Seven Years, Then I Walked Away

At the company team-building day, we played 3-2-1, look this way, and the CEO, my fianc, got pulled in to play.

Every time it came down to him and me, he never looked where I pointed.

I lost round after round, until the ice water left me soaked through.

He handed me a dry towel and lowered his voice. "Sorry about this. I have to set an example. I can't go easy."

When it was the new secretary's turn, she pressed her palms together and blinked up at him.

"Go easy on me, Roddy. I don't want to end up a drowned rat."

He gave a small laugh, something indulgent in his eyes.

The game began. Wherever she pointed, that was where he looked.

He was the one who ended up soaked.

The CEO rarely lost, and everyone cheered him on.

I was the only one who couldn't laugh.

"Weren't you not going to go easy? Why does she keep winning?"

Roderick Gilbert's face cooled. "There's a time and place for wanting to win. She's on her period. She can't get chilled."

I lowered my eyes.

Seven years together.

He could remember the new secretary's cycle.

But he forgot I had cold-induced hives.

The moment I got cold, red welts rose on my skin, itching unbearably, and in bad cases I could even go into shock.

He followed my gaze to the raised patches of red blooming up my arm, and his brow creased.

I thought he was finally about to feel for me. Instead I heard him say,

"They'll be gone in half an hour. Just tough it out."

I looked up in time to see him hurrying off.

To help up the secretary, who had fallen during the tug-of-war.

Something in me went slack.

I couldn't do this anymore.

The winters in New York, like him, were getting harder and harder to bear.

I decided to leave, to go somewhere with long summers and no winter.

...

Team-building wrapped up, and everyone set off for dinner.

I walked to the car. Bernice Swanson was already sitting in Roderick's passenger seat, head down, touching up her makeup.

The Patek Philippe on her wrist threw off a cold flash in the sunlight.

It was the limited edition Roderick had bid up recklessly at auction.

I'd pretended not to know, thinking it was a birthday surprise.

But last week, on my birthday, he'd said he forgot to get me anything.

Bernice paused, then shook her wrist a little.

"It's a little gift from Roddy. For my hundredth day on the job."

I said nothing.

Roderick opened the driver's door and glanced at me.

"Lottie Fox, you sit in the back." He adjusted the seat for her. "Bernice twisted her ankle. She can stretch her legs out up front, so it won't hurt as much."

His tone was perfectly casual.

That promise, "the passenger seat is only ever yours," was like my fading hives, as if it had never existed at all.

Only my skin and my heart still remembered the burn of it.

I turned and got into the back.

At the table, not one of the shrimp Roderick peeled made it into my bowl. He fed them all to Bernice.

I didn't make a sound. I just drank, glass after glass.

"Ease up," he said, frowning. "Your stomach's bad. Did you forget?"

A coworker overheard and leaned in.

"Mr. Gilbert really cares about Director Fox. To get where you two are, you must have been through a lot together."

Roderick's hand, mid-motion putting food on Bernice's plate, stalled.

I smiled, bitterness in my throat.

In the early days of the company, I often went out to entertain clients with him.

Once, helping him land a difficult account, I drank until my stomach bled.

He'd cried until his eyes were red at my bedside, half-knelt on the floor and swore he would never make me sad again as long as he lived.

But in the few months since Bernice arrived, I'd lost count of how many times he had.

Another coworker joined in. "Mr. Gilbert, I hear you two are getting married? When's the wedding?"

Roderick froze, then looked at me. "What's the date again?"

I looked at his puzzled face, my voice hollow. "Your own wedding, and you can't remember the date."

He stalled, his brow knotting. "Don't be unreasonable. I've been traveling nonstop for work. Didn't I hand all the wedding arrangements over to you?"

Sensing the mood turn, our coworkers slipped away.

Only Bernice stayed in her seat, lashes lowered.

"Lottie, don't blame Roderick. It's my fault, I'm too useless. He had to look after me the whole trip, so he never got the chance to think about the wedding."

We'd made a promise: if we were still together after the seven-year itch, we'd get married.

At the candlelit dinner for our seventh anniversary, I brought that promise up.

He'd shown up forty minutes late, and he kept his head down over his phone.

He sent Bernice a voice message first. "It's fine if you can't format the document. I'll teach you at the office tomorrow."

Only then did he lift his head to look at me. "I've got a trip coming up soon, so I'm leaving the wedding to you."

"A wedding is something two people do together." I set down my knife and fork, keeping my voice as even as I could. "Let me come with you. Some of the details we really should discuss together."

