The night my boyfriend told me another woman was better than I was, he said it with the same calm voice he used to ask whether we were out of coffee. That was what frightened me most. There was no anger in his face, no guilt in his eyes, and not even enough shame to make him look away.
Chapter 3
Derek abandoned kindness that afternoon.
“You think you’re so superior,” he said, following me from the kitchen into the bedroom. “Just because you have a corporate paycheck and some fancy new title.”
I opened a suitcase on the bed and began folding clothes.
“I don’t think I’m superior to anyone.”
“You act like it.”
“No. I’m simply no longer volunteering to be inferior.”
That stopped him for a moment.
Then he laughed bitterly.
“You know what? Without me, you’re going to discover how boring your life really is.”
I folded a sweater and placed it in the suitcase.
“Maybe.”
“I’m serious. You work, you come home, you make lists. You think that’s a life?”
“At least it’s mine.”
He crossed his arms.
“Madison knows how to live.”
“Then I hope you two have a wonderful time living.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
I zipped the suitcase.
“No, Derek. I’ve been extremely believable. That was the problem.”
His anger lasted until the internet stopped working.
Two days before I planned to leave for Nashville, he came out of his office holding his laptop.
“Did you change something?”
“With what?”
“The Wi-Fi.”
“I canceled the service.”
His mouth fell open.
“You canceled the internet?”
“It’s my account.”
“I work online.”
“Then you need an internet plan.”
“Are you trying to sabotage me?”
“No. I’m separating my responsibilities from yours.”
He followed me toward the front door.
“This is punishment.”
I turned around.
“No. Punishment would be me trying to make you suffer. I’m simply refusing to keep suffering so you don’t have to.”
The anger disappeared from his face.
For the first time since the argument began, I saw fear.
Not heartbreak.
Fear.
“Where am I supposed to go?” he asked.
There it was.
Not How can we fix this?
Not Do you still love me?
Not What did I do to you?
Where am I supposed to go?
I leaned against the door and looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
“My credit isn’t good enough to get another place this fast.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You know I don’t have first month and deposit sitting around.”
“I know.”
“And you’re still doing this?”
“Yes.”
He stared at me as though I had violated an agreement we had never spoken aloud.
“You said you loved me.”
“I did.”
“Then how can you do this?”
“Because love is not a lifetime contract to finance someone who keeps humiliating you.”
His voice softened.
“I didn’t humiliate you.”
“You compared me to another woman over and over until you thought I would compete for the privilege of supporting you.”
“That is not what happened.”
“It is exactly what happened.”
He ran a hand through his hair.
“I was trying to motivate you.”
That sentence almost made me pity him.
“Motivate me to do what?”
“Loosen up. Take care of yourself more. Be more confident.”
I laughed once, quietly.
“Derek, I was confident enough to support two adults while earning a promotion. You mistook my patience for insecurity.”
He looked away.
I packed that evening while he stood in the bedroom doorway. I took my clothes, my mother’s old jewelry box, family photographs, work files, and the quilt my grandmother had made for me years before. I left the television, the couch, and nearly everything we had bought together.
The apartment already felt like someone else’s place.
“You think you’re winning,” Derek said.
“I don’t think this is a contest.”
“You’ll regret walking away.”
“Maybe I’ll regret parts of it.”
“You won’t find what you think you’re looking for.”
I stopped packing.
“I’m not looking for another man.”
He frowned.
“Then what?”
“Peace.”
He gave a dismissive laugh. “You’re so dramatic.”
“No. Without you, I think I’m peaceful.”
The room became very quiet.
Derek looked at the suitcase, then at me. His expression changed again, and his voice cracked in a way I had never heard before.
“Where am I supposed to go, Laura?”
I thought about every rent payment. Every grocery order. Every night I had listened to him explain why another woman possessed qualities I lacked while my salary kept the lights on around him.
Then I remembered his sentence.
“It meant nothing. She was just better at a few things than you.”
I picked up my keys.
“You said Madison was better at a few things.”
His face changed.
“Don’t.”
“Maybe finding you a place to live can be one of them.”
“Laura.”
“Goodbye, Derek.”
I walked out carrying one suitcase, my laptop bag, and the strange weightlessness of someone finally putting down something she had mistaken for love.
He did not chase me.
That hurt for about ten minutes.
Then, as I drove toward my coworker’s house, another thought came.
Of course he hadn’t chased me.
Derek had never been afraid of losing me.
He had been afraid of losing what I provided.
