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 boxthe 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 anythinga 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 youdon'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, deliciousexactly like I'd imagined.

Yet on my tongue there was nothing but bitterness.

I didn't move. I set everything back exactly as it was and walked into the bathroom.

When I came out from my shower, Neil was on the balcony, on a call.

The door hadn't latched all the way, and the voice he was deliberately keeping low drifted in through the gap, carrying a softness and patience I'd never heard from him before.

"The morning after tomorrow? I have plans with someone... mm, I can cancel them."

"Your car comes first. I'll wait for your call. Let me know when it's fixed."

I leaned against the wall, staring blankly at the floor.

The morning after tomorrow was something we'd settled on long ago, the touring exhibition of a painter I adored.

He'd come through three times, and not once had I gotten to see it.

This time I'd booked a month in advance just to lock in Neil's schedule.

He always said he hated anything outside his plans.

But as it turned out, the only thing outside his plans he hated was me.

Neil finished his call and came back into the room. He saw the few pieces of clothing I'd draped over the closet door.

Not hung neatly, the hems pushed past the zoning line he'd set.

His brow furrowed. "Put these away. It's a mess."

I gave a soft hum of agreement.

Then I pulled out every black-white-gray piece that fit Neil's taste and dropped them all in the trash.

Neil watched me do it, not a flicker on his face.

He didn't ask why. He didn't say a word.

He just rolled over, turned his back to me, and went to sleep.

The next day, I woke burning up.

The rain I'd walked through last night had caught up with me after all.

Neil was already dressed and standing by the bed.

"It's seven fifteen. You didn't prepare breakfast on schedule, which has thrown off my morning work plan."

My head was splitting. I braced myself to sit up, but the room kept dimming in waves.

He swiped open his phone and tapped a few times in his notes.

"Five points off your relationship-conduct score."

Groggy, I made my way out of the bedroom. On the dining table sat the plate from the breakfast he'd already eaten.

Fried egg, toast, milk, the same as always.

But there was no portion for me.

In the laundry basket, the shirt and slacks he'd changed out of yesterday were gone.

My own soaked dress still lay quietly inside.

He'd washed only his.

I forced myself up and took a cab to the nearest hospital.

The ER was loud and crowded, and the fever had left me limp.

The doctor prescribed medicine and put me on an IV. After taking my temperature, he said, "A hundred and two point six. You'll need a family member here to sign off."

I held my phone, hesitating for a long time, then dialed Neil after all.

It rang for ages before he picked up.

"What is it?"

My voice came out rough. "I'm at the hospital. I have a fever. The doctor says I need a family member to"

"You've seen my schedule. My morning is fully booked." He cut me off.

"It'll only take a little of your time. Just a signature."

The line went silent for a few seconds.

"I can spare forty minutes at most. Twenty for the round trip from the office, twenty to stay with you."

I closed my eyes and said quietly, "Fine."

"Could you buy me a heating pad from the hospital store?"

The call ended.

A moment later, my phone buzzed.

It was a delivery-app link from Neil.

"You can order one."

Ten minutes later, Neil arrived at the room right on schedule.

He signed, then took out his laptop and started working.

The IV dripped into me drop by drop, my arm gone numb with cold.

Looking at Neil's tightly pressed lips beside me, I said nothing and placed the order for the heating pad myself.

A nurse came to change the IV, saw the back of my hand, and frowned. "How did it swell up like this? An allergic reaction?"

Only then did I notice the wide patch of red hives spreading across the back of my hand, itching and aching at once.

Just then, Neil's phone chimed an alarm.

He shut the laptop, didn't spare me so much as a glance, and stood to leave.

Before I knew it, I'd called out to him. "Neil, my hand"

He paused, glancing back at the swollen, red mess on the back of my hand.

"Time's up. I have an important industry conference this afternoon."

Then he turned and walked out.

The nurse couldn't stand to watch. She pressed the call button for me.

The woman in the next bed handed me a heating pad. "Here, honey, use mine."

The doctor and nurse hurried in, changed my dressing, treated the allergic reaction.

I lay alone on the hospital bed and got through the worst hours by myself.

By evening, the fever had finally dropped a little.

I leaned against the headboard, scrolling through my phone without really seeing it.

On social media, Edwina had posted a dozen times all afternoon.

Every single one was Neil playing with her golden retriever.

In the photos, his profile carried a smilepatient, focused.

I looked down at the swelling that hadn't gone down on my hand, at the bruise the IV had left behind.

Then I opened a resale app.

I listed the couple's smartwatch Neil had custom-made for me.

The electronic shackle that, to fall in line with his every schedule, had buzzed at me every minute to tell me what to do next.

I didn't need it anymore.

Once I was discharged and home, I packed away everything I'd bought to suit Neil's tastes, piece by piece.

His preferences, the rules he'd set, his whole sense of aestheticsall of it went into boxes.

Half the apartment stood empty, and I felt a lightness I couldn't put into words.

At dawn, Neil got up and didn't find the 104-degree water waiting on the nightstand.

He walked into the closet, and there was no pressed shirt either.

He checked his watch out of habit. "Your slacking today has set my morning routine back by eight minutes."

I was sitting at the dining table, eating the donuts and coffee he'd never once let me touch.

Steaming hot, the smell of food I hadn't had in ages.

I didn't look up. "That's your problem."

