She Defended Her Junior, Then Lost Me

Five years together, and whenever I fought with an outsider, my girlfriend never once took my side.

I told myself she was just cold by nature, so I was the one who stepped up for her in everything.

On our trip, a seafood restaurant shorted us on weight. I argued the point, calmly and with the facts on my side, not expecting her to help.

Instead, she said, in that light, careless way of hers, "They've got it hard too. Making a scene over a few dollars like this, it's kind of cheap of you."

The junior traveling with us kept his head down and added, with a sneer, "Yeah, not exactly classy."

The two of them, playing off each other, nailed me in place.

The manager, who'd been about to refund us, watched me with a smirk, his whole face saying he was enjoying the show.

I didn't cry. I got up and went straight back to the hotel. She didn't come after me. She just kept eating with the junior, like nothing had happened at all.

What she didn't know was that before we left, I'd added her junior as a friend, and I'd seen his social media feed.

There was a completely different version of her in it. In one video, her face was flushed with anger as she gripped an old vegetable seller, an old woman, and wouldn't let go. "My junior's a good guy, he bought up all your vegetables, and you rig your scale to overcharge him ten dollars? At your age you should know better. Aren't you ashamed?"

The junior had captioned it with a starry-eyed emoji: A senior like Monica who'll stand up for me is honestly the coolest.

The girlfriend who could never learn to stand united with me, she'd stand up for her junior without a second thought.

On this trip, the extra person had always been me.

I booked the earliest flight back. I was done with the trip. I was done with the relationship too.

Not AI-generated. Not some edited-together prank.

That was the gentle, elegant Monica Vaughn, doing this for her junior, Fred Bates.

In the middle of a busy street, gripping a woman in her seventies or eighties and scolding her that she was too old to act like this.

I found it absurd, almost funny. For the owner of a big, thriving seafood restaurant, she could feel sorry that he "had it hard."

But for a vegetable farmer who'd overcharged her junior ten dollars, she'd suddenly learned how to stand up for someone.

And it hit me all at once. Who the other person was didn't matter. Who was standing beside her, that was what decided her attitude.

If it was me, she'd play the bystander and stay quiet, and when she had to, she'd take the opposite side, playing the nice, agreeable one.

But if it was her junior, then she knew all about standing united, defending him, settling the score for him.

There was no point to it. Really.

From the first time I heard the name Fred Bates, my instinct as her boyfriend told me there was something special about this guy.

At first Monica would complain to me about him. "He's so dumb, he can't even get basic lab work right. I honestly don't get how he passed the grad exams."

But later it turned into her telling me, with a smile, "Sweet, na?ve kid. He brought me coffee he ground himself."

And then she deleted the pinned post of us holding hands, and switched to a couple's profile picture.

She said, "I have to deal with higher-ups. It's not convenient."

The time she spent on our dates started shrinking. From going with me to the library, from dates and dinners.

It turned into grabbing library seats for the junior, tutoring him, doing academic research with him.

Slowly, I went from the boyfriend at the center of her life to someone out on the edge.

I kept comforting myself that they were just a normal senior-and-junior pair.

But once, a younger classmate of mine bought me a bubble tea to thank me for lending her my notes.

Monica's face went cold on the spot. She said the girl had bad intentions toward me.

That was when it stunned me. So she understood all along exactly where the lines were.

Yet this trip, the one we'd planned together for so long, she insisted on tacking her junior onto it.

When I showed I wasn't happy about it, she'd looked at me, exasperated, and said, "Can you not make everything about romance? I'm just a big sister looking out for a younger kid."

I gripped my phone, my eyes burning.

I held it back for a long time, and still couldn't stop myself from crying.

By the time I was crying so hard I could barely breathe, the screen lit up.

It was a message from Monica.

I picked it up and opened it. Just six short words: Come down to the hotel front desk.

I ignored her and shut the screen off.

I was pouring myself some water when Monica called, her voice frantic. "Come to the front desk right now, this second."

