- 2.
We’d been together for four years, and I knew Matt had an ex named Nina. He rarely spoke about her, but I’d pieced together a picture of her from his friends. She was his “one that got away,” the pure, untouchable first love. They’d met in high school. Back then, Matt wasn’t the successful entrepreneur he was now, just a lonely, picked–on orphan. Nina had been his light in those dark days. She’d “saved” him, they’d gone to college together, built a life together, become the campus power couple. Just after graduation, as Matt was planning to propose, Nina had dumped him out of the blue and moved abroad. Everyone, including his friends, had been shocked. “If they hadn’t broken up,” one of them had sighed, “Matt would probably be a dad by now.”
The bathroom door opened with a click. Matt stepped out, water dripping from his hair, a loose robe hanging around his frame. “Lily, I‘ m starving,” he murmured. He noticed his phone in my hand and froze. I looked up at him silently, then turned the screen so he could see the messages. His usual composure cracked. “Lily, let me explain…” he started, then hesitated, a flicker of something in his eyes before he smoothed it over and became the cool, collected Matt I knew. “It’s just a misunderstanding,” he said dismissively. “It’s over between us. We’re
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getting married. What more do you want?” His voice was quiet, but laced with accusation and a strange kind of disappointment. I wanted to laugh, and then I did, until tears streamed down my face. He must have taken my laughter as acceptance, because his expression relaxed and he reached for me. “It’s in the past, Lily. It’s just us now,” he said smoothly. I wiped my tears, still chuckling, and pushed him away. Looking up at the man I’d loved for four years, I said quietly, “We’re done, Matt.”