His refusal was flat.

"I'm going there to work. I don't want the distraction."

And yet, from Bernice's posts online, I pieced together all the things he was willing to be distracted by.

She forgot the combination to her suitcase, and he spent three hours getting it open for her.

She was hosting a meeting with a partner company but couldn't write her hosting script, so he stayed up all night finishing it, even marking where to soften and where to press.

She wanted a local specialty and couldn't find the shop, so he crossed three streets under the noon sun to bring it back.

While I'd sent him two possible wedding dates and asked him to pick.

He didn't so much as read them properly. He just replied: "Fine."

And I thought about the line she posted after the trip ended: Came home with a pile of embarrassing stories and a precious stretch of being taken care of.

Then I thought about myself, working all day and staying up all night on the wedding, my immune system dropping and my hives flaring up again and again.

All those nights I tossed and turned, itching, only to get a single "Tough it out" from him.

I finally understood. It wasn't that he wouldn't allow himself to be distracted. It was that he wouldn't let himself be distracted for me.

I set down my wine glass and spoke quietly. "In seven days, I'll be walking into a new life."

The plane ticket to Los Angeles was already booked.

Seven days from now.

Roderick nodded, his brow easing slightly. "Seven days is enough for me to wrap up the project."

There was a rare ease in his voice. "You've had it rough lately. After the wedding, I'll get you a vacation."

"No need." I stood up. "You two keep eating. I'm tired. I'm heading home."

By the time I stepped out of the restaurant, it was already evening.

From the intersection not far off drifted a warm, burnt-sweet smell. Roasted chestnuts, my favorite.

I still remembered late autumn of my junior year, standing under the classroom building to wait out the rain, mentioning offhand to my roommate that I was craving roasted chestnuts.

"That place by the school gate. They're best right out of the pan. Too bad I don't feel like going out of my way in the rain."

My roommate said maybe another day, but Roderick, standing behind us, had taken it to heart.

At dinner in the dining hall, he set a brown paper bag down in front of me. It was still hot to the touch.

The hem of his pants was a little wet, but his voice was steady. "Passed by. Grabbed them on the way."

That kind of care hadn't shown up in a long time.

Now, if I asked him to bring back a local specialty from a trip, all he'd say was: "You can buy it online."

I looked away and caught a cab home.

I opened my laptop and wrote a resignation letter.

After I graduated, I gave up Los Angeles, the place I'd always wanted to go, and followed Roderick to New York to build a company.

From him without a cent to his name, all the way to the Gilbert Group going public.

From an office for two people to owning an entire building.

From not knowing how to design a thing to holding the position of Design Director.

Half the blood and sweat in the Gilbert Group is mine. I'd never once imagined there would come a day I would leave.

At the bottom of the resignation letter, I wrote:

*May the Gilbert Group rise and rise, and never betray the vows we made back then.*

And I, too, was going to go looking for the vows I once made.

I saved the file and closed the laptop.

Then I started making calls.

The wedding venue, the officiant, the photographer, every arrangement for the wedding, I canceled all of it.

I hung up the last call.

There was a sound at the entryway.

Roderick was home, and Bernice was right behind him.

"Still up?" His hand paused as he took off his shoes. "The dinner ran late, and her place is too far. I brought her back to stay the night."

"Oh."

Bernice peeked out timidly. "Lottie, will I be in your way?"

"Yes."

She froze, her eyes going a little red, and turned with her bag in hand. "Then I'll go right now."

"It's fine." He stopped her, unwrapped a fresh pair of slippers for her. "Go take a shower first."

She kept her head down and said quietly, "I don't have anything to sleep in."

He dug a silk nightgown out of the closet. "Wear this for now."

That nightgown, he'd bought it for me when he landed his first contract after starting the company.

"Lottie, we're going to keep getting better and better. So good that you'll never have to lie awake at night worrying about our future again."

Later I had more and nicer nightgowns, but I'd always kept that one carefully, couldn't bring myself to throw it out.

And now he'd dug it out to put another woman in it.

The bathroom door closed.

He saw the look on my face and spoke first. "You haven't worn that thing in ages, have you? And it's old anyway. No harm if it gets ruined."

"Don't be angry." He softened his voice and handed me a brown paper bag. "I bought you roasted chestnuts."

I glanced inside. More than half of them were already gone.

Half an hour earlier, I'd come across Bernice's post online.

In the photo, a pair of hands with clean, defined knuckles was patiently peeling open a chestnut.

The beaded prayer-bead ring on one finger was the birthday present I'd given him.

