he ripped out his AirPods and shoved the phone under his pillow. "You're done already?" he asked. "That was fast." "You should eat and hit the shower. Need me to warm up your plate?" If this were the old days, Oliver wouldn't be asking. Whenever I had late-night projects, he would bring his iPad to the living room and sit beside me until I finished. He always knew exactly when I was about to get hungry. He would have the food hot and waiting, with a bowl of freshly washed berries on the side. I used to tease him about it. "You're making a great housewife. You're making me look bad." He would pull me into his lap and say, "Then let me quit my job. You can be my sugar mama." But whenever I agreed, he would shake his head. "Nah. I need to save up for a brownstone. I have to give you a real home." When exactly did that boy disappear? I had no idea. Oliver’s eyes darted everywhere but my face. The guilt was suffocating the room. A wave of sheer desperation washed over me. Acting on pure impulse, I stripped off my clothes right there in front of him. I crawled onto the bed, straddled his lap, and started kissing him like my life depended on it. I needed his physical touch to prove he still loved me. I needed to know that, at the very least, we still belonged to each other in this way. But Oliver shoved me hard in the chest. He grabbed a random sweater off the floor and threw it over my naked shoulders. "Lily, what the hell are you doing?" That single question shattered whatever was left of my bleeding heart. "What am I doing? Is it that hard to figure out? I want my boyfriend." His eyes were still dodging mine. He grabbed his phone from under the pillow, stood up, and backed away from the bed. "Let's just not tonight. I'm exhausted." "Go to sleep. I have to head to the office and pull an all-nighter." It felt like an invisible hand had just slapped me across the face. Is there anything more humiliating than throwing yourself naked at the person you love, only to be looked at with disgust? Actually, yes. There is. 2 Oliver changed into fresh clothes and bolted from the apartment like it was on fire. I followed him into the hallway, wanting to scream, wanting to demand answers. But as I stood behind the heavy front door, I heard his voice echoing near the elevator bank. "Babe, why would I touch her?" "Stop overthinking. I'm going to sleep in the car." "I know, I know. I'll stay on the phone with you. I won't hang up." The elevator dinged. The doors slid shut, cutting off his voice. My hand hovered over the doorknob. I didn't dare turn it until the hallway was dead silent. The space outside my door felt like a freezing, desolate wasteland. On his way out, he had even taken the trash I left by the door. So domestic. So cruel. The dam broke. I sank to the hardwood floor and sobbed until I was gasping for air. Why? Why was he doing this? My brain felt starved of oxygen. I stumbled over to the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room and looked down at the street. His car was parked under a streetlight. He was sitting in the driver’s seat, phone pressed to his ear, laughing at something the girl on the other end said. He looked so relaxed. So happy. He spent the entire night in that car. I spent the entire night sitting on the cold floor by the window. At six-thirty in the morning, the car door finally opened. I scrambled back into the bedroom, threw myself under the covers, and pretended to be dead asleep. I had left the bedroom door cracked open. I heard him walk in, brush his teeth in the guest bathroom, and head back toward the front door. I heard every single footstep. Every second, I prayed he would walk into the bedroom. Just to hug me. Just to press his lips to my forehead like he had done a thousand times before. To whisper, "Going to work, baby. Love you." If he did that, I could lie to myself. I could pretend last night was a nightmare. We could go back to the way we were. He never stepped foot in the bedroom. The front door slammed shut. I lay there for hours. I lay there until my swollen, burning eyes produced fresh tears, soaking my pillow completely through. I must have passed out from exhaustion. In my dreams, I was pulled back to the very beginning. Oliver and I were childhood friends. We grew up in the same small town in upstate New York. But it wasn't some golden, sun-kissed coming-of-age movie. When he was eight, his parents had a messy divorce. His dad remarried a woman who didn't want a stepson. His mom, eager to start a new life in Europe, dumped him at his grandmother’s house with ten grand in a checking account and never looked back. His grandmother lived in the apartment right above mine. I was eight years old, too. I didn't have a dad. It was just me and my mom, scraping by. Oliver and I were like two stray dogs licking each other’s wounds. We kept each other standing. From elementary school through senior year, we didn't spend a single day apart. He became the absolute center of my universe. When teenage hormones kicked in, the transition from best friends to first loves was seamless. We promised to go to the same college in the city. We swore we would never be separated. But when acceptance letters rolled in, I secretly changed my plans. I didn't go to the prestigious university in Manhattan with him. I enrolled at the local state college back home. He didn't find out until the final paperwork arrived in the mail. He stormed into my house, furious. "Why the hell would you change your major without telling me?" "Was everything we talked about just a lie?" I couldn't bring myself to tell him the truth. My mother had just been diagnosed with a severe illness. I couldn't leave her. Instead, I played the villain. "I just don't have the same ambition you do. I want a quiet, boring life." "Oliver, we just don't make sense anymore." We didn't speak for the entire summer. The night before he left for the city, I found a stuffed envelope jammed under my front door. Inside was a wad of cash, maybe five hundred dollars, and a note written on lined paper. [This is the money I made flipping