On payday, I went out of my way to stop by the international market and buy a whole imported durian. It was a rare indulgence, something I had craved for weeks. But in the few minutes it took me to use the bathroom after getting home, the fruit was gone. When Connor walked through the front door, I asked him in a panic where it went. He didn't even look up from his phone. His tone was breezy, utterly indifferent. "Oh. Kendall gave me a ride home," he said. "She came in for a second, saw it sitting on the counter, and mentioned how incredible it smelled. So I told her to take it." I stood frozen in the middle of the kitchen. To save up for our wedding down payment, I had pinched pennies for two straight months, stacking digital coupons and tracking sales just to justify spending forty dollars on that single treat. And with one careless sentence, my months of anticipation had become someone else’s dessert. When I didn't respond, Connor furrowed his brow, looking at me with thinly veiled irritation. "Can you not be so petty over a piece of fruit? Kendall has been a massive help with my thesis." His perspective, of course, was always broader, grander, and vastly more important than mine. Last month, when he claimed Kendall was working late in the lab, he boxed up the garlic-butter crawfish I had spent two hours preparing after my shift and drove it over to her. The month before that, Kendall casually remarked that the potted pothos on our windowsill looked lush and vibrant. By the next afternoon, the plant had found a new home on her balcony. Whenever his senior lab partner looked twice at something in our apartment, I couldn't keep it. My desires, my small joys, and the sacrifices I made never factored into his calculations. "Fine," I thought quietly. "Let it go." Because if I gave up on him—if I gave up on this wedding—I could buy all the durians I ever wanted. … Connor casually peeled a banana and held it out toward me. "Here," he said, sounding like a generous parent soothing a child. "Eat this. It’s basically the same thing." I stared at the pale, fibrous fruit in his hand, feeling a sudden surge of bitter absurdity. When I was a little girl, I had caught a severe stomach flu, and my mother, relying on some questionable home remedy, had forced spoonfuls of mashed bananas down my throat. I had vomited violently for hours. Ever since, even the faint artificial scent of a banana made my stomach turn. I had told Connor that story at least five times over our eight years together. Every single time, he had stroked my hair with tender sympathy. Yet every single week when he brought home groceries, there was always a bunch of bananas sitting in the brown paper bag. Because Kendall loved them. Whenever I brought it up, he would shoot me an amused, patronizing look. "Who do you think I’m doing this for?" he would tease. "Aren't you the one obsessed with saving for the wedding? I carpool with Kendall every day to save us gas money. Her fee is literally just a banana a day." It had sounded reasonable enough at first. Until the crawfish I cooked after a grueling ten-hour workday became part of that carpool fee. Until the pothos plant I had nurtured since the week we first moved in together became part of that fee. I had argued. I had cried. His justifications were always airtight, fortified by righteous indignation. "Kendall is busy. Kendall is exhausted. Kendall is saving my academic career." In the small living room, the sickly-sweet smell of the banana grew heavier, churning in my gut. I held my breath, refusing to look at it. When I didn't reach out to take it, the easy smile slid off Connor's face. "What is your problem now? It's just a piece of fruit. Are you seriously going to make a scene over this?" He sighed, shaking his head. "Jade, if you don't even understand basic social grace, how are we ever going to get married?" "Married." I stared at him, numb. That word had dangled in front of me like a carrot on a string for four long years. On the day of our undergraduate graduation, his hands had trembled as he slipped a simple silver band onto my finger. "Jade, the second I finish my Master's, we're getting married." On the day he finished his Master's, his head had been bent over his phone, texting Kendall, as he tossed out a familiar placation: "Jade, as soon as we save enough for the house down payment, we're doing it." So, for the sake of that wedding, I became the woman who split wholesale bulk orders with reluctant coworkers just to save three dollars. I clipped coupons until I felt pathetic even to myself. I had talked about craving that durian for two months. He hadn't remembered a single syllable. Yet Kendall only had to murmur one offhand compliment, and he knew instantly what she liked. "Forget it," I whispered. I pushed myself up from the sofa, but my knee caught hard against the sharp corner of the coffee table. A sharp gasp of pain escaped my throat. Connor reflexively reached out to steady me, but I twisted my shoulder, wrenching myself out of his reach. His hand froze midair. A cold scoff broke from his lips. "Fine, Jade. Throw your little tantrum. I've spoiled you rotten, clearly." That night, he ignored me completely. He set up his laptop at the dining table, his AirPods in, chatting and laughing on a voice call with Kendall while they worked through their manuscript revisions. I lay in the dark