After Seven Years, I Finally Chose Myself

Seven years with the man I loved, and our chat thread had been reduced to two numbers: 1 and 2.

1 meant he was coming home tonight.

2 meant he was with Michelle, his childhood sweetheart, and he wouldn't be home at all.

I'd asked Winston Cobb once, who mattered moreme, or Michelle Henson.

I'd even threatened him. Abortion. Jumping off a building. Anything to force him to choose.

Every single time, he chose me without hesitation. And then, without hesitation, he turned and walked straight back to Michelle.

Today was our engagement party. The whole room glowing, everyone toasting me, telling me I'd finally gotten everything I wantedmy first love, made real at last.

And his phone wouldn't stop buzzing. I knew exactly what it meant. Michelle was at it again.

He started to stand on reflex. I laid my hand gently over his. "Today is our engagement party. You're still going to go to her?"

He stroked the back of my hand. "Be good, Ethel Winfield. Michelle isn't well. She can't manage without me."

"I promise, I'll be back before you know it. I won't ruin our party. You have my word."

He tapped the tip of my nose. "You're the only bride I'll ever have."

The next second, he slipped his hand free, turned, and walked away. No hesitation.

Exactly like every time before.

What Winston didn't know was that this time, once he left, there would be no place for him in my future. Not ever.

He moved fast, his back clean and resolute, and from start to finish he never once glanced back at me.

The previous eighty-seven times, every time he abandoned me like this, I came apart.

I cried, I screamed, I begged at the top of my lungs, desperate for him to stay one more second, to look at me one more time.

Eighty-seven times I clawed at him to stay, and eighty-seven times I came up with nothing.

My hysteria, my breakdowns, my pleadingto him it was all just meaningless noise.

But now, I didn't want to do this anymore.

The moment he vanished completely from sight, my phone buzzed.

A message from the law school professor.

"Ethel, congratulations on your engagement. But an overseas exchange opportunity like this doesn't come twice. Think it over once more. Don't make yourself regret it."

I stared at the screen, my eyes stinging.

Everyone said I was lucky. That after all the twists and turns, I was about to land my happy ending with my first love.

Winston was young and accomplished, the youngest university professor barely two years out of school, brilliant, golden, his whole future stretched out smooth and bright before him.

Our old college classmates all thought I'd married up, way above my station.

To keep pace with him, for one promise of forever, I'd turned down a job at a top law firm and stayed at the school as a teaching assistant instead.

People whispered behind my back that I wasn't good enough for him, and I swallowed every word of it, never said a single syllable to him about it.

In these seven years with him, I had never once lived for myself.

It was always wherever he went, I followed.

This exchange opportunitythe professor had brought it to me three times now.

Every time before, my answer had been no. Because I loved Winston. I wanted to stay by his side for the rest of my life.

But now, after watching him walk away from me eighty-eight times, after eighty-eight times of being left behind so he could run to Michelle

It wasn't just that I wasn't good enough for him. In his heart, I had never weighed as much as Michelle Henson.

My love, my devotion, my sacrificesnone of it ever measured up against a single moment of Michelle needing him.

This time, I didn't want to choose him. This time, I wanted to choose myself.

I didn't hesitate. I told the professor yes.

I put my phone away, pressed down the hollow ache in my chest, and smiled as I explained to the relatives and friends that something had come up at Winston's school and he'd had to leave early.

Mom clutched my hand, her eyes full of worry. "Are you sure everything's okay? Is he coming back or not?"

I shook my head. Winston wasn't coming back.

The past eighty-seven times, he hadn't chosen me. This time would be no different.

After the engagement party ended, I walked my parents to their car.

The moment it pulled away, my phone lit up with a message from Winston.

In the chat box, again, there was only a single number. 2.

Of course. Every promise he'd ever made, he'd never once kept.

I thought back to all the times before.

My college graduation, the most important day of my life. I hadn't invited a single soul. My whole heart had just been waiting for him to come.

I waited in that auditorium an entire day. Afterward, he brushed it off, saying Michelle Henson had caught a cold and needed someone to look after her.