burgers all summer. It’s mine, not my dad's. Use it. We’re going to figure out your mom’s medical bills together.] It broke me. I ran out into the damp evening air, crying, intending to run all the way to the bus station. But as soon as I opened the downstairs lobby door, I saw him. He was leaning against the brick wall, hands shoved in his pockets, grinning at me. I avoided his burning gaze, awkwardly wiping my face. "Why aren't you on the bus?" He walked up and pressed a warm brown paper bag into my hands. The rich, sweet smell of roasted chestnuts filled the air. "I was worried a certain someone was too stubborn to realize she still needs me." Whenever we fought as kids, a bag of hot roasted chestnuts was our silent truce. I took the bag and walked him to the station. Right before he boarded, he crushed me in a hug. "Lily, please don't leave me behind. You're all I have." "Let's make this official. Please?" 3 I said yes. Back then, I truly believed young love could conquer any tragedy. We dated long-distance for four years. Whenever he had a free weekend, he took the bus upstate. His Instagram and Snapchat were flooded with pictures of me. He constantly told me he wanted to make me feel secure, to prove I could always trust him. But I refused to let my baggage drag him down. Shortly after graduation, my mother passed away. I was completely alone. I handled the hospital bills, the morgue paperwork, the cremation, and the funeral plot all by myself. Oliver called me a few times. He said he had final-round interviews at top-tier firms on Wall Street. He couldn't leave the city, but promised he’d rush back the second he secured an offer. I texted back a single word: [Okay.] The people who came to the funeral were mostly older neighbors. They all knew about me and Oliver. They stood near the buffet table, whispering about how successful he was becoming. Full academic scholarships. Bidding wars between corporate giants. He was going to put roots down in New York City and make a fortune. I listened to them, and I realized they were right. He had a massive, glittering future ahead of him. He shouldn't be chained to a grieving orphan in a dead-end town. The day after my mother went into the ground, I sent him a text ending the relationship. Then I blocked his number, deleted my social media, and disappeared into a cheap motel where no one could find me. I spent a week existing in a numb blur. It wasn't until his grandmother managed to get a hold of me that I found out he had come back. He had gone completely insane trying to find me. When he couldn't, he drove to the cemetery and collapsed by my mother’s grave. He stayed on his knees in the freezing mud, begging her spirit to make me stay. Hearing that destroyed my resolve. I caved and went to the cemetery. I found him curled into a ball against her headstone. I couldn't tell if his eyelashes were coated in morning dew or frozen tears. When he saw me, he scrambled to his feet and practically tackled me, burying his face in my neck, shaking violently. His eyes were bloodshot and wild. His voice was entirely gone. "Lily, please. Please don't leave me." "I'm begging you..." Looking at the boy who loved me that much, I had no defense left. We got back together. I packed up my life and moved to a tiny apartment in Queens with him. He worked insane corporate hours, so I took an easy admin job just so I could manage the apartment, cook his meals, and do his laundry. As he climbed the corporate ladder, setting his sights higher and higher, I started taking night classes, desperately trying to upgrade myself so I wouldn't be left behind. I was still fighting for our future. How did he lose his way? My phone blaring aggressively on the kitchen counter jolted me awake. It was my boss, absolutely screaming into the receiver. She wanted to know where the marketing deck was and asked if I was trying to get fired. I squinted at the clock. It was 4:00 PM. My bones ached, and my brain felt like it was stuffed with cotton. I dragged myself out of bed and dug a thermometer out of the nightstand. I was running a massive fever. After apologizing to my boss, I threw a heavy cardigan over my pajamas and walked out to the dining table to finish the deck. Last night’s dinner was still sitting there, completely untouched. But there was a sticky note pressed to the wood. Oliver's handwriting: [Flying out for a business trip for a few days. Throw the food out.] A hot tear splashed onto the yellow paper. Business trip. Right. He was with her. I knew it in my gut. Like a complete maniac, I started calling him. Back to back to back. He didn't pick up once. Finally, my phone buzzed with a text. [Let's just take some space and calm down.] Calm down? Space? What did that even mean? Total panic set in. I booted up the iPad and logged into the car's GPS tracking app. The little blue dot was parked outside a boutique hotel downtown. Before I took an Uber there, I walked for twenty minutes through the biting wind until I found a street vendor selling hot roasted chestnuts. Clutching the warm paper bag to my chest, I found his luxury sedan in the hotel lot. I used the digital key on my phone to unlock the doors and climbed into the passenger seat. I assumed the app notification would alert him, and he would come down to see me. Instead, another text popped up. [Go home. I want to be alone right now.] I wanted to scream through the phone. Alone? Are you really alone, or is she in the bed next to you? But I was too terrified to ask. My chest felt like it was being crushed in a vice. My fingers trembled as I typed: [I have a high fever.] Ten minutes later, the elevator doors in the lobby slid open. Oliver walked out, pulled open the driver’s side door, and let out a long, heavy sigh. "Lily, if you're sick, go to an urgent care. I'm not a doctor." Tears blurred my vision. I reached out, desperately wanting to wrap my arms around his waist. He stiffened and leaned away from my touch. "Lily. I'm seeing someone else. You already figured that out, didn't you?"
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