Neil's face went dark. He probably thought I was still throwing a fit over the anniversary.

He said nothing more, cold-faced, fetched his own water and dug out a shirt, then slammed the door on his way out.

That afternoon, the lock clicked.

Neil came home with Edwina.

He had a fierce sense of territory and had laid down a hard rule: no outsiders in the house.

Once, when my best friend got her heart broken and came to crash for a single night, he'd thrown her out on the spot, stone-faced.

But now Edwina was wearing my slippers, sitting on my couch like she owned the place.

She had a tub of ice cream in her hands.

Cream dripped onto the rug, leaving a wide stain.

Neil saw it and only walked over, gently offering her a wet wipe.

"Careful, don't get it on your hands."

Not a word of blame.

Yet the last time I'd accidentally spilled a few drops of coffee, he'd thrown out my entire coffee setup.

Along with the beans I'd gone to such trouble to collect from all over the country.

I ignored them and went on packing my own things, fitting the last few books into a box.

Edwina got up, curious, and walked straight into my studio.

"Wow, sis, you're amazing."

The paints Neil had demanded I arrange neatly by color familyshe rummaged them into a mess.

Holding a cup of boba, she stepped closer to my easel, thoroughly intrigued.

The next second, her hand tipped.

A full cup of boba spilled in its entirety across the painting on my deskthe one I'd worked on for half a year.

That was the piece I'd spent half a year preparing to enter in the competition.

Neil heard the commotion and walked in. He looked at the wreckage all over the floor and blamed me first.

"I told you to take precautions."

Then his voice softened as he comforted Edwina.

"It was just a worthless scrap of paper. So it's ruined. Who cares."

I looked at the canvas, the coffee bleeding across it until the image was unrecognizable, and felt nothing. Not even a flicker of pain.

I picked up the painting and fed it into the shredder in the corner.

The machine roared to life.

I watched the shock break across Neil's face, and I smiled, calm as still water.

"You're right. Just scrap paper. Should've thrown it out a long time ago."

That night, in a rare moment, Neil apologized to me.

"I don't think your paintings are trash," he explained. "I was only trying to calm Edwina down."

"Tell me what materials you need to repaint it. Write me a list and I'll have it taken care of."

How rare. In five years, he had never once cared what my painting lacked, what I needed.

The truth was, he didn't even know what I painted.

The concern I'd longed for all this time had finally arrived, and all I felt was noise.

I rolled over and turned him down. :

"No need."

The next day, I was going to collect my grandmother's keepsakes.

Neil had agreed to drive me, but with Edwina around, I'd never expected him to actually come along.

And yet from the moment he woke that morning, he kept reminding me.

"We're picking up your grandmother's things later. Don't let it slip."

He paused, then added, :

"And if we run late, it's fine. I've cleared my whole morning."

I looked at the strange emotion in his eyes and couldn't name it.

Guilt? In five years I'd lost far more than a single painting. Why bother now.

On the way to the jewelry shop, Neil's phone rang.

It was Edwina.

She was half in tears, saying the exhibition-hall model she was responsible for had the wrong dimensions, that a client had called her out on the spot, and she desperately needed Neil there to back her up.

By his own iron rule, Neil never stepped in to fix anyone else's amateur mistakes. He should have said no.

The same way he'd once refused to bring me my exam permit, and made me miss the institute entrance test.

But I knew who was on the other end of that line. Edwina.

Sure enough, Neil didn't hesitate for a second. On the overpass he flicked the turn signal and forced the car into a hard U-turn.

A blare of horns rose up behind us.

I watched the route on the navigation veer off in an instant and reminded him, "The jewelry shop closes at five."

His voice was ice.

"A cheap watch doesn't vanish just because you pick it up late. But Edwina's project is worth millions to the company."

"Your emotional behavior is seriously interfering with my efficiency. Can't you tell what actually matters here?"

The car stopped outside the exhibition hall.

At some point the sky had turned gray, and raindrops began to slam down.

Neil unbuckled his seatbelt. "Wait for me in the car. This won't take long. Once I'm done, I'll go with you to get the watch."

With that, he locked the car and walked toward Edwina, who waited anxiously at the entrance.

I watched the time on the dashboard screen tick away, minute by minute.

Forty-five minutes passed.

Two hours passed.

The light faded.

Through the blur of rain, I could see them at the floor-to-ceiling window on the second floor. Neil was bent over, patiently helping Edwina revise the drawings.

On the table sat a dainty box of desserts, ordered specially for her.

And in the car, there wasn't even a bottle of water.

That alarm of his, the one that always went off on time to remind him which step of his schedule came next.

For Edwina, he'd turned it off, too.

His phone was on full silent. No one was allowed to disturb their time.

Least of all a call from me.

The sky went fully black.

Seven whole hours.

The shop owner sent one last message. : Miss, we've closed for the night. I'll hold your things for now, but I'm leaving town first thing tomorrow.

The glow of the phone screen lit up my bloodless face.

Neil Barnes's time was infinitely precious. I couldn't waste a second of it.

But my time, my plans, were worth nothing at all.

I slid off the plain band I'd worn for five years, the one I'd chosen only to match his taste.

I set it gently on the storage tray in front of the driver's seat, alongside the house key.

Then I pushed open the door and walked into the cold, rainy night without a backward glance.

This game we'd played for five years, timed down to the second, just the two of us.

I'd finally hit the stop button.