I Held My Own Umbrella and Walked Away

I stood there staring at the tickets.

"You paid for these with your scholarship money?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"You promised me you'd take me."

"I did, but you're the one who always said a concert's something you can catch anytime, right?"

Right. Anytime.

Back then, just to keep the pressure off him, I'd buried even the things I liked.

Wave after wave of exhaustion rolled over me.

In his world, everything I gave was simply owed to him.

It was Summer who had to be actively looked after.

He even thought he was being fair.

"Bonnie, what is going on with you lately?"

He shot me a look.

"I bought you a cake, I bought you bubble tea, what else do you want me to do? Just tell me, one sentence, and I'll fix it. Isn't that enough?"

I lifted my head and looked at him.

Every single time he said fine, I'll fix it, and then nothing ever changed.

"Justin."

"Hm?"

"Let's break up."

I shoved the last shirt into the suitcase and zipped it shut.

Justin froze.

"What did you say?"

"I said let's break up."

"Bonnie, over some petty little thing like this?"

His voice climbed.

"Are you serious? I explained all of it to you, didn't I? And I apologized too. What more do you want?"

I looked at his flushed face, worn down to the bone inside.

"Yes. Exactly because of all of this."

"You—you're being completely unreasonable!" Justin's fist clenched tight. He stared at me for a long moment, then slowly let it go.

"Don't try to provoke me with this."

He grabbed his jacket and walked out the door.

"I've got a dinner tonight, I won't be back. You take some time to cool off."

"And then apologize to me."

That night, a light rain started up outside again.

I looked at the flash drive on the desk.

It was the document his advisor needed tomorrow.

He'd left in such a hurry earlier that he'd forgotten it here.

Once their dinner was over tonight, the advisor was setting off.

I closed my hand around the flash drive.

In the end I took an umbrella and went out anyway.

I reached the place where they were having dinner.

The private room door was open a crack, and laughter drifted out.

"Justin, man, I really do envy you. Look at how well your girlfriend takes care of you."

One of the older students was teasing him.

I stopped where I was and looked through the gap in the door.

At the round table, Summer sat on Justin's right, head down, peeling shrimp, dropping each one onto his plate as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Justin paused, then waved it off with a laugh.

"Don't say things like that. She's just my oldest friend. She's hopeless, I have to look out for her."

Summer pinched a shrimp between her fingers and pushed it straight into Justin's mouth.

"Quit talking nonsense."

Another senior student took a sip of his drink.

"Oldest friend, huh? Then the two of you are awfully in sync."

"Come on, oldest friend, have a couple drinks with me."

Justin had a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

"No way. She's a lightweight, one glass and she's down. I'll drink for her."

"Oh, so protective?"

"She's been like this since we were kids. She'd take a tumble and cry for half a day. How could I not keep an eye on her?"

Summer pushed another shrimp at him.

"Even eating this won't keep your mouth shut?"

The room broke into laughter.

I pushed the door open.

The laughter cut off all at once, and every gaze landed on me.

Justin went still for a second.

I walked over to him and set the flash drive on the table.

"You left this behind."

"Thanks, I almost forgot."

He patted the back of my hand, then turned to face the other students.

"This is my girlfriend, Bonnie."

The senior student stalled for a beat, then let out a couple of dry laughs.