The Cicadas Still Sing, but the Old Friend Is Gone

Our fiftieth cold war, and out of pure spite I listed everything Oliver Henson had given me over the years on a resale app.

The guy who came to appraise it looked for a long time, then couldn't help laughing.

Ma'am, it's Balenciaga, not Balenciahga. It's Versace, not Versacce. And this one, it's Gucci, not Guccii...

I stared blankly at those clumsy, ridiculous knockoff spellings. Because I trusted him, I hadn't looked closely once in eight whole years.

He gave me a pitying look.

"These don't even make the bottom rung of the cheap fakes. All ten boxes, three hundred, tops."

I clutched those three crumpled hundred-dollar bills and went to find Oliver.

In the private room, he had just casually cracked open a bottle of red wine.

"This Romane-Conti, five point two million. To celebrate your promotion."

Jeanette Matthews covered her lips with a sweet little laugh. "Mr. Henson, that's too extravagant!"

"You're worth it."

One of the guys beside him spotted me and raised his voice on purpose.

"Oliver, seriously, it's been eight years. You really never thought about marrying Anita Barnes?"

Oliver swirled the wine in his glass and smiled.

"Marry her? A fool who can't even tell real from fake, and she's fit to be Mrs. Henson?"

"Just a bit of fun. Don't tell me someone actually took it seriously."

Eight years of trust and waiting collapsed into rubble in those three words: just a bit of fun.

All at once I saw it clearly. He had never loved me.

...

Someone in the room whistled.

"Well, look who's here. Anita's back?"

Oliver lifted his eyelids and spoke, flat and cool.

"Here already? And I thought you had some backbone."

"How long did this cold war last? Forty-eight hours? Anita, you set a new record."

Someone egged him on. "Oliver, look at Anita's face. She's obviously been missing you like crazy."

"No kidding. Fight or no fight, when has Anita not been the first to cave?"

I clenched my fist, took a step forward, and slapped the three hundred dollars down on the table.

"Eight years of gifts. Three hundred dollars, all of it."

"How did I not know the great Oliver Henson had fallen on such hard times?"

Jeanette spoke up, all smiles.

"Anita, selling things? Oliver casually opens a bottle of wine for me and it's five million. You're his girlfriend. If you're short on cash, just say so, right?"

Oliver glanced down at the three hundred dollars and gave a small twist of his mouth.

"Anita, you're funny."

"Fighting until you're selling things off. Don't tell me this time you actually plan to draw a line between us?"

A few of the guys beside him laughed.

"Anita, we figured out those bags of yours were fake ages ago. Every time you carried one out, we'd all duck our heads and pretend to check our phones so we wouldn't crack up."

"Eight years. We had a private bet going on when you'd finally notice. Somebody said three months, somebody a year, the longest bet was three years. And you held out a full eight. Not one of us won."

Jeanette reached over and tugged at my sleeve.

"Don't be mad, Anita. Sit down, have a drink, cool off."

She added with a smile,

"Though since all your luxury stuff is fake, maybe you need fake wine too, to match?"

The room burst out laughing.

Oliver drew slowly on his cigarette and said nothing.

I finally steadied my breathing, looked Oliver in the eye, and said it word by word.

"Oliver, you gave me fakes. Was it because you didn't know the difference, or because you thought I didn't deserve the real thing?"

His eyes finally flickered with a hint of impatience, and he stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray.

"The wine I casually order runs five million. You think I, Oliver Henson, can't even afford the genuine article?"

Suddenly it struck me as funny, funny enough that the back of my throat turned bitter.

Those clumsy knockoff spellings, that offhand tone of his, were the answer all by themselves.

What more was there for me to humiliate myself over?

"What?" He looked up at me. "Can't tell real from fake, and now you turn around and question me?"

I looked into those eyes I'd once drowned in. Now there was nothing left in them but cold, thin mockery.

"So." I set my teeth and bit off each word. "You did it on purpose."

"So from the very beginning, you never once thought about marrying me."

Oliver idly rolled the three hundred dollars between his fingers, then let go.

The pink bills drifted lightly down to the floor.

He stood, looking down at me from above.

His shadow fell over me completely, his breath, reeking of wine, hitting my face.

The thing that once made my heart race now only made me sick of it.

"What else did you think?"

He reached out and patted my cheek.

"Anita, are you fit to use the real thing?"

"A useless thing I've kept, spoiled, who can't even tell a real bag from a fake, and she's fit to be Mrs. Henson?"

I tipped my head back and forced the tears welling in my eyes back down.

"I'm not fit."

"So the position of Mrs. Henson, I won't be craving it anymore."

"Save it for whoever you think is fit."

I turned and walked toward the door.

The summer rainstorm slammed into the ground and kicked up a white haze of spray.

I had no umbrella, and I didn't look back.

The cold rain soaked through me in an instant, but I couldn't feel the cold.

Oliver's words kept circling in my head. You think you deserve the real thing?

I thought about the past.

I thought about our thirtieth cold war, when I'd slammed the door and run out crying, and he chased me through the downpour, fastened that necklace around my neck, and said, "Stop it, Anita. Come home."