bedroom, staring up at the ceiling, listening to the muffled cadence of their easy banter drifting beneath the door. "Connor, the fruit was delicious," Kendall’s voice floated through the speaker, playful and bright. "Make sure you thank Jade for me." Connor’s chuckle was warm, utterly relaxed. "Don't bother. That's just how she is—makes a federal case out of buying one fruit. She literally researched online for three weeks just figuring out how to pick a ripe one." My fingers curled tightly into the duvet. My eyes burned, hot and wet. He had known all along. He had known how much I wanted it. He had known how long I had waited. He simply hadn't cared. Kendall said something else on the other end. Connor laughed, the sound effortless and fond. "If you like it that much, I'll stop by the market after we leave the lab tomorrow and pick up another one for you. Consider it part of my carpool tab." My grip on the sheets slowly loosened. The tears tracked silently across my temples, pooling cold in the shells of my ears. Cold and hollow, just like the space behind my ribs. ... When I woke the next morning, my eyelids were swollen and raw. The apartment was quiet. Connor was in the bathroom, humming a tune under the running water, leaving his laptop screen glowing on the kitchen counter. I walked out to pour a glass of water, not intending to snoop. But as my eyes caught the title of an open music playlist, my feet rooted to the floorboards. "Connor & Kendall." Their names were strung together with an ampersand, looking undeniably like a couple's shared mixtape. Beside it, their chat window was still active. Their call hadn't ended until 3:14 AM. With trembling fingers, I scrolled up through the thread. Every month on the fifteenth, Kendall sent him a song to commemorate their time working together. Since the project's inception fifteen months ago, there were exactly fifteen tracks. The song she had shared yesterday was an orchestral version of "Maiden’s Prayer". Connor had replied with an enamored emoji and a text: "It's gorgeous. I've got it on repeat." I stared at those words, an unbearable pressure building behind my eyes. A month ago, I had texted him that exact same track, telling him it was the only thing keeping me grounded during a brutal week at work. He had sent back a curt "k" and nothing else. When I asked him the next evening if he had listened, he hadn't even paused his video game: "Not my thing, Jade. Listen to it yourself." I stepped back, my balance faltering. My shoulder bumped against the refrigerator door, and the small magnetic whiteboard we kept pinned there came loose, clattering loudly onto the linoleum at my feet. There was writing on it, scrawled in my own hand from early spring: "Connor, I was really hurt that you missed my birthday dinner. You owe me a very big apology!" On my birthday, Connor had leaned in close that morning, whispering conspiratorially, "Happy birthday, Jade. I got you something special. You can start getting excited right now." I had spent the whole day riding that high. I left work early, cooking a four-course dinner and setting the table with our nice glassware. I waited until the food was ice-cold before his text finally arrived: "The lab director called a last-minute grant review. Can't make it home. Don't wait up." I had swallowed the knot in my throat and texted back: "No worries, focus on your work." Then I had sat alone at the table, forcing down cold braised pork and rice. The tears had dripped steadily into my bowl, the salt blurring into the food until I couldn't taste anything at all. Now, six months later, the truth sat bare before me. He hadn't missed my birthday because of an emergency grant review. He had missed it because Kendall had texted him saying she didn't want to eat hotpot by herself. "What are you doing?" Connor’s voice cracked like a whip behind me. He had come out of the bathroom, a towel draped over his dripping hair, that very song still playing softly from his phone. I turned around, staring at him blankly. In three long strides, he crossed the room and slammed the laptop shut, his eyes blazing with fury. "Going through my computer again? Jade, do you have any concept of what personal privacy means?" I looked at his rigid, defensive posture, a bitter smile touching the corner of my lips. Just last week, my old phone had randomly crashed. I had picked up his phone simply to search how to force-restart my model. He had ripped it out of my hand with that exact same look of suspicion and disgust. "Connor," I asked quietly. "What exactly are you hiding in there that makes you so terrified of me seeing it?" He flinched for a fraction of a second before his brows snapped together, adopting his usual mask of righteous offense. