The moment I realized Cassie didn’t love me as much anymore, I became impossible to live with. I acted out. I picked fights over nothing, desperate to feel some friction, some sign that she still cared. But within minutes of any argument, she’d tune me out completely, treating me like white noise. Staring at her cold, impassive profile, I would slam the door and walk out into the night. But I never had the courage to go far. I’d stand on the sidewalk, shivering in the cold, bargaining with myself. "If Cassie comes out in the next ten seconds, I’ll forgive her instantly." Then ten seconds would stretch into ten minutes. "If she just comes looking for me now, I’ll go right back inside with her." I ended up standing out there in the freezing Chicago wind for four hours. The door never opened. My phone remained dead silent—not a single text, not a missed call. Eventually, numb and defeated, I let myself back in. The apartment was roaring with noise. Cassie was hosting an impromptu party, surrounded by her friends. A handsome young guy was leaning in close to her on the couch, laughing as he fed her a sip of wine from his glass. All the angry questions I’d spent hours rehearsing dissolved instantly, popping like tiny bubbles in a freshly poured glass of champagne. She glanced up, noticing my wind-bitten, bright red face. Her tone was casual, almost bored. "Done throwing your tantrum?" I looked at her, my throat tight, and answered softly, "Yeah. I'm done." ... There was a heavy, unmistakable exhaustion in Cassie's eyes. She pulled out a cigarette, lighting it right in front of me—something she never used to do. "Then stop picking fights over every little thing." We had fought four times in the span of three days. "I stood in line for thirty minutes after work to get you that cake, and you threw a fit because it was the wrong flavor and refused to touch it." "Last night, I was at a business dinner and missed your calls, so you locked me out of our bedroom." "This morning, I asked what you wanted for lunch and you gave me nothing. Then when the food arrived, you rolled your eyes and said you weren’t hungry." "And then, when I told you some friends were coming over tonight, you lost your mind and threatened to storm out." She reached out, her fingers pressing briefly against my freezing cheek. "Drew, if you aren't tired of this cycle, I am. It's exhausting." She exhaled a stream of smoke. "Next time you decide to run away, at least bring a heavier coat. And when you’re done cooling off and realize you have nowhere else to go, just let yourself back in. You don't need to make a scene." If this had been a few hours ago, I would have cried. I would have screamed, desperately defending myself, unraveling in front of her. But now, I just swallowed the sharp ache in my chest and managed a quiet smile. "Okay." Behind me, one of her friends watched me walk away and whispered to her, "Are you seriously not going to go after him? Back in the day, if Drew so much as frowned, you'd practically fall to your knees to make him smile." Cassie shrugged, glancing lazily at her watch. "Back then, I’d spend days coddling him, walking on eggshells just to fix things. Now? I leave him alone to clear his head, and it only takes four hours." She let out a soft, mocking laugh. "Honestly, looking back, I wasted so much energy. It’s almost embarrassing." "Regret." I let the word settle over me like ash. During those four hours in the cold, I had counted countless sets of ten seconds. I had paced back and forth near our street, terrified she might look for me and miss me. I had even held my phone high above my head, desperately searching for a signal while strangers gave me weird looks. A little kid playing nearby had stopped and stared. "Is the connection bad, or is my phone broken?" I had mumbled to myself. "Why isn't it working?" The kid had jumped up, eager to help. "Let me see!" He peered at the screen, which was filled with my texts to Cassie. "Whoa, mister. You sent her a lot of messages. She barely says anything back. Are you waiting for her?" He tapped the screen with a serious look, acting like a little tech expert. "Your phone isn't broken, mister. There just aren't any new messages." He giggled. "You're silly." Just then, the screen lit up. My heart leaped. I snatched it back, only to see a generic news notification. The phone was fine. Cassie just hadn't reached out. Our chat history ended the night before. I had sent a dozen messages, none of which she’d answered. It started with me asking when she'd be home, shifted into anxious wondering if she’d even seen them, and devolved into raw hurt: "Are you really that busy? Just text me when you can." After that, I had called her three times, and each time, she had pressed decline. That was when I started losing my mind, firing off frantic texts. "You're looking at your phone. Why aren't you answering? Did I do something wrong? Why are you ignoring me?" But all my desperation, all my tears, fell into a black hole. There was no echo. Just like tonight, while I was freezing on the street waiting for her, she was already surrounded by a room full of