I thought about the fortieth, when I moved out and he stood downstairs all night, then pressed that handbag into my hands at dawn. "Don't be angry, Anita."

I'd thought he just didn't know how to say it, that those luxury gifts were his clumsy, unspoken proof of love.

I never imagined they were all fake.

The joke was on me, forgiving him again and again with those fakes.

I stumbled home and started tearing through everything I owned.

The anniversary necklace, the birthday watch, the Valentine's rings, all the things that were supposed to hold his feelings, all the ones that meant something...

Not one was real.

Not one.

I sank down into the mess on the floor and finally sobbed out loud.

For eight years, I'd never looked closely.

Because when he gave them to me, his voice was so doting, his eyes so tender. He'd said:

"Anita, you deserve the best and most expensive things in the world."

And I'd actually believed him.

I don't know how long it was before Jeanette dragged Oliver in, propping him up by the arm.

"Anita, Mr. Henson had too much to drink tonight. I brought him home."

She got Oliver settled, then straightened up, her gaze moving from my face to the boxes on the floor.

"Anita, why are you digging through all this?"

She tilted her head, her tone innocent. "Oh, right, are you looking for that scarf?"

I turned to check, and only then noticed the box was empty. The gray-blue scarf was gone.

My mother had rushed to finish it before she died, every stitch by hand, a wedding present for me, she'd said.

Jeanette followed my eyes, glanced down, and smiled.

"That thing? I mentioned it in passing last month, and Mr. Henson just gave it to me. Said it was taking up space at home."

"Where did you put it? Give it back!"

"Oh, I just tossed it out."

She blinked, saying it as if it were nothing.

"Handmade stuff like that, it's so tacky. Who'd want it?"

When I stood up my legs had gone numb, and I had to brace myself against the wall to stay upright.

"Oliver." I called his name.

The man on the couch shifted, frowning in irritation.

"...What's all the noise."

"That scarf. You gave it to Jeanette?"

He paused, propped himself halfway up, and let out a careless scoff.

"That ratty scarf? So it got thrown out. It wasn't worth fifty bucks."

He pulled a wad of cash from his wallet and hurled it at me.

The bills came down all over my face and scattered around my feet.

"Go on, buy a new one, and stop bothering me."

"Enough? There's more if that's not enough."

Jeanette covered her mouth with a laugh and bent to steady Oliver's arm.

"Mr. Henson, let me help you to the bedroom to rest."

Oliver gave a low grunt and let himself slump against her.

I thought again of my mother's deathbed, of him holding my hand and saying, "Don't worry, ma'am. I'll take care of Anita for the rest of her life."

So it turned out those promises were fake too.

"Oliver."

I said it to his back.

"If anyone's leaving, it's the two of you. This house is mine."

Oliver turned around, the drink loosening the focus in his eyes.

"Yours?"

"Anita, are you sure about that?"

I opened my mouth, and the words caught in my throat.

Three years ago, in the hospital, a patient's family came after me. The nerves in my right wrist were damaged, and I could never hold a scalpel steady again.

That was the darkest stretch of my life.

It was Oliver who appeared when I had nothing left, who paid the down payment on this apartment.

He held me and said gently, "Don't be scared, Anita. I'll take care of you."

"From now on you'll be my own private chef. All I want is for you to cook for me every day. Deal?"

For three years, I got up at six every morning, studied recipes, chopped vegetables until my left hand was covered in calluses, and made him something new every day.

I lived frugally, saved every cent I earned, wanting to pay back what he'd done for me.

I thought I'd paid it off long ago.

"What, drawing a blank?"

Oliver stepped closer and looked down at me.

"Without me, you were a cripple back then who couldn't even lift a scalpel."

"Without me covering the down payment, you'd still be scraping by in some rented room."

"Anita, all these years you ate on me, lived on me, spent my money. Put nicely, you were my girlfriend. Put plainly, my mistress."

Jeanette covered her mouth and laughed out loud.

"Anita, you still don't know, do you? This apartment was signed over to me a long time ago."

My head snapped up, my pupils shrinking.

"Last time Oliver lost a game, the thing I asked for was this apartment."

Oliver added flatly, "Jeanette wanted it, so I gave it to her."

"Oh, right."

Jeanette steadied Oliver and pulled him forward, tossing the words out lightly.

"And all that food you made? Oliver didn't eat a single bite. He sent it all over to my place."

"Would've been a shame to just throw it out. Lucky for us, my dog loves it."

I stood there, and a cold crept into my arms and legs.

All those meals I thought he'd eaten, all those flavors I adjusted so carefully, every little thing I rememberedthat he hated cilantro, hated carrotsall those soups I stayed up watching over the heat...

All of it thrown out.

I turned around and pulled open the drawer.

I took out the property deed, opened it, and looked at the line for the owner.

Jeanette Matthews.

The name, plain as day.

I stared at it for a long time, my fingers shaking.

Beside the box was a thick photo album.

Eight years of pictures of me and Oliver.

Our first time seeing snow together, college graduation, our first trip, our first New Year's Eve, the fireworks the night he confessed to me...