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he snapped. "Kendall and I have a professional relationship. She's carried half my project on her back! What's wrong with me grabbing a meal or talking through research with her? Why are you always so paranoid and petty? Do you have to twist everything into something disgusting?" He scoffed, shaking his head. "You never used to be like this, Jade." He was right. I never used to touch his phone because all his passcodes had been set to my birthday. I used to believe without a shred of doubt that he loved me, because wherever we went, his fingers were laced through mine, and he introduced me proudly to anyone who would listen. I looked down. The tears spilled over, heavy and silent. When he proposed, he promised he would spend his entire life making me happy. I just hadn't realized his idea of a lifetime was so short. The living room fell into a suffocating silence, broken only by my ragged breathing. After a long pause, Connor let out a heavy, defeated sigh. He walked over, wrapping his arms around my shoulders, his palm patting my back in a rhythmic, practiced motion. "Alright, alright. Don't cry, okay?" His voice softened into easy coaxing. "I was wrong. I shouldn't have given the durian to Kendall. I promise you, the second you get home tonight, there'll be a whole durian waiting on the counter. Deal?" I leaned my forehead against his chest, closing my eyes, fighting back the tremor in my voice. "Connor—" Before I could finish the sentence, a car horn sounded from the street below. Three long honks, followed by one short tap. Connor’s eyes lit up instantly. He pulled away from me, grabbing his backpack and shoving his feet into his sneakers in a flurry of motion. "That's Kendall. I gotta run," he said, already turning toward the door. "Jade, wait for me tonight. I'll bring your durian." The deadbolt clicked shut. I stood in the silence of the hallway for a long time. Then I bent down, picked up the fallen whiteboard, and stuck it back onto the refrigerator door. Beneath that old, faded note from my birthday, I uncapped the dry-erase marker and wrote what I hadn't had the chance to say aloud: "Connor, I'm not marrying you. We're over." ... I handed in my two weeks' notice at work and calmly called the landlord to discuss breaking our lease. I had moved across the country to Chicago in the first place solely for Connor. Now that there was no reason to stay, leaving felt remarkably simple. That afternoon, I stopped by the Asian market and bought the most expensive Musang King durian in the display case. I carried it back to the apartment, locked the front door behind me, and sat alone at the kitchen table, eating more than half of it. It was intensely sweet, rich, and perfect. Connor didn't come home until late. When he walked in and saw me, a faint smirk tugged at his lips. He held up a small plastic grocery bag with exaggerated flourish. "Look what I brought you, Jade." I glanced over. Inside a small takeout container sat a solitary, pathetic little wedge of fruit. "I went out of my way to hit the market," he said, sounding remarkably pleased with himself. "Made sure to save you a piece. Now you can't say I never think about you." I looked at that sad, lonely piece of durian. I didn't bother asking where the rest of the fruit had gone. He shoved the container into my hands and turned toward the fridge to grab an iced tea. The magnet on the whiteboard must have worn out completely. The moment he yanked the fridge door open, the board came loose with a sharp "clatter", hitting the floor. I watched in silence as he bent down, scooped up the board without glancing at the writing, and tossed it carelessly onto the top of the refrigerator. "Jade, if something's broken, just throw it out," he said, typing rapidly on his phone with his other hand, a soft smile flickering across his face. "You don't have to be cheap about literal garbage." Sitting at the table, I let out a quiet, breathless laugh. How had I forgotten? He hadn't read a single note on that board in months. When we first moved into this apartment, I had bought a small pothos to symbolize putting down roots. Connor had bought that whiteboard, earnestly telling me that communication was the foundation of a real partnership. He had told me that whenever something was hard to say out loud, I should write it down, and he would always read it. I had written so many things on that board over the years. "Rough day at work. Could really use a hug when you get home." "You promised we'd watch a movie together yesterday, but you forgot again." "The banana smell makes me genuinely sick. I've told you so many times—please stop buying them." "Connor, you're coming home later and later every week." He had never read any of them. All of his attention, all of his responsiveness, was reserved for someone else's chat notifications. ... The next morning, I threw that stale wedge of durian into the trash. By mid-afternoon, my phone rang. It was my mother. Her voice was trembling so badly she could barely form words. She told me my father had collapsed in the living room; the ER doctors said it was an acute stroke, and he needed emergency surgery immediately. A deafening static filled my head. My first instinct was to wire money to her account. I opened my banking app, typed in the transfer amount, and hit confirm. "Transaction Failed: Insufficient Funds." I tried again. And again. Five consecutive attempts, all rejected. My heart plunged into my stomach. When I checked our joint high-yield savings account—the one where we had pooled over forty-five thousand dollars for our future house—the balance read: "$1,420.18." I sank onto the floor, my fingers shaking violently as I dialed Connor's number. That account was linked only to the two of us. Nobody else had access. The line rang twice before clicking open. I swallowed the dry lump in my throat, forcing my voice to stay level. "Connor. Where is the money from our house fund?" There was a two-second pause