*Fresh out of the pan and still hot, and he still peels them for me. Being spoiled like a baby feels so nice.*

In his eyes, she deserved the first bite straight out of the pan, and I was only fit for the leftovers.

I didn't take it. "Save it for your secretary baby."

"What's gotten into you today?" His face darkened. "Because I brought her home?"

"She came to New York all alone to make it, with no one to lean on. Am I supposed to let her sleep on the street?"

"Lottie Fox, I remember you used to be pretty kind. When did you turn into this?"

Before, I probably would have told him.

There's a thing in this world called a hotel. No matter how bad it got, she'd never end up on the street.

But now I only said quietly, "Roderick, let's not get married."

For a second his expression went blank.

"Are you threatening me? Why?"

"Are you jealous of her too?" Something occurred to him, and his face got worse. "You know perfectly well I've always thought of her as a little sister."

Roderick had a younger sister. She died in an accident in middle school after being bullied.

He rarely brought it up. Only now and then, when he'd been drinking, would he say with red eyes, "If she were still alive, she'd have finished college by now."

The day Bernice came in to interview, he decided to keep her the moment he laid eyes on her.

Because she looked so much like his sister.

It hurt me for his sake, so even though she'd failed the interview, I didn't object.

At first I only thought his care for her was a shadow of a brother's love for a sister, nothing to make a fuss over.

But as he tipped the scales further and further toward her, it slowly became unbearable.

The feeling was like a fish bone stuck in my throat.

I couldn't swallow it and couldn't spit it out, and I couldn't very well go around holding my mouth open for everyone to look inside.

Only I knew how much it hurt.

At least I'd finally decided to pull this thorn out.

I looked at him. "I'm not threatening you. And I'm not jealous."

"Then why?" His breathing had gone uneven. "If the wedding planning feels like too much, then we keep it simple. I don't care about any of that."

I shook my head, still wanting to say more.

The sound of running water in the bathroom cut off.

"Let's just leave it. The marriage is a long road ahead. Living it well is what matters more than anything."

He tossed the words out and hurried toward the bathroom.

A moment later, the hum of a hair dryer drifted out, along with easy laughter and chatter.

I stood where I was, and said it quietly, deep down.

Roderick, there is no road ahead for us.

I turned back to my room and slept straight through till morning.

When I woke, the two of them were getting ready to head out.

"I'm taking Bernice home to grab her laptop, then dropping her at work." Roderick paused at the entryway and looked back at me.

He hesitated, then, unusually, asked one more thing. "Want to come along? I'll drop you off."

He'd never once driven me anywhere before. Said it would look improper.

So rain or shine, I got myself to and from work on my own.

But once Bernice arrived, he got up early every day and went out of his way to drive her in, and no matter how late he finished at night, he took her home first.

"No need," I said, shaking my head. "There won't be any need anymore."

He blanked, wanting to ask something, but I'd already closed the bathroom door.

Back at the office, I printed out my resignation letter and handed it to Roderick.

He stared at it for a long moment, then asked, "Reason?"

"I'm tired."

His expression eased. "So when you said this morning I didn't need to drive you anymore, it was because you're quitting?"

"Fine by me." He picked up a pen and signed. "We're getting married soon anyway. From now on you can rest at home, and once the baby comes, just focus on that."

"Let's set your last day as the day before the wedding. I'll move fast on hiring a replacement."

I fixed my eyes on the pen in his hand.

A cartoon design, with an exaggerated rabbit printed on the barrel.

A little star dangled off the tip, swinging back and forth, giving off a childishness that had no place in a CEO's office.

I'd seen the same one on Bernice's desk.

Then it came back to me.

I'd once left a little pig cushion on his sofa, hoping to bring some life into the dull office.

He'd frowned. "This is an office, not your bedroom."

"If a client sees it, they'll just think we're not professional."

The cushion ended up shoved to the very bottom of a cabinet and never came out again.

Now he held this pen, his movements smooth and natural, like he'd used it plenty of times.

I took the resignation letter back without a word and turned to leave.

I'd just reached the door when I ran into Bernice coming in with a bag of bubble tea, her face lit up with delight.

"Roderick, you ordered bubble tea for me?"

He laughed under his breath. "Didn't you keep saying this morning you wanted something sweet?"

"I just said it offhand and you remembered. Roderick, you're so good to me." She smiled sweetly and pulled out a cup, holding it toward me. "Lottie, want to share one?"

"Sure." I reached out.