I opened to the first page, a photo of the two of us.

But my face had been scribbled over with black marker, dense and thorough.

Turn a page, scribbled out again.

In every photo Oliver's face was perfectly clear, his eyes sharp, his smile gentle.

And mine was nothing but a smeared black blot.

On the last page, a line was written across the blank paper.

"Ugly hag, stay away from him."

I closed the album, held it to my chest, sank to the floor, and finally cried.

For eight years, I thought I was loved.

Really, from start to finish, I'd been a joke.

When I finished crying, I put the album back in the drawer, went into the bedroom, and started gathering my things.

I folded them one by one and packed them into the case.

The only letter my mother ever left me, and the medical license that hadn't expired yet.

By the time I came out of the bedroom, the rain had long stopped. Wind blew in through the window, carrying the damp of summer.

I pulled the door open and walked out.

The next morning I was curled up in the hotel bed when my phone buzzed me awake.

"Good morning, Miss Barnes. The birthday cake you ordered will be ready for pickup at three this afternoon. Also, the ring you tucked into the hidden layer... would you like us to check that it's secured properly?"

I held the phone and, for a moment, felt strangely blank.

Today was my birthday.

I'd rehearsed it in my head a thousand times. The candles flickering, me cutting into the slice that hid the ring, smiling as I asked him:

"Oliver, I'm giving you myself and all the years I have left. Will you take them?"

Back then I'd thought, if his proposal wasn't coming, then I'd do it myself.

It didn't matter who asked, did it?

As long as it ended with us.

But now the whole thing struck me as absurd, like something out of a farce.

"Never mind."

"Throw out the cake and the ring."

I hung up. The phone buzzed again.

A message from Jeanette, with a video attached.

Anita, you probably still don't knowthe medical assault that ruined you back then wasn't an accident.

My fingers trembled as I tapped it open.

On screen, Oliver swirled a glass of wine, his voice coming through clearly:

"The attacker was a good find. Convincing enough."

"That right hand of hers was basically finished after that. Otherwise, knowing her, why would she ever have been content to stay by my side and cook?"

"You're a genius, Oliver."

Another voice chimed in.

"One staged assault, and now she can't leave you, and she's grateful on top of it, thinks you saved her. Worth every cent."

The video cut off there.

I stared hard at the screen.

That assault had ruined the right hand I'd been so proud of.

All those nights I'd wept, despaired, and then, because of one line from him"I'll take care of you"found hope again.

So it had all been his doing.

Right after, the second message popped up:

Oh, and that overseas treatment the director lined up for you three years ago? Oliver "declined" it for you long ago too. He said if you got cured, you'd fly away.

I stared at that line, lifted a hand to cover my mouth, and a stifled sob broke from my throat.

He'd dragged me down from the clouds, ground me into the mud, then held out a hand with all that false kindness so I'd cling to it in gratitude.

And then told me: "See? I'm the only one who'll have you."

And I'd loved him, honestly loved him, for eight years.

The phone buzzed again.

Anita, the pitiful one was never me!

I flagged down a car to the hospital.

The director sighed. "Anita, at the time it was your partner, Mr. Henson, who came in to sign and respond. He said your emotions were unstable, that you wanted to recover at home. He also said... you'd already accepted things and didn't want to put yourself through more."

I closed my eyes for a moment.

So it was all true.

"And what if I want to go now?"

I opened my eyes. "Is there still time?"

The director took a folder out of a drawer and handed it to me. "Let me make some calls for you."

"Anita, your talent shouldn't be buried here. As long as there's a sliver of hope, you shouldn't give it up."

I held the folder to my chest, pushed the door open, and walked out.

The elevator reached the ground floor, and when the doors opened, two people were standing outside.

Jeanette saw me and her eyes curved into a smile. "Anita, you're at the hospital too?"

"Anita? Why are you here?"

Oliver's eyelids lifted, then he frowned.

"You didn't follow me all the way here, did you? Can't you try something new for once?"

I said nothing.

Jeanette leaned a little closer to his side.

"Anita, I'm pregnant."

The hallway went quiet for a beat.

Oliver didn't deny it. He just watched me, waiting for me to fall apart, to cry and scream, to demand why with red-rimmed eyes the way I had countless times before.

But I only looked at them, calm.

I tugged at the corner of my mouth, my voice light and airy.

"Congratulations."

"I hope you two get locked together for good."

Oliver clearly hadn't expected that reaction. For the first time, a crack showed on his face.

"Anita, you"

He took a step forward without thinking.

But I had already turned, brushing past him.

"Oliver." I said it without looking back. "We're done."

By the time I reached the airport, my phone buzzed.

Oliver's message appeared:

Anita, I didn't forget it's your birthday today. I booked a restaurant for tonight. We need to have a proper talk.

How long had it been since he called me that.

Before, every time we fought, all he had to do was say "Anita, love," and I'd soften and come back.

He knew better than anyone what that name meant to me, and so even now, he was still using it.

I turned the phone off, buried it at the bottom of my bag, and walked into the security line.

Every birthday from now on, I'd spend on my own.