3: 3

3

The next afternoon, Elijah showed up at our door, dragging a suitcase behind him.

He said his promotion had made him enemies. For days now someone had been throwing red paint on his door, and last night they'd smashed out his car windows.

Charlene told him to move in on the spot.

I looked at the luggage already sitting in the guest room and asked her, "A hotel won't work?"

"He's got people watching him right now. Hotels are full of strangers coming and going, it's not safe."

"Our complex has good security. This is the best place for him."

Before I could say anything, Elijah gripped the handle of his suitcase and said in a low voice,

"Never mind, Charlene."

"Orson already doesn't like how close we are. If I move in, you two will just keep fighting."

"I'll go back and deal with it myself. If someone really comes after me, I'll handle it."

He turned to leave, and Charlene immediately blocked his way.

"This is my home. I decide who stays."

Then she turned to look at me.

"I'll book you a hotel nearby for a week."

"Once Elijah's new place is arranged, you can come back."

I thought I'd misheard.

"You're throwing me out of my own home for him?"

Charlene's brows drew together.

"It's just a few days. Don't make it sound so ugly."

"You can take care of yourself in a hotel."

"Elijah was just threatened. Until this is sorted out, he can't be left alone."

Here it was again.

Because I could take care of myself, even the home we'd built together over five years should be handed to Elijah first.

I didn't move.

"I'm not leaving."

Whatever patience Charlene had left was gone.

She walked straight into the bedroom, opened the closet, and had building management pack my clothes into a suitcase, piece by piece.

I rushed over and pressed down on the case.

"Charlene, this is my home."

"I paid half the renovations and half the furniture. What gives you the right to throw me out?"

Her hands paused, but her voice only turned colder.

"The fact that the place is in my name."

"Orson, someone's safety is on the line, and you're still standing here quibbling over who chipped in a few thousand for renovations."

"When did you get this selfish?"

The words hit me like a bucket of ice water, poured from head to foot.

Back when she was starting her company and short on money, I emptied my entire savings to keep her afloat.

Later, when we bought this place, I covered most of the renovations and the furniture too.

Charlene had held my hand and told me it didn't matter whose name was on the deed, this would always be our home.

And now, with one line about the place being in her name, she'd turned me into a guest.

Elijah stood outside the door and lowered his voice.

"Orson, don't fight with Charlene."

"How about I go to a hotel and you stay."

The words had barely left his mouth when a heavy thud came from the stairwell.

Elijah's face went tight, and he looked straight toward the door.

"Is it him? Did he follow me here?"

"Charlene, don't open the door yet."

Charlene immediately slid the security chain into place and kept Elijah inside.

Outside, it was only a neighbor moving out who'd dropped a cardboard box.

But Elijah kept insisting someone was watching the stairwell, and that as long as I stayed here, he couldn't go on living with them.

When Charlene looked at me again, there was nothing left in her eyes but impatience.

"The hotel and the car are both arranged."

"Don't make me have management come up and escort you out."

She pushed the suitcase out the door, then took my coat and bag from the shoe cabinet.

I braced myself in the doorway, refusing to let her close it.

"Charlene, if I walk out today, we're really done."

Her gaze flickered.

But behind her, Elijah called her name again in that low voice.

In the end, Charlene let building management pry my hand off the door frame.

"You're just angry right now."

"Once you calm down, you'll understand I'm saving someone, not choosing between you two."

Management shoved the suitcase out the door, and Charlene pressed the button to close it.

As I stepped back, I tripped over the suitcase outside and went down the two steps in a fall.

My right hand slammed into the metal corner of the case.

The pain shot through me like breaking bone. My vision went black, and for a long moment I couldn't get up.

Charlene took an instinctive step forward.

"Orson?"

I thought she was finally coming to help me up.

But inside, Elijah suddenly said a stranger had appeared on the security feed again.

She glanced back, then turned and walked straight toward him.

"It's only two steps. Get up on your own."

"The car's downstairs. Stop wasting time."

The door closed in my face.

Right after, the electronic lock chimed as the passcode was reset.

Cradling my right hand as it swelled fast, I braced against the wall and pulled myself up, inch by inch.