people. My presence, my absence—none of it registered with her anymore. A few days later, a video surfaced online. Someone had recorded Cassie’s little speech lecturing me at the party and posted it. The caption read: "How does a guy this needy land a girl this perfect? Meanwhile, I'm still single." By the time I saw it, the comments were already flooded with hate. "If I worked a sixty-hour week only to come home to a high-maintenance child like this, I'd throw his bags out the window." "Sis, break up with him. You're out of his league, he'll be begging on his knees in a week." "Stop coddling him. This is exactly how I trained my boyfriend—ignore them and they fall right in line." "Where do these drama queens come from? Let me humble this prince." To make matters worse, some of Cassie's friends chimed in under the comments, claiming I was actually far worse in real life. The video went viral. It started circulating among my coworkers, and eventually, it reached my family. The person who posted it was Enoch—the handsome guy who had been feeding Cassie wine. When I confronted her, she was casually scrolling through the comments. "I talked to Enoch," she said, not even looking up. "He said he was just angry on my behalf and wanted to get some perspective. He didn’t realize it would blow up like this. The others were just looking out for me too." She sighed. "I'll have him take it down, so stop making a big deal out of it. Besides, nothing in that video is a lie. It's just some comments from strangers on the internet. It doesn't actually affect your real life, so let it go." Before the video was taken down, a notification popped up on my phone. "Cassie liked this post." Seeing my gaze fixated on her screen, she quickly unliked it, her expression entirely unbothered. "My finger slipped." I didn't say a word. But Cassie’s forehead creased in irritation before I could even open my mouth. "Are you going to throw another tantrum?" "I'm exhausted, Drew. I don't have the energy to fight with you right now." "Go cool off. You always think clearer when you're alone anyway." And so, I did. I cleared my head. I systematically stripped away every habit she had labeled as needy. I stopped asking if she loved me. I stopped getting upset over her coldness. I stopped asking where she was going, or expecting her to text me when she got there. Cassie smiled and told me I was finally growing up. But once I stopped watching her, she started coming home later and later. One night, Enoch brought her home. He was fluttering around her, pouring her a glass of water, gently massaging her temples to ease her hangover. He looked up at me with a practiced, sweet innocence. "Oh, right. I should go. I'm sure Drew wants to take care of you, Cassie." But he didn't move an inch. Instead, Cassie reached out and caught his hand. "Enoch." "My head hurts." He gave me an apologetic, helpless look. "She doesn't want me to leave." I leaned against the doorframe, watching their little performance like a detached spectator. "Then stay," I said simply. Cassie's coat, draped over the back of the sofa, carried the faint, sweet scent of Enoch's cologne. It was the exact same smell that had triggered our very first real fight months ago. I had sat on the couch waiting for her until three in the morning. "You went completely radio silent today because you were with Enoch?" She had shrugged. "Enoch just got back from Europe. A bunch of us got together to welcome him home." She hadn't even looked at me, shedding her coat and loosening her collar as she walked toward the bathroom. I had followed her, feeling like I was standing on the edge of a crumbling cliff. "Cassie, did you forget what you promised me? You said you'd never see him again." She had shot me a look of pure, unadulterated annoyance. "Are we really doing this again? Enoch confessed to me years ago. Can you please stop being so insecure? Focus on something productive for once, please." She had pushed my hand off the bathroom door. The latch clicked shut, cutting me out of her world. I wasn't blind to the shift in her. She would park her car in the garage and sit in it for an hour before coming upstairs. When we did speak, she’d cut me off after two sentences, claiming she was exhausted, and turn her back to me in bed. I used to wonder if she was going through a hard time at work. But eventually, I realized the truth: she was just tired of me. The more I felt her slipping away, the more desperately I tried to hold on. And the tighter I squeezed, the faster she pulled away. After that night she came home smelling like Enoch, the fights became a daily occurrence. But Cassie's responses only grew colder. Eventually, the moment I opened my mouth, she’d put her AirPods in or walk out of the room. Once, I chased her down and ripped the earbuds out of her ears, tears streaming down my face. "Cassie, do you think I enjoy this?" "I just want to feel like you care, even a little bit. I just need you to explain, to hold me, to reassure me. Is that really so hard?" I had practically begged. "What happened to us? Did I do something wrong?" "Can we please just talk?" Cassie didn't