on the other end before his casual, unbothered voice drifted through the receiver. "Oh. I lent it to Kendall. She was coming up short on her new car down payment and the loan terms. Don't worry, she said she'll pay it back by the end of the year." My fingernails dug into my palms until the pain went entirely numb. "Her car was forty thousand dollars," I choked out. "Did you literally buy her a car with my savings?" "Jade, it's a loan—" "I don't care what you call it!" I screamed into the phone. "My dad is in the hospital right now. He had a stroke and he's going into emergency surgery! I need that money right this second. Give it back to me!" His breath caught for a second. Then came a sharp, incredulous scoff. "Are you seriously making up a story about your dad being sick just to start a fight over money?" "Connor—" "Figure it out yourself, Jade. I'm in the middle of a lab meeting. We'll talk when I get home." The line went dead. I listened to the hollow dial tone, leaning against the hallway wall as my legs gave out beneath me. Only one thought remained in my shattered mind: That was my money. That was the money meant to save my father's life. I was going to get it back. ... When my senses returned, my knuckles were white, gripping the collar of Kendall's blouse in the middle of the chemistry department research lab. "Where is it?" I rasped, my vision tunneling. "That is my money! Give it back to me!" Connor materialized out of nowhere, his face dark with rage as his hands clamped onto my wrists, squeezing with enough force to bruise the bone. "Jade, have you lost your goddamn mind? Let go of her!" He yanked me backward so hard I stumbled, but I refused to let go of her collar. "That money took me three years of overtime to save!" I shouted, my voice cracking in front of the dozen graduate students staring in shock. "You took my money to buy her a car while my dad is lying on an operating table waiting for the hospital deposit! Give me back my money!" Kendall’s face was paper-white as she shrank back, looking at Connor with wide, tearful eyes. "Connor, please... make her stop!" "Jade!" Connor bellowed. He shoved me violently against the lab wall, his forearm pressing against my collarbone, pinning me in place. His eyes were bloodshot, his teeth clenched inches from my face. "How much further are you going to take this? This is my department! Are you trying to completely ruin my reputation?" I looked into his face, every tear already dried up, leaving only a hollow, cavernous ache behind. "Then give me my money," I whispered, meeting his furious gaze. "Give it back, and I will walk out that door and never look at you again. Whatever you and your lab partner do with your lives will have nothing to do with me. That was my savings. You had no right to touch a single cent of it." A flicker of hesitation crossed his eyes. His lips parted. "I'll... I can..." Behind him, Kendall pushed herself up against a lab bench, her voice trembling with theatrical fragility. "I have never been so humiliated in my entire life." Connor glanced back at her. When he turned back to face me, his jaw hardened, and his expression wiped clean into chilling detachment. "You're completely delusional, Jade," he said, his voice rising clearly so the entire room could hear. "You spent that money yourself. What does this have to do with Kendall?" "What?" I breathed. "You're constantly buying things—new clothes every month, designer bags. Savings? What savings did you even contribute? I was planning on confronting you about our empty account, and now you have the nerve to come here and blame Kendall?" He kept his eyes fixed above my head, his speech rapid, louder and louder, building a wall of lies to protect his image. I stared at him, feeling an overwhelming wave of exhaustion. This was the man I had loved for eight years. "What did I buy, Connor?" I asked softly. "In the last three years, tell me one expensive thing I bought for myself." He faltered for a second, his eyes darting. "You... you bought that durian two days ago! Do you know how much an imported one costs—" He choked on his own words. Because I started laughing. I laughed until the tears leaked from the corners of my eyes, bitter and unrestrained. He stared at me, bewildered, his hand instinctively reaching out as if to wipe away a tear. I jerked my head away, avoiding his touch. I wiped my own face with the back of my sleeve, turned around, and walked out of the building. Behind me, his frantic footsteps chased me into the corridor. "Jade!" his voice sounded hoarse, cracking with panic. "Jade, wait!" I pushed through the heavy glass doors of the science building, pulled out my phone, and called my closest friend to ask for a loan. By the time I hung up, my notification bar was flooded with texts from Connor. "Jade, wait for me at home. I'll explain everything." "I'm asking a friend for a loan right now, I'll transfer the cash to you today. But you shouldn't have caused a scene in my lab." "Jade, please answer me." With an expressionless face, I blocked his number and every single one of his social media accounts. Then, I booked a one-way flight home for that evening. The apartment was still frozen in the morning light when I returned. I grabbed the suitcase I had already packed days ago, walked out the door, and didn't look back.
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