The day I received a national award. The spotlight fell on me, and the first thing I did was look toward the door. He wasn't there.

Later I found out he'd taken Michelle to watch the sunset and clean forgotten our plans.

Even the night he proposed, when he knelt on one knee, slid the ring onto my finger, and made his solemn vows.

In the end, he still left for Michelle. His reason never changed. Michelle was in a bad mood. He had to be with her.

Before, every time I saw that number 2, I'd call him over and over, send long, long messages, pour out every drop of grievance and unwillingness and rage I had.

But my messages sank like stones, and my calls went forever unanswered.

The instant Michelle started her countdown, the instant she started needing him, my love, Winston, would vanish into thin air, belonging completely to someone else.

Seven years. I'd made enough scenes. I was burned out.

This time, I didn't cry, didn't scream, didn't cling. I simply sent one calm line.

"The engagement party's over. Let's break up."

Winston didn't reply all night. There wasn't a ripple in my chest. I'd long since stopped being surprised.

In Winston's eyes, my hurt and my heartache, every emotion I had, none of it weighed as much as a string of countdown numbers in Michelle's chat box.

In those seven years, Winston had chosen me exactly once.

That day, just to keep him with me at Disney, I'd let selfishness win and deleted the countdown message Michelle had sent.

What I got in return was a phone call that same night. Michelle had slit her wrists and been rushed to the ER.

Winston, always so steady and unshakable, panicked for the first time.

His eyes were terrifyingly red that day. He pushed the car to seventy-five, racing to the hospital like a man gone mad.

When he learned I'd deleted the message, he raised his hand and slapped me hard across the face.

That slap shattered every last bit of hope I'd been clinging to.

After that, he never let me touch his phone again.

In those seven years with Winston, the truth was he'd never once chosen me on his own.

It was over with Winston, but my life still had to go on.

I got up as usual and went to work at the school.

But I'd barely reached the front gate when I saw them through the window of the bubble tea shop by the road. Winston, his arm around Michelle, sitting by the glass.

He ordered her favorite cake and the drink she always got, smooth and practiced, telling her gently to sit tight and wait for him until his class let out.

Before he left, he reached over and playfully tapped the tip of Michelle's nose.

That tender little gesture. I'd seen it countless times. Winston had done it to me countless times too.

The old me would have charged in, dumped the whole cup of bubble tea over Michelle, made her stay away from Winston.

But this time, I didn't want to fight. I didn't want to make a scene.

I just watched for two seconds, then turned to go. But the second I turned, a hand closed around my wrist.

It was Winston. He held my hand, his tone weary.

"You see me and don't even say hello. Are you still holding a grudge over me leaving the engagement party yesterday?"

"Michelle was in a bad place yesterday. You know that. She has depression. Can't you be a little more understanding with her?"

The bitterness rose in me, inch by inch.

Winston and I had already held our engagement party three times.

The first two times, both had been canceled at the last minute, on the very day, all because Michelle said she didn't feel well.

Every time, I chose to be the bigger person. Every time, I swallowed the hurt alone.

But Winston never once asked me whether I was hurting, whether I was tired.

I forced down the sob caught in my throat, made myself stay calm. "Winston, we've already broken up."

His brows knit tight, his whole face full of disapproval. He didn't take a single word of it seriously.

"Just because I went to Michelle yesterday and left you behind?"

"You know how it is. I only ever think of Michelle as a little sister."

"She's just a kid. Are you a kid too?"

"Ethel, be a little more mature. Don't hold it against Michelle. She just leans on me too much."

He paused, his tone turning accusatory. "Besidesdidn't you and Michelle become friends already?"

"You've been patient with her so many times. Why not this once, of all times?"

I really had tried to be friends with Michelle.

After all, Michelle and Winston had known each other for seventeen years. As his girlfriend, I wanted to step into every part of his life.

So I tried to accept her, to understand her, to treat her like my own little sister.

But when I watched Michelle hold her half-eaten ice cream up to Winston's mouth, and watched him take a bite without a flicker of hesitation, I held it in.