say a word. She snatched her AirPods back, put them in, and looked at me with flat eyes. "Do whatever you want," she said. A sudden burst of laughter from the bedroom—Enoch telling Cassie to stop teasing him—jolted me back to the present. I forced myself to look away. I had spent weeks training myself to stop reaching out to her. I ate alone, slept alone, lived alone. I was slowly getting used to the quiet. What I didn't expect was for my grandfather to go find her. My family had tried to get in touch with her for weeks, but she had ignored all their calls. When I finally found out where he was and rushed over, my grandfather was standing in her office reception, apologizing to her. His posture was humble, almost pleading, while Cassie sat comfortably behind her desk, accepting his deference as her due. "If only Drew were as reasonable as you are, Thomas." My grandfather, a man in his late seventies, was standing awkwardly in front of her desk because no one had offered him a chair. "Cassie, I saw that video online, and I've been trying to reach you ever since," he said, his voice trembling slightly. "I won't stay long, I don't want to disrupt your work. I just wanted to apologize on Drew's behalf. If he's been difficult, I am truly sorry. Please, don't be angry with him anymore. I'm asking you as his grandfather." One of Cassie’s friends, lounging on the office couch, laughed. "Old man, who do you think you are? You think a simple apology just wipes the slate clean?" A hot wave of anger rushed to my head. I stormed into the room, grabbing my grandfather's arm to pull him out. Thomas patted my back gently. "Drew, please, let's talk this out calmly." But something cracked inside me. The dam finally broke. "The cake you supposedly stood in line for thirty minutes to buy?" I yelled, looking directly at Cassie. "You sat in your warm car while your assistant bought it. And she bought mango flavor—knowing damn well I'm severely allergic to mangoes. How was I supposed to eat that?" "You complain that I locked you out of the bedroom? You ignore every text I send and decline my calls. You have time to hit 'decline,' but you can't spare a single second to let me know if you're coming home?" "You say I wouldn't tell you what I wanted for lunch? I booked a restaurant a day in advance and texted you the details. You agreed, and then you completely forgot. When you finally ordered food, you got nothing but spicy dishes, knowing I can't eat spicy food." "And those 'friends' you invited over? The main friend is Enoch—the guy who confessed to you, the guy I caught kissing you, the guy you swore you would never see again." "Cassie, I’m done rehashing this. It’s exhausting and meaningless. But how dare you sit there and act like the victim in front of my grandfather? How dare you let him apologize to you?" I practically screamed those last words. Cassie sat up a little straighter, her eyes narrowing. Before she could speak, the door opened and Enoch strolled in. He walked right past me as if I were invisible, heading straight for Cassie. "Cassie, I loved that restaurant you took me to tonight. Can we go back there tomorrow?" The woman we couldn't reach for days had been busy wining and dining someone else. I was too numb to care, but my grandfather’s breathing grew shallow and rapid as he put the pieces together. "So this is what it is," he said, his voice trembling with indignation. "An affair and a homewrecker, and you try to blame my grandson for your own guilt?" He pointed a shaking finger at Enoch. "Do you boys have any sense of decency or self-respect?" Enoch's expression soured instantly, his sweet facade slipping. "Watch your mouth, old man," he snapped, stepping forward. He gave my grandfather a hard push. My grandfather lost his footing on the polished marble floor and went down hard. I heard the sickening crack of his bones hitting the stone. Even Enoch looked shocked by how easily the old man fell. Looking pale, he scrambled back to Cassie's side, grabbing her sleeve. "Cassie, I didn't mean to. He came at me, I swear." I couldn't hear their voices over the roaring in my ears. All I could hear was my grandfather groaning in pain on the floor. I fell to my knees beside him, terrified to move him. My hands were shaking so violently I dropped my phone twice before finally dialing 911. While we waited for the paramedics, Enoch clung to Cassie's arm, his eyes brimming with fake tears. "Cassie, they insulted me first. You're just going to let them leave like this? Everyone is watching. My friends are right outside. Am I just supposed to take this? You're my—I mean, you're supposed to protect me. I need you to set this straight." Cassie remained quiet for a long moment. Then she looked down at me. "Drew. Apologize to Enoch. Do it, and you can leave." I looked up, my temples pounding with raw fury. "Get the hell out of my way," I spat through gritted teeth. "Let the paramedics through." Enoch sneered. "What's with your attitude?" Cassie pulled him behind her. She let out a small, humorless laugh. "Drew, and here I thought you'd actually grown up. Since a simple apology isn't enough for