Thinking about everything from today, I didn't want to bother. But then I worried it might really be an emergency.

So I went down in the hotel's slippers, and the moment I reached the front desk, Monica spoke.

"Logan, what's taking you so long? The one time I actually need you, I can't count on you for anything."

I didn't rush to smooth her over the way I always did. I just asked her, flat and cold, "What's wrong?"

She dragged me to the hotel front desk. "You explain it to him."

Then she stepped behind me, folding her arms like a bored spectator, as if none of this had anything to do with her.

Nothing at all like the woman in Fred's social media feed.

The clerk gave me a polite smile. "I'm so sorry, sir. The room type was overbooked. Right now your only options are to check out, or downgrade the suite to a double."

I heard him out and gave a small nod. "Either way's fine with me. Ask them."

Monica and Fred froze. Even the clerk looked thrown, like that wasn't the reaction he'd braced for.

Monica lost it. She grabbed my arm, a vein standing out on her forehead. "Is now really the time to be sulking?"

"We booked through a legitimate platform. Who do they think they are, just"

I pulled my arm free and looked at her, unmoved. "Forget it. It's not easy for them either."

Her fair face went ashen in an instant, like she'd swallowed a fly.

She knew. I was paying her back.

Paying her back for the thing she'd said at lunch.

So Monica didn't say a word. She just bit her lip and let out a furious little laugh, saying "Fine" three times over.

Without another word, she took the new key card.

Fred's eyes were red-rimmed. "Logan, even if you're mad at Monica, you shouldn't take an outsider's side."

Monica said nothing. She grabbed Fred by the wrist and swept off.

Fred was still muttering complaints when I caught Monica's voice, light as air. "Let him do what he wants. He'll regret it anyway."

I got my luggage out of the old room and went to enter the new one, only to find the door bolted from the inside.

And suddenly I understood exactly what she'd meant. He'll regret it.

I knocked, my voice tired and worn thin. "Monica, stop it, okay? I haven't eaten all day, I'm exhausted, I'm starving. Just let me in first."

But there was no answer from inside. Instead, one burst of laughter after another came through the door, as though staged for me to hear.

My eyes went hot. I knocked harder, but the door didn't so much as budge.

The laughing inside grew louder, and whatever anger I'd been holding down finally caught fire.

I pounded on the door, again and again, and inside they acted like they heard nothing.

I hit it harder and harder, and a door opened.

It was the one next to it. A big man in a bathrobe, his face all thick coarse flesh, yanked it open and glared at me like a demon. "Screaming your head off this late at night. You calling back the dead or what?"

That froze me. I didn't dare move.

The laughter inside cut off. They'd clearly heard, and still they did nothing.

The man pulled out a machete and tapped it against the door frame, grinning. "Little brother, disturbing the neighbors at this hour, huh? Come on. Come into my room. Let's have a nice long talk."

Panic took me. I slammed my palms against the door. "Monica, open up, help me!"

I heard Fred say, "Monica, don't you dare open it for him. He deserves this. Just leave him."

"Right. We're not opening it. He brought this on himself."

Everything in me went cold. I clung to the door frame with everything I had and screamed.

But the man behind me seemed set on hauling me into his room. His grin turned vicious. "Scared now? Weren't scared when you were making all that noise. If I don't hack you into eighteen pieces tonight, you can have my name."

The blade cut through the air, grazing past my scalp and biting into the door frame above my head.

The raw terror of it, life and death that close, ripped the cry out of me. "Monica, I'm begging you, open the door."

The man behind me had brute strength, and just as he was about to drag me all the way in, the door opened.

It was the family from the room next door, all three of them lined up in the doorway, jabbing a finger at the man and shouting. "What do you think you're doing? I already called the cops."

The man folded instantly and let go of my arm. "It was a joke." Then he ducked back into his room in a hurry.

I stood there, still shaking, staring at the door that hadn't opened. Something inside me went cold for good.

I touched my face and only then realized it was soaked with tears.

