Seven Years, One Umbrella Too Late

4: 4

4

I had the driver turn around and take me to the hospital.

In the exam room, the doctor stared at the films for a long time, then spoke with a grave face.

"Open fracture of the right wrist. Damage to the flexor tendon and the median nerve."

"He needs surgery as soon as possible, or the fine motor function in that hand may never come back."

I stared blankly at my own right hand, swollen and misshapen.

This hand had carried me through countless crunch times on projects. It had written Charlene's very first business plan, back when she was just starting out.

I had never imagined it would nearly be destroyed on the day we ended.

That even my last plea for help would look, in her eyes, like a bid for attention.

The nurse handed me the surgical consent form.

"The nerve repair is best done early. This can't wait any longer."

"You should get a family member down here. Who's your emergency contact?"

I held my phone, silent for a long time, and finally dialed Charlene.

It rang three times before she picked up.

Elijah's voice came through the receiver, saying he'd just gotten another threatening text.

Charlene was contacting security to deal with it.

My throat tightened.

"Charlene, I'm at the hospital."

"That fall broke my right hand. The doctor says there's nerve damage. I need surgery right away."

"They need me to reach my emergency contact."

The line went quiet for a beat.

Then she laughed, cold.

"Orson, just to get me to throw Elijah out, you'd even make up something like your hand being ruined?"

"You fell down two steps. You got up fine, didn't you?"

"A grown man, using something like this to compete for attention. Doesn't that embarrass you?"

I gripped the exam report hard.

"I'm not lying to you."

I took photos of the films and the diagnosis and sent them to her.

The messages showed as delivered. She wouldn't even open them to look.

"Enough."

"Elijah's being threatened, and now there's someone tailing him. Can't you get your priorities straight for once?"

"Aren't you always saying you can handle things on your own?"

"If you really need a signature, can't you sign it yourself?"

"Don't expect me to drop everything and come coddle you over every little thing."

The call ended.

The nurse stood beside me, the pity in her eyes almost impossible to hide.

"Maybe try another family member?"

I lowered my head and, on the line for the emergency contact's signature, wrote my own name, stroke by stroke.

"No need."

"I don't have any family."

When the anesthetic went into my vein, I closed my eyes.

The deep ache in my wrist slowly drifted away, and I found myself thinking of that downpour back in college.

Charlene had once tilted the whole umbrella toward me, letting half of herself get soaked rather than let me catch cold.

Back then she said that whenever I needed her, she would always be there.

But later, I lay alone on an operating table, nearly losing my dominant hand.

While she stayed with another man, mocking me for using an injury to compete for attention.

After the surgery, I stayed in the hospital alone for two nights.

Charlene never called once.

She must have decided that as long as she didn't play along, this little attention-seeking act of mine would end on its own.

The day I was discharged was also the day I left.

I went to get the documents I'd left at the house, only to find the lock code had already been changed.

I rang the bell for a long time.

The one who finally answered was Charlene, her voice impatient.

"What is it now?"

"My passport is still in there."

"Have Elijah get it out for me. I'm leaving tonight."

She was silent for two seconds.

"You're still threatening me?"

"Orson, you've been at this for three days. That's enough."

I looked at the shut door.

"I'm not making a scene."

"I just came for my own things."

As if my calm had provoked her, Charlene's tone dropped cold all at once.

"Fine. You want to go, then go."

"But if you leave today, don't ever come back."

"I won't be coming to coddle you like before."

A few minutes later, building management brought down a paper bag with my passport and documents.

From start to finish, Charlene never opened the door to look at me once.

I held the bag and stood for a long time in front of that door, the door where we'd lived together for five years.

Then I said, softly: "Okay."

Two hours later, I boarded the flight overseas.

As the plane climbed into the clouds, I took out my SIM card and dropped it into the seatback trash bag.

The familiar city shrank fast into a blur of lights.

No one saw it coming.

That line of Charlene's, don't ever come back.

In the end, it would come true, word for word.