I Quit Loving You The Day I Walked Away

The class reunion was breaking up, and my boyfriend, Dana Gilbert, stood caught between me and Samantha Simmons, unable to decide.

On his left was his first love, just back home after a divorce. On his right was his fiancée, with a wedding date already set.

One of the wisecracking jerks egged him on with a grin.

"Rain's coming down this hard. Good luck catching a ride at this hour."

"Come on, Dana, our golden boy. Have you decided who you're taking home yet? Want to flip a coin for it?"

Dana could never make up his mind. Faced with any hard choice, he left it to fate.

But this time, he chose to drape his jacket straight over my shoulders.

A warmth spread through my chest, and I pulled the jacket tighter around me.

Then I heard him speak, his voice firm.

"Samantha lives far out, and it's not on the way back. I'll drop her off first."

"You wait in the room and stay out of the rain. I'll loop back around and come get you."

He guided Samantha into the passenger seat, the car melted into the rainy night, and everyone's teasing eyes settled on me.

I didn't move.

Not until a black umbrella tilted over my head, holding off all the wind and rain.

"Been waiting long? Hit some traffic on the way. Let's go."

I laid my hand in the palm held out to me and turned to leave without hesitation.

This life of standing around waiting to be chosen, I didn't want one more day of it.

——

It wasn't until the next morning that Dana showed up at the front door.

I was in the living room, sorting through the wedding decorations.

He turned his back to me, changing his shoes while he explained.

"The rain was too heavy last night. Water got into the exhaust pipe, and the car broke down halfway home."

"My phone happened to die too, so I just found some hotel and made do for the night."

"You weren't stuck waiting over there too long, were you?"

He hadn't even finished when the phone screen beside me lit up with a notification.

It warned me that a linked account had stayed at an unfamiliar location for an unusually long time.

I tapped in and saw that Dana had spent the whole night in an apartment complex over in Eastside, leaving only at eight that morning.

That was where Samantha lived.

I tossed the phone over to him.

"No explanation?"

Dana froze mid-sip, his voice jumping several notches higher. "You're spying on me?"

I let out a faint laugh.

"You set this up yourself."

His body went rigid. Only then did he remember the couple's location-sharing he'd set up a while back, jumping on some online trend.

As long as both phones had power and stayed on, the two of us could see each other's location anytime.

Silence spread through the air.

Dana turned his head away and refused to say one more word.

I lifted my eyes and let my gaze settle on him.

He was still in yesterday's clothes, but the top button of his shirt collar was gone, and the fabric was crumpled and wrinkled.

The double-happiness cutout in my hand had a hole worn through it from my fingers.

Dana cleared his throat and clumsily steered the subject elsewhere.

"Whoever brought you home yesterday, I'll take him to dinner sometime."

He was always like this, brushing past his own faults as if nothing had happened.

"Lucky me. Caught a ride just in time."

"Don't worry. I already thanked the driver properly."

I peeled the sticky note off the fridge. It read: five days until the wedding.

A flash crossed my mind of the moment Samantha had walked into the reunion the night before, and the sheer joy that had welled up in Dana's eyes.

He'd let go of the hand he was holding and instinctively gone toward her.

Samantha had stood in the doorway, a smile on her face, still as radiant as she'd been back then.

That failed engagement had left no mark on her at all.

Standing beside Dana, the two of them looked like a golden couple. Just their faces alone were a pleasure to look at.

The person at Dana's side tactfully stepped aside to make room for her.