My safety hadn't been worth as much as one line from her junior. Don't bother with him.

Five years together, and it was nothing but a joke.

The mother from the family helped me up and gently wiped the tears from my face.

She shot a hard glare at the closed door. "Your friends are garbage."

I smiled bitterly to myself. She was right. Even a stranger couldn't stand it, and yet the two of them could sit behind that door, listening to me scream, without a shred of guilt.

I thanked them, and I didn't knock again.

The front desk had already told me there were no rooms, so I curled up on a couch in the hotel lobby to get through the night as best I could.

I took out my phone and started building a slideshow.

I titled it The Girlfriend Who Never Stood With Me, and I documented everything she and the junior had done.

By the time I typed the last word, the sky had gone light.

I looked up the nearby hotels.

It was peak tourist season, and everything around here was fully booked.

The earliest return ticket I'd managed to book wasn't until the day after tomorrow.

I gripped my phone, an ache sitting in my chest. If it were up to me, I wouldn't spend another minute around them.

I looked up and saw Monica and Fred coming toward me, both yawning.

Like she was doing me a favor, Monica tossed the keycard into my lap. "Here. Go get some rest."

She studied the dark circles under my eyes with a hint of mockery. "This afternoon Fred and I are going to check out some of the sights. If you'd behaved yourself last night, you wouldn't have been locked out."

I said nothing. I just stared straight at the bruises on her neck.

Before Monica could speak, Fred jumped in first. "Logan, what's with that look? Monica got a little heatstroke yesterday, so I gave her a scraping treatment. That's all."

Monica looked at me, irritated. "Can you go one whole day without being paranoid?"

I lowered my head and said coldly, "Fine."

"There's nothing going on between me and Fred, so can you stop making up"

At my words, Monica froze.

She seemed not to have expected me to sound so flat.

Her expression turned unnatural, and her mouth opened. "Logan"

I picked up my luggage and stood. "I'm tired. I'm going back to the room to rest."

Monica watched me walk away, and for no reason she could name, her chest felt hollow.

Maybe she really had gone too far last night.

But then she thought about how the suite had been downgraded to a twin room out of nowhere, and I hadn't said a single word to fight for it.

And she decided I'd had it coming.

She gave a careless shrug. Five years together. No matter what she did, I'd never leave her.

She put the whole thing out of her mind and went off with the junior to see every sight nearby.

I didn't go with them. I stayed in the hotel and rested for two days.

Only on the day I was set to leave did I finally set out with them to climb the mountain.

I touched the keepsake from my mother against my chest. This was the whole reason I'd come.

After my father died in the accident, my mother fell into a severe depression.

In the end she couldn't pull through. On her deathbed she gripped my hand, telling me she was sorry over and over while she gave me her final wish.

She wanted the pocket watch that had sealed her and my father's love buried on the mountaintop where they first met.

Knowing I was about to fulfill her last wish, I couldn't keep the feeling down.

Seeing that my face had softened from the last few days, Monica spoke to me on her own. "I know I was wrong. Please don't keep ignoring me, okay?"

I was leaving tonight. I couldn't be bothered to tangle with her anymore, so I just gave a token nod.

As long as everything went smoothly.

But on the way up we passed an old man selling herbal fruit tea, and Fred's kind heart flared up again.

"Monica, let's buy some herbal tea. Look, it's only a few bucks, really cheap."

Fred pressed his palms together and looked at my girlfriend with a pitiful face. "Monica, come on, let's help the old man out!"

Monica shot me a glance, and when I said nothing, she reached over and pinched Fred's nose.

Her eyes were practically dripping with fondness. "You and that soft heart of yours. Fine, let's get some!"

I didn't say a word and let Fred pick out a big bag, stuffed full.

He put it on the scale. A full two pounds.

Fred asked with a smile, "How much is it, sir?"

Monica already had her phone out, ready to pay.

The kindly old man Fred saw grinned. "Three thousand."

Monica froze mid-payment.