It wasn't until I was in the car to the hotel that I noticed the wound on the back of my hand had soaked through my cuff, blood dripping down off my fingertips.

4: 4

4

I had the driver turn around and take me to the hospital.

In the exam room, the doctor stared at the films for a long time, then spoke with a grave face.

"Open fracture of the right wrist. Damage to the flexor tendon and the median nerve."

"He needs surgery as soon as possible, or the fine motor function in that hand may never come back."

I stared blankly at my own right hand, swollen and misshapen.

This hand had carried me through countless crunch times on projects. It had written Charlene's very first business plan, back when she was just starting out.

I had never imagined it would nearly be destroyed on the day we ended.

That even my last plea for help would look, in her eyes, like a bid for attention.

The nurse handed me the surgical consent form.

"The nerve repair is best done early. This can't wait any longer."

"You should get a family member down here. Who's your emergency contact?"

I held my phone, silent for a long time, and finally dialed Charlene.

It rang three times before she picked up.

Elijah's voice came through the receiver, saying he'd just gotten another threatening text.

Charlene was contacting security to deal with it.

My throat tightened.

"Charlene, I'm at the hospital."

"That fall broke my right hand. The doctor says there's nerve damage. I need surgery right away."

"They need me to reach my emergency contact."

The line went quiet for a beat.

Then she laughed, cold.

"Orson, just to get me to throw Elijah out, you'd even make up something like your hand being ruined?"

"You fell down two steps. You got up fine, didn't you?"

"A grown man, using something like this to compete for attention. Doesn't that embarrass you?"

I gripped the exam report hard.

"I'm not lying to you."

I took photos of the films and the diagnosis and sent them to her.

The messages showed as delivered. She wouldn't even open them to look.

"Enough."

"Elijah's being threatened, and now there's someone tailing him. Can't you get your priorities straight for once?"

"Aren't you always saying you can handle things on your own?"

"If you really need a signature, can't you sign it yourself?"

"Don't expect me to drop everything and come coddle you over every little thing."

The call ended.

The nurse stood beside me, the pity in her eyes almost impossible to hide.

"Maybe try another family member?"

I lowered my head and, on the line for the emergency contact's signature, wrote my own name, stroke by stroke.

"No need."

"I don't have any family."

When the anesthetic went into my vein, I closed my eyes.

The deep ache in my wrist slowly drifted away, and I found myself thinking of that downpour back in college.

Charlene had once tilted the whole umbrella toward me, letting half of herself get soaked rather than let me catch cold.

Back then she said that whenever I needed her, she would always be there.

But later, I lay alone on an operating table, nearly losing my dominant hand.

While she stayed with another man, mocking me for using an injury to compete for attention.

After the surgery, I stayed in the hospital alone for two nights.

Charlene never called once.

She must have decided that as long as she didn't play along, this little attention-seeking act of mine would end on its own.

The day I was discharged was also the day I left.

I went to get the documents I'd left at the house, only to find the lock code had already been changed.

I rang the bell for a long time.

The one who finally answered was Charlene, her voice impatient.

"What is it now?"

"My passport is still in there."

"Have Elijah get it out for me. I'm leaving tonight."

She was silent for two seconds.

"You're still threatening me?"

"Orson, you've been at this for three days. That's enough."

I looked at the shut door.

"I'm not making a scene."

"I just came for my own things."

As if my calm had provoked her, Charlene's tone dropped cold all at once.

"Fine. You want to go, then go."

"But if you leave today, don't ever come back."

"I won't be coming to coddle you like before."

A few minutes later, building management brought down a paper bag with my passport and documents.

From start to finish, Charlene never opened the door to look at me once.

I held the bag and stood for a long time in front of that door, the door where we'd lived together for five years.

Then I said, softly: "Okay."

Two hours later, I boarded the flight overseas.

As the plane climbed into the clouds, I took out my SIM card and dropped it into the seatback trash bag.

The familiar city shrank fast into a blur of lights.

No one saw it coming.

That line of Charlene's, don't ever come back.

In the end, it would come true, word for word.