Seven Years, One Umbrella Too Late

1: 1

The night the hurricane made landfall, I stood outside the office for half an hour, and the rideshare app still showed ninety-nine people ahead of me in the queue.

I hesitated, then called my girlfriend.

Could you swing by and grab me on your way?

The rain's insane. I really can't get a ride.

Charlene Vance was quiet for two seconds, her voice so calm it was almost cold.

"You're right on my route, but I'm not picking you up."

"If I bail you out today, then every time something goes wrong you'll expect me to be there to catch you."

"Aren't you always saying you're a man who can handle things?"

"So learn to solve your own problems."

Then she hung up.

Ten minutes later her car drove past me. It didn't slow down at all.

Rain slammed against my phone screen just as Elijah Gilbert posted something new.

*Someone drove halfway across the city to pick me up, all because I didn't feel like squeezing onto the subway.*

*It feels so good having someone who'll always catch you.*

In the corner of the photo, a hand rested on the steering wheel.

The watch on that wrist was the one I'd saved three months' salary to give Charlene.

A moment later a message came through from her:

*You're not still standing there waiting for me, are you?*

I opened my email and accepted the company's offer to transfer me overseas. Then I calmly replied:

*Not waiting anymore.*

Not just tonight.

For the rest of my life, I would never wait for her again.

I switched trains twice, then walked more than twenty minutes through the rain, and by the time I got home I was soaked through.

Charlene blinked, then picked up a towel and started drying my hair.

The familiar motion softened the heart I'd thought was already dead, just for a second.

She poured me hot water, then took out her phone.

"I bought you an umbrella. It'll get delivered to your office tomorrow, so you'll stop forgetting to bring one."

The warmth had barely surfaced in me when she added, offhand:

"It was Elijah who reminded me, actually."

"He said you always forget to check the weather, so you don't get stuck at the office again."

So it turned out even this bit of belated concern wasn't something she'd thought of on her own.

I suddenly remembered a downpour back in college.

That day she'd crossed half the campus to come get me, tilting the umbrella toward me the whole way.

By the time we reached the dorm, not a drop had touched me, but half of her was soaked.

I fussed at her, aching over it, telling her she hadn't needed to come all that way.

Charlene just lowered her head and kissed my forehead.

"Being able to get yourself home, that's your strength."

"But not being able to stand you getting rained on, that's mine."

After that, whenever it rained, she'd be waiting outside my building ahead of time.

Back then I could never have imagined that one day she'd drive right past me and refuse to stop for even a minute.

After graduation, Charlene started her own company. At her busiest she was only getting four or five hours of sleep a night.

When she was first building the company she was run off her feet, and I couldn't bear to make her go back and forth for me, so I'd always smile and say, "I'm a grown man, I can get myself home."

She'd hold me tight, guilty.

"Once the company's stable, I'll make up for all the time I owe you, I promise."

Later she had money, she had a car, and finally she had time.

Only all of that time went to Elijah.

When my car broke down, she texted me the number for roadside assistance and told me to call it myself.

When Elijah's phone died, she spent two hours searching a shopping mall for him.

When my stomach hurt in the middle of the night, she sent me five hundred and told me to go to the hospital on my own.

When Elijah just mentioned an old injury bothering him, she canceled her meetings and spent the whole afternoon with him getting it checked out.

She said I wasn't like Elijah. I was independent, the kind who could handle things on his own.

I used to think that was her way of respecting me.

Only now did I understand that this so-called independence was just the most convenient excuse she had for the times she didn't want to take care of me.

2: 2

I pushed her hand away and asked quietly:

"You could drive halfway across the city for Elijah Gilbert. Why couldn't you stop one minute for me on your way?"

Charlene's hand went still.

"You're still hung up on that?"

"You're the one who said you didn't need a girlfriend picking you up and dropping you off."

"Now I've done exactly what you wanted, and somehow you're unhappy again?"

I looked up at her.

"Back then you'd just started your company. I didn't want to be a burden to you."

"So because I was considerate then, that's now proof I don't deserve to be looked after. Is that it?"

The patience drained from her face.

"Why do you always have to make yourself out to be so pitiful?"

"You can't say a man should stand on his own two feet and then expect your girlfriend to come running the second you call."

"It just makes you look fake."

I stared at her, dazed.

So the words I'd once said to protect her pride.

Had all turned into knives pointed at me now.

My throat started to itch.

I turned my head and coughed a few times, cold rolling through me in waves.

Charlene reached out and touched my forehead.

"You've got a bit of a fever."

She dug the fever pills out of the medicine box, set them on the table, then went to the bedroom and came back with a blanket.

"Take the medicine first."

She said it so naturally.

As if the argument just now had never happened.

I looked at that box of pills, and my chest, weak as ever, ached again.

Maybe she still had room for me in her heart.

Maybe we'd just been together so long she'd forgotten how to show it.

But before I could say anything, Charlene's phone rang.

Elijah's tight voice came through the speaker.

"Charlene, that strange car is parked downstairs again."

Charlene stood up at once.

"Lock your door. I'm coming over now."

She hung up and picked up the car keys she'd set down only moments before.

Wrapped in the blanket, I sat on the couch and asked softly:

"I'm running a fever. You're not going to stay and take care of me?"

Charlene's steps paused for an instant.

"The medicine's already on the table."

"You know how many to take, and you can look after yourself."

"Elijah's different. Someone might be watching him. It isn't safe for him to be there alone."

Before she went out, as if afraid I'd keep making a scene, she softened her tone.

"You've always been more independent than him."

"Don't hold it against him, not even at a time like this."

The door closed in front of me.

Leaving only the sound of the hurricane slamming against the glass.

I looked at the fever pills on the table, and suddenly I laughed.

Since when was I stronger than Elijah Gilbert.

It was only that after every plea for help got turned down, I'd forced myself to learn how to hold on.

My phone buzzed. The umbrella had shipped.

Right after it, the company sent the confirmation email for my overseas transfer.

I opened my inbox, completed the final confirmation, and the flight was booked for three days out.

Back then, when I said I could take care of myself, it was only because I couldn't bear to trouble Charlene.

From this day on.

I truly didn't need her anymore.

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

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.