He Left Me in the Rain for Seven Hours,I Left Him for Good

Five years to the day, and I came back from the restroom to find my half-eaten plate cleared away to nothing.

My boyfriend tapped his watch and studied me. "This date was scheduled for a hundred and twenty minutes. You went over by ten."

Beside us sat the anniversary cake, still sealed in its box—the one Neil Barnes had ordered tossed in the trash.

I didn't cry. I didn't make a scene. I just said, "I'll grab a cab home myself. You don't need to drive me."

From the day I met him, Neil had always been this way.

Our life ran on one vocabulary only: "efficiency," "rules," "stick to the plan."

He never strolled with me. Our dates were timed down to the minute.

Even asking him to grab me a boba from the shop outside his office on his way home had become wishful thinking.

But yesterday, I'd seen the reminder on his phone.

A single item, alone on the screen.

【Cancel everything. Wait for Edwina Simmons's call.】

So his time could be spent on aimless waiting, on doing nothing at all.

The person it was spent on just wasn't me.

In that case, I wouldn't waste the rest of my life on him either.

——

Neil grunted once and turned to leave.

Not one word of explanation. He didn't even glance back at me.

The server came over. "Excuse me, Mr. Barnes has already settled his bill."

She paused, then slid a second check in front of me.

"This is your portion."

I looked at the figure, calculated down to the last cent, and my fingers slowly curled in.

Even our anniversary dinner, he wanted to split.

I swiped my card without a word.

I stepped out of the mall and the downpour came down on me all at once.

Cold rain pounded against my skin. I stood at the curb, watching cab after cab tear past, every one of them glowing with the red "occupied" light.

On my phone, the queue number in the rideshare app didn't budge.

I went back into the mall lobby, found a seat in a corner, and sat there alone until dark.

The rain finally let up, and at last I got a car.

The walk back from the entrance of my complex was short, but I was soaked through all over again.

I let myself in, bedraggled. The living room lights were off, the whole place pitch black.

Only the dining table held anything—a takeout box, giving off a spicy-sweet smell that didn't belong here.

It was the trendy crawfish from that wildly popular spot in the West End.

No delivery. No reservations. If you wanted them, you stood in line outside the door for two or three hours.

I'd asked Neil for them more times than I could count. He always refused—"a waste of time," "unsanitary."

He said, in that much time, he could take on another case or finish a documentary.

The study door swung open. Neil's voice was like the man himself, without a degree of warmth.

"Why did you call me earlier?"

"That was my scheduled work time. I've told you—don't disturb me."

I held my phone, the screen still showing the unanswered call from half an hour ago.

The rain had been coming down hard then. I'd only wanted to ask if he could bring an umbrella and meet me at the gate of the complex.

Now, all I said was, "It was nothing."

"Don't do pointless things like that again." He dropped the words and was done.

His gaze slid back to the crawfish on the table.

"Peel those and put them in the fridge."

I asked, "For who?"

A thread of impatience crept into his voice. "A coworker. Why all the questions?"

A coworker.

Who else could it be, besides Edwina.

The study door shut again, and the living room sank back into darkness.

I stared blankly at that box of crawfish for a while, then walked over, peeled one, and put it in my mouth.

Fragrant, delicious—exactly like I'd imagined.

Yet on my tongue there was nothing but bitterness.