Her family was comfortable enough, middle class, but there was no way she'd drop three thousand on cheap, badly made fruit tea.

"Three thousand! Are you kidding me?"

Fred's voice shot up.

The old man tapped his price sign, annoyed. "Three bucks a gram. Clearly marked."

Fred's face went red as he held it in, and Monica didn't look much better.

But they were civilized people, and you couldn't get a peep out of them if you beat them with a stick.

Monica looked at me for help. I looked up at the sky.

The moment they didn't want to pay, a few thuggish men closed in around them. "What are you two trying to pull?"

Strangers in a strange place, they didn't want trouble.

Monica ground her teeth, glaring at me. "You're just going to stand there?"

I gave a soft "oh" and nodded. "Let it go. It's not easy for him either."

The color drained from Monica's face. She hadn't expected me to still be angry, and now she was furious and frantic at once.

The old man nodded. "The young man's the generous one. This girlfriend of yours doesn't deserve you."

I let out a snort of a laugh.

Monica had no choice but to hold her nose and pay.

Fred didn't dare say another word the rest of the way, and Monica kept her face dark, ignoring both the junior and me.

Not until we reached the summit did I carefully take a red cloth out from against my chest.

Gently, I unfolded the cloth a little at a time.

It was the only keepsake I had of my parents, and one of the few things my mother had left in this world.

But when I peeled back the last layer of red cloth, my face froze.

The pocket watch wasn't inside. There was only a bottle cap from a water bottle.

Fred burst out laughing. "Logan, you carried a bottle cap all the way up the mountain like it was made of gold?"

My mind went blank. Before the trip, I'd checked three times to make sure everything was there.

The whole way, only Monica and Fred had been able to touch my luggage.

I turned my head and, without the slightest hesitation, clamped my hand around Fred's throat.

He shrieked, and I pinned him hard against the railing, my eyes bloodshot as I demanded, "Where's my pocket watch?"

"II don't know."

Monica clearly hadn't expected me to react like this. "Don't do anything stupid, you could kill him."

My grip tightened, bit by bit. "I'll ask you one more time. Where's my pocket watch?"

Shaking, Fred fished the pocket watch out of his pocket and handed it to me.

My tears broke loose, spilling over before I could stop them.

I clutched the pocket watch I'd gotten back, terrified of losing it again.

And Monica lost her temper. She pointed at me and screamed, "Are you sick? You nearly killed Fred over some dead people's junk."

I ignored her and opened the pocket watch to check it.

The second I opened it, I froze.

The photo of my parents inside had been scribbled all over with a pen.

A mustache drawn on my gentle mother. Black eyes ringed around my father.

I couldn't hold it in anymore and broke into loud, racking sobs.

Monica stared at me like I was a lunatic. "Is it really worth all this? It's not like this is the only photo you have. Fred didn't mean it. If you"

Slap. Without a moment's hesitation, I struck her hard across the face.

I knelt on the ground, crying, and dug at the dirt with my bare hands, letting the grit tear my fingers until they bled.

"Logan..." Monica hesitated for a moment and moved to comfort me, but I shoved her away.

Her temper flared all at once. "Fine. Your dead parents' things matter most. We'll get out of your sight."

With that, she took the sulking Fred by the hand and left.

I dug at the hole on the summit for a long time and finally buried my parents' pocket watch.

Both my hands were shaking, blood and mud packed under my nails.

I said quietly, "Thank you, Mom, Dad, for looking out for me one last time."

For helping me see, once and for all, that five years of love had been a joke.

I went back to the hotel for my luggage, took a cab to the airport, and shut off my phone and slept, all in one motion.

Monica still thought I was just sulking. She deliberately packed dinner for two and brought it back to the hotel.

She pushed open the door, looked at the empty room, and something tightened in her chest for no reason.

A panic of losing me crept up on her, but then she smiled and shook her head.

Five years together. How could that be?

But when she saw clearly what was sitting on the nightstand, the color drained from her face all at once.