you, how about a formal bow? You apologize properly, and then I'll let the paramedics in. I have all night." She tilted her head toward my grandfather, who was shivering on the floor. "But I don't think your grandfather does." My mind went completely blank. All those months of fighting and crying had been a desperate attempt to prove she still cared. But the truth I had been too terrified to admit was laid bare right in front of me. It was over. She didn't love me. I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. The paramedics were being held at the security desk downstairs. My grandfather's face was contorted in agony. Swallowing my tears, I forced myself up. I bent my waist and bowed. "Not low enough," Enoch drawled. I swallowed the bile in my throat and bowed deeper, offering a profound, humiliating apology to the two of them. "I'm sorry." A single tear hit the marble floor. Along with it, every shred of the love Cassie and I had built since high school shattered into dust. Fortunately, my grandfather was strong for his age. It was only a minor hairline fracture. In his hospital bed, he squeezed my hand. "I'm sorry, Drew. I made things worse for you. I saw that video of you online... you looked so close to tears, and it broke my heart. I knew how much you loved her. I just wanted to help make things right." I buried my face in his calloused palm, my tears soaking his fingers. He was right. Cassie and I "had" been happy once. I remembered her driving across the city in the pouring rain just to drop me off after late-night study sessions in high school. I remembered when we got robbed on vacation in Italy; we had fifty dollars left between us, and she went hungry just so I could have a proper meal. I remembered her slipping a promise ring onto my finger after college graduation, swearing she’d love me forever and that I could throw all the tantrums I wanted because she’d always be there to comfort me. I hated the smell of smoke, so she had never touched a cigarette around me. Once, after our worst argument, I had flown to Boston for a business trip. She had hopped on a red-eye flight that very night, tracked me down at my hotel, and held me tight, whispering that she’d follow me to the ends of the earth. She had loved me once. Truly loved me. My grandfather stroked my hair. "Drew, let's just go home. Our real home." I wiped my eyes and nodded eagerly. "Yeah. Let's go home." Cassie showed up at the hospital the next day, but not to visit. Karma is a patient thing. This time, a video of her and Enoch from the office incident had leaked online. The internet hadn’t forgotten our last viral video. The public, realizing they had been manipulated into attacking a needy boyfriend, turned their collective rage on Cassie and Enoch. She stood by the hospital window, looking perfectly composed. "I've already had the video removed," she said. "Enoch made a statement clarifying that we're just friends. But people are still hounding his social media. I need you to post a clarification. Tell everyone your grandfather slipped and fell on his own, and that Enoch had nothing to do with it. Also, state that you know Enoch and I are just friends. After all, your grandfather did insult him first." Her phone rang. It was Enoch, his voice loud enough for me to hear through the receiver. 'Cassie, did he agree to clear my name yet? People are writing horrible things. I'm so scared. Can you please come back and stay with me?' Cassie looked down at her phone. "You hear that? Enoch is a mess. Let's keep innocent people out of our relationship issues." I let out a dry, bitter laugh. "I thought you said getting dragged on the internet doesn't actually affect real life? Why the sudden concern?" Cassie made a cutting gesture with her hand, signaling me to stop. "Don't be dramatic, Drew. You handled it fine, didn't you? Honestly, you're suffocating me. Even now, you're still obsessing over your petty jealousy." She reached out to grab my phone from the bedside table, clearly done talking. I stepped back, keeping the device out of her reach. "No need," I said quietly. "I'll post it." Cassie paused, dropping her hand. Her phone buzzed again—Enoch, no doubt. She checked the screen, and I caught a glimpse of her notifications. My contact name was buried at the bottom, marked with a gray 'Do Not Disturb' bell. Since I had agreed to write the post, she didn't waste another second. She turned and left. After she left, I checked my grandfather out of the hospital. On our drive home, the car passed the neighborhood where Cassie and I used to live. I looked out the window as the familiar streets blurred into insignificance. I pulled out my phone, drafted a statement, and hit post. Within ten minutes, my phone began vibrating off the hook. Notifications from friends, acquaintances, and total strangers flooded in. Then came a barrage of texts from Cassie—more than she had sent me in the last six months. The final notification was a voice message, her tone dripping with barely controlled rage: 'Drew, what the fuck did you just post? What is wrong with you?'
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