When I watched Winston, never minding the mess or the trouble, wash Michelle's blood-stained underwear with his own hands, again and again, I held that in too.

I thought my yielding, my patience, would buy me the same respect in return.

But the moment Michelle broke down crying, Winston dropped me in a foreign country without a second thought and booked a flight home ahead of me.

He gave no thought at all to how chaotic and dangerous it was abroad, to the fact that that night I had no one to turn to, that I was nearly raped.

I simply could not be friends with another woman who stole every ounce of my fianc's attention.

Michelle and I would never be friends.

I couldn't be the bigger person, and I certainly couldn't forgive.

In the end, Winston and I parted on bad terms.

He never accepted the breakup. To him, it was just me throwing another tantrum, not being understanding enough, not being sensible enough.

I couldn't be bothered to explain, and I no longer cared in the slightest what he thought.

Seven years of swallowed grievances had piled up to this. I'd long since stopped wanting his understanding.

My exchange program was set to begin in a week. The timeline was tight, and I still had to hand things over to the new teaching assistant.

Before I could even tell our friends and families that Winston and I had broken up, an engagement invitation suddenly popped up in the college class group chat.

The names on it read Winston Cobb and Michelle Henson.

In the photo, the cheongsam Michelle wore was the very one I'd fallen for at first sight, the one Winston had said didn't suit me.

So it was never that the dress didn't suit me. It was that I didn't suit him. And our engagement shoot, it turned out, was somewhere they had been too.

The group chat exploded instantly, messages flooding in one after another.

"I just got an engagement invitation from Ethel Winfield and Winston Cobb a little while ago. I thought they were solid, about to get married any day now."

"How did it suddenly become Michelle Henson? Professor Cobb, this is so out of nowhere."

"A brilliant man and a beautiful woman. The two of them look so perfect together."

The messages slid across the screen, every word a needle. I read all of them, then said only one thing. "Winston and I have broken up."

The moment my message went out, Winston's reply came right on its heels.

"The one I've loved all along has really been Michelle. I wasted seven years of Ethel's life. I won't waste her eighth."

The instant I saw those words, the emotions I'd held back for so long broke through the dam all at once.

A tear struck the phone screen and bloomed into a small wet smear.

Maybe it took me being the one to call it off for him to finally face what he wanted.

The truth was, his love had never belonged to me.

I pressed the feeling back down, switched off the phone, and went on handing over my work to the new teaching assistant as if nothing had happened.

But when Winston finished his lecture, he walked straight into the office with his arm draped around Michelle's shoulders.

A stack of crisp new engagement invitations sat in his hand, and he was passing them out, one by one, to every teacher in the room.

Winston and I had kept our relationship secret on campus. We always kept a careful distance, pretending not to know each other in public.

Now that we were over, there was even less reason for me to step forward and invite the snub.

The next second, Winston held an invitation out in front of me.

A mild smile curved his lips, his tone polite and distant. "Teaching Assistant Winfield, you'll come to our engagement party, won't you?"

I took it without a word. Their party fell on the day after I left the country, so of course I couldn't attend.

I didn't explain, didn't say anything. I only gave a small nod.

My silence darkened his expression in an instant.

The office buzzed with congratulations, warm and festive.

Even the new assistant beside me sighed over how perfectly matched Winston and Michelle were.

And it was true. Winston was handsome, Michelle was beautiful.

One had become the youngest specially-appointed professor on campus just two years out of school; the other was a rising star making her name in the art world while still young.

Anyone would have called it a match made in heaven, talent and beauty meeting their equal.

Watching the office light up with celebration, I couldn't help but slip outside for air.

I had already made up my mind to let him go. Yet looking at that engagement photo, my heart still throbbed with a pain I couldn't hold back.

Barely two minutes passed before Winston was standing in front of me. "Can't stand to watch? Jealous?"

I lifted my head. On his face was that familiar look of a man certain he had everything under control.

In the past, he'd abandoned me eighty-seven times, and every single time afterward he had coaxed me back.

Sending me the narcissus I loved best, buying the necklace I'd eyed for ages, taking me to a concert I'd been dying to see.

