Seven Years, One Umbrella Too Late

1: 1

The night the hurricane made landfall, I stood outside the office for half an hour, and the rideshare app still showed ninety-nine people ahead of me in the queue.

I hesitated, then called my girlfriend.

"Could you swing by and grab me on your way?"

"The rain's insane. I really can't get a ride."

Charlene Vance was quiet for two seconds, her voice so calm it was almost cold.

"You're right on my route, but I'm not picking you up."

"If I bail you out today, then every time something goes wrong you'll expect me to be there to catch you."

"Aren't you always saying you're a man who can handle things?"

"So learn to solve your own problems."

Then she hung up.

Ten minutes later her car drove past me. It didn't slow down at all.

Rain slammed against my phone screen just as Elijah Gilbert posted something new.

*Someone drove halfway across the city to pick me up, all because I didn't feel like squeezing onto the subway.*

*It feels so good having someone who'll always catch you.*

In the corner of the photo, a hand rested on the steering wheel.

The watch on that wrist was the one I'd saved three months' salary to give Charlene.

A moment later a message came through from her:

*You're not still standing there waiting for me, are you?*

I opened my email and accepted the company's offer to transfer me overseas. Then I calmly replied:

*Not waiting anymore.*

Not just tonight.

For the rest of my life, I would never wait for her again.

1

I switched trains twice, then walked more than twenty minutes through the rain, and by the time I got home I was soaked through.

Charlene blinked, then picked up a towel and started drying my hair.

The familiar motion softened the heart I'd thought was already dead, just for a second.

She poured me hot water, then took out her phone.

"I bought you an umbrella. It'll get delivered to your office tomorrow, so you'll stop forgetting to bring one."

The warmth had barely surfaced in me when she added, offhand:

"It was Elijah who reminded me, actually."

"He said you always forget to check the weather, so you don't get stuck at the office again."

So it turned out even this bit of belated concern wasn't something she'd thought of on her own.

I suddenly remembered a downpour back in college.

That day she'd crossed half the campus to come get me, tilting the umbrella toward me the whole way.

By the time we reached the dorm, not a drop had touched me, but half of her was soaked.

I fussed at her, aching over it, telling her she hadn't needed to come all that way.

Charlene just lowered her head and kissed my forehead.

"Being able to get yourself home, that's your strength."

"But not being able to stand you getting rained on, that's mine."

After that, whenever it rained, she'd be waiting outside my building ahead of time.

Back then I could never have imagined that one day she'd drive right past me and refuse to stop for even a minute.

After graduation, Charlene started her own company. At her busiest she was only getting four or five hours of sleep a night.

When she was first building the company she was run off her feet, and I couldn't bear to make her go back and forth for me, so I'd always smile and say, "I'm a grown man, I can get myself home."

She'd hold me tight, guilty.

"Once the company's stable, I'll make up for all the time I owe you, I promise."

Later she had money, she had a car, and finally she had time.

Only all of that time went to Elijah.

When my car broke down, she texted me the number for roadside assistance and told me to call it myself.

When Elijah's phone died, she spent two hours searching a shopping mall for him.

When my stomach hurt in the middle of the night, she sent me five hundred and told me to go to the hospital on my own.

When Elijah just mentioned an old injury bothering him, she canceled her meetings and spent the whole afternoon with him getting it checked out.

She said I wasn't like Elijah. I was independent, the kind who could handle things on his own.

I used to think that was her way of respecting me.

Only now did I understand that this so-called independence was just the most convenient excuse she had for the times she didn't want to take care of me.