Ever since he'd frowned and pronounced bubble tea "sickly sweet, only kids like that stuff," I'd barely touched it.

Bernice's smile faltered. She didn't let go.

"What? Regretting it already?" I looked at her, the smile not quite a smile.

She lifted the corners of her mouth again and released it. "No. I just thought you didn't like sweet things."

I took it and had a sip. "Mm. It really is sweet."

A thing you once couldn't have, once you finally tasted it, turned out you didn't want it that much after all.

I flicked my hand, and the bubble tea went into the trash.

"You" She stared at that cup, her eyes slowly going red.

"Lottie Fox!" Roderick's warning came from behind me.

I didn't turn around. I went straight back to my desk.

For the next few days I was busy handing off my work, and Roderick and I barely spoke.

The day I left.

Once my things were packed, I didn't say goodbye. I just carried the box into the elevator and rode down.

At the front entrance I ran into Roderick and Bernice coming back from a client meeting. I stepped around them.

He caught up, his face cold.

"What's this cold war you've been pulling the last few days? Who set you off now?"

I kept my voice flat. "I'm just clearing the space for you and Secretary Swanson."

"Don't get snide with me." His brow creased. "You threw out her bubble tea last time, and she was upset about it for days. You still owe her an apology."

Bernice tugged at his sleeve, her voice low. "It's fine. Lottie's leaving anyway. Let's not fall out over something so small."

"And you'll buy me more bubble tea from now on, won't you?"

She looked up at him, eyes curved in a smile.

"Of course." His voice softened, and the look he turned on me was openly reproachful. "Bernice is being this generous. Don't you feel ashamed?

"You should learn from her, how she keeps the bigger picture in mind, instead of pouring all your energy into jealousy."

Silence spread.

Bernice spoke up. "Roderick, let's see Lottie off."

He gave a slight nod, his eyes carrying a trace of condescending tolerance. "All right. I'll call you a car."

I shook my head to say there was no need, and his phone rang.

"I have to take a client call." He answered and walked off into the distance.

Bernice watched his back and let out a soft laugh. "I've had my eye on that custom desk of yours. Roderick said I could have it. You don't mind, do you?"

I gave her a light glance. "It's my leftovers. If you want it, take it."

Her smile froze for an instant. Then she stepped closer and lowered her voice.

"That silk nightgown, that's your leftovers too, isn't it? But I don't mind. The night I wore it, Roderick even complimented me. He said it looked better on me than on you."

She paused, almost pressing her lips to my ear.

"Tell me, if I keep picking up your castoffs, do you think I'll pick up the man too?"

The moment those words left her mouth, I raised my hand and slapped her.

"Scavenging is one thing, but you had to rub it in my face. Were you afraid I wouldn't teach you a lesson?"

Bernice glanced past my shoulder and said nothing.

She only let herself drop to the ground with the force of it, hand over her cheek, tears spilling down.

"What are you doing?" Roderick hung up, saw the scene, and roared at me.

He shoved me aside and rushed to Bernice.

I fell to the floor.

The box tipped over, and the glass cup shattered.

My palm came down on the shards, blood streaming.

He didn't notice at all. He was only checking on her, all concern.

When he saw the red mark on her face, his expression changed. "What happened?"

She sobbed quietly. "I only brought up the thing about the desk"

He turned and looked down at me, his face cold. "That desk was something you didn't want anyway. What's wrong with giving it to her?"

"You know how much I hate bullying, and you still use your higher rank to push her around at every turn." His eyes were full of disappointment. "Lottie Fox, you really disgust me."

He helped her up and turned away. "Get yourself home. Once you're there, take a good look at yourself, and tomorrow at the wedding I want to hear you apologize."

I watched him walk off with his arm around her, then looked down at the blood in my palm, pulled out a tissue, and wiped it clean.

It didn't hurt. Really, it didn't hurt anymore.

Back home, I packed until deep into the night. Outside the window, fireworks cracked open.

My phone buzzed. A message from Roderick.

Not coming home tonight. Bernice is in a bad mood, so I'm setting off fireworks up on the hilltop to cheer her up.

I didn't answer. I slept without dreaming.

The next morning I dragged my suitcase straight to the airport.

When I got there, Roderick messaged again.

"Send me the wedding venue address. I'm bringing Bernice over now. Have you figured out what you're going to say when you apologize?"

I replied: Roderick, let's break up.

Then I switched on airplane mode and boarded.

Looking out at the clouds beyond the window, I drew a deep breath.

My heart felt light, as if seven years of joy and grief had all been buried down there in that city beneath my feet.