He knew my soft spots too well, certain I couldn't bear to lose this relationship. So this time, he wanted to run the same play.

Announce the engagement on purpose, sting me into jealousy, wait for me to cave, then have me come crawling back to his side.

I made it clear to him again. "Winston, you're overthinking this. We're already done."

His face soured at once. "Ethel, stop it. Everyone knows you can't live without me."

"I have plenty of choices better than you. But you? Who else do you think would put up with you, spoil you, give you a way to save face the way I do?"

"Do you really think you'll find anyone better than me?"

So in his heart, I would always be the unreasonable, never-satisfied girlfriend who could only function clinging to him.

He reached out and took my hand on his own. "Ethel, stop being so childish."

"Just lower your head and admit you were wrong, and never bring up the breakup again. Then I'll forgive you and call off the engagement with Michelle."

"Next month we hold our wedding right on schedule, and I'll never walk out on you halfway again. All right?"

No.

I had never done anything wrong. The one who should apologize, who should bow their head, was not me.

The day of that engagement party, the moment he turned his back and abandoned me without hesitation, the wedding between us had already ceased to exist.

If he insisted on getting engaged to Michelle, I wouldn't stand in the way.

A love between three people. I was willing to step out.

My handover at the school was completely wrapped up. All that remained was to end things with Winston for good.

I went back to the house where we'd lived for seven years to pack up everything that was mine.

Seven years of waking up and falling asleep side by side, and yet, gathered piece by piece, all of my belongings fit into a single suitcase.

I opened a voice message to tell Winston that I'd left the keys on the cabinet by the entryway.

His reply came fast. The same familiar little "2" lit up the screen.

I tugged at the corner of my mouth. He clearly hadn't bothered to listen to the voice note.

He'd just assumed, out of habit, that I was throwing another fit, pressing him about where he was, demanding to know why he still wasn't home.

So without a second thought, he'd fired back a careless "2," telling me he was with Michelle, that he wouldn't be home tonight, that I should stop asking why.

I didn't bother with his message anymore. The moment I shut the door behind me, a new post popped up on my feed. Michelle had just posted it.

The photo was two silhouettes leaning close into each other.

My chest swelled tight, the pressure choking off my breath until I couldn't get out a single word.

I left my suitcase at a friend's place. I'd barely gotten settled when another message from Michelle lit up my phone.

It was a prenatal report. Eleven weeks pregnant.

I stared at that black-and-white slip, and the last string inside me snapped clean through.

Eleven weeks. That put it right at the night Winston had proposed to me.

Before he ever decided to get engaged to Michelle, I'd kept lying to myself, telling myself he was just soft-hearted, just couldn't bear to hurt her, just looking after Michelle the way you'd look after a little sister.

Time after time I forgave him. Time after time I made room for him, believing that if I held on just a little longer, the clouds would part and I'd finally see the moon.

But the two of them had probably crossed that line long ago, drawing closer with every choice they made.

The truth was, two years ago, I'd carried a child of Winston's too.

I'd been five months along by then, ready to go straight down to the courthouse and marry him.

But back then I'd used that baby as a threat, telling him that if he ever abandoned me for Michelle again, I'd end the pregnancy and end everything.

It was almost as if heaven had heard that vow.

So when Winston dropped me on the side of the road for Michelle once more, leaving me to stand in the rain for two hours and walk all the way home, I lost our five-month-old baby.

And the wedding we'd planned, with the baby gone, lost every reason to happen.

I stared at the prenatal report for a long time. In the end, I deleted Michelle from WhatsApp.

All these days, Winston had thought I was just sulking.

He hadn't said a single word to me since. He probably didn't even know I was about to fly overseas, leaving him for good.

The day I left, I announced the breakup straight into both families' group chat, attaching his and Michelle's engagement invitation alongside it.

The family group chat hadn't even reacted yet when Winston's call flashed across my screen.

The cabin chimed with the boarding announcement. I didn't wait to hear the rest. I hung up.

For me, nothing he said mattered anymore.