He Chased Her Abroad , I Chose My Country

And now, he was using a figurine to remind me.

You can finally go to Cambridge.

He didn't know that the figurine wasn't a gift to me. It was a knife.

I didn't respond. I just kept packing in silence.

The trash can was already overflowing.

Our wedding portrait. A sample of our wedding invitation. The plane tickets from our honeymoon.

"You're throwing all of this away?"

He sounded confused.

I'd treated every one of those things like treasure once.

I kept my voice flat, my hands never stopping.

"There's too much stuff. Something has to go. You can't keep everything."

His brow creased slightly, as if he'd caught something beneath my words.

But he didn't move. He didn't fish anything out of the trash, either.

I pointed to a box in the corner. It was full of his and Vivian's things.

Old photographs of the two of them. A scarf she'd given him. Letters she'd written him.

"What about those? Tossing them too?"

He panicked instantly, rushing over and clutching the box to his chest.

"These can't be thrown away!"

Realizing how that looked, he let out an awkward laugh.

"These are Vivian's things. I'll bring them to her when I return them."

After he said it, he watched my face with open expectation.

As if waiting for me to ask where.

I didn't ask. I just said, "Oh."

A long silence passed. He shifted, uneasy, and tested the waters.

"Virginia, have you been following up on the immigration process?"

"I have."

"So… you've submitted all your paperwork?"

"Submitted."

He exhaled, visibly relieved, and smiled.

"Good."

I gave no reaction.

I just tossed more things into the trash.

We started dealing with the house in the States.

Robert began posting foreign apartments on social media.

Friends left comments.

"Already picked a place? We'll come visit once you're settled!"

I didn't like any of the posts. I didn't comment.

We'd lived in this house for ten years. Every corner held a memory.

A map of home hung on the living room wall. We'd put it up the day we moved in.

Back then, he'd held me close and said,

"When we go back, we'll visit all these places."

He'd marked dozens of spots with red pushpins.

"These are the aerospace cities. Someday we'll see every single one."

The map was still there. The red pushpins were still there.

The man who'd said those words no longer remembered them.

"Virginia, what do you think of this one? Right on the Thames. You can see the London Eye from the balcony."

He watched me, gauging my reaction.

I gave a soft "Mm."

"The ones back home are probably just as nice."

He froze. A flicker of confusion crossed his face.

"Virginia, you don't like Valkenheim?"

"I do."

His expression relaxed.

"A few days there for a vacation would be lovely."

He went still again.

He was about to say something when his phone rang.

A video call from Vivian.

"Robert, my foot hurts so bad, I can't move…"

She was crying in that delicate, helpless way of hers, tears glistening like rain on white petals.

"What happened?"

Robert shot to his feet, his voice tight with alarm.

"I missed a step going downstairs and fell down the whole staircase…"

"I'm all alone. I'm so scared. There's no one to take me to the hospital…"

Vivian's tears fell harder.

"Don't move. Whatever you do, don't move. I'm booking a flight right now."

Robert was frantic. He turned to look at me.