She Chose Him，I Chose the Next Flight Out

4: 4

The next morning I went to the sales office alone to cancel the apartment.

The screen lit up.

A message from Amelia Vance:

【Let's move the anniversary to another day. Duncan finally scored tickets to a concert he's dying to see, so I have to go with him. You've got plenty of free time anyway.】

Plenty of free time anyway...

A few careless words, as if all my waiting and giving in over these eight years had only ever been idle hours I owed her.

Right behind it, a message from Duncan Delgado:

【Forgot to mention. Amelia and I were together before you, actually. We were already a couple before you ever met her. Later she said she wanted a change of taste, so I let you have her for a few years.】

【Also, thought I'd let you know. Those "vitamins" Amelia's been giving you all these years, I'm the one who picked them out for her. That drug slowly takes away your ability to have kids. Long as you've been taking it, you're probably sterile by now. There was never any chance she'd keep that baby. But don't feel too bad. She was never going to let it be born anyway. Something that was never going to happen can't really be said to exist or not, right?】

There was a video too. I opened it.

The frame jolted. Duncan's voice came through, thick with tears:

"Amelia... the doctor says I might not be able to have kids anymore."

Off-screen, Amelia's voice was muffled: "Don't cry. I'm here."

"Are you going to leave me someday because of it?"

"No. Stop overthinking. I promise you, I'll never carry anyone else's child."

The video ended.

I stared at the dead black screen, my fingertips ice-cold.

Eight years. Everything I'd taken for her care and consideration, every cup of warm water and pill she'd set into my hand, had only ever been her making sure I'd never become an accident in her life.

The funny part was, I'd still been hesitating over whether to give her a chance for the baby's sake.

He sent another file. I opened it. Nine thousand-some photos, all of him and Amelia together.

They'd crossed deserts, dived deep seas, held each other in front of sunsets, kissed at the mouth of a volcano, as if they'd lived out every grand and sweeping thing the world had to offer.

And in eight years with Amelia, the two of us together in a photo, I could count on one hand.

She'd said she didn't like being photographed, that a lens on her made her skin crawl.

Turned out that line of hers just didn't work on the other man.

Tears struck the screen, one after another, blurring all those smiling faces into a smear of water.

I switched off the phone and shoved it into my bag.

Sitting at the signing table in the sales office, the fluorescent lights overhead were very bright.

The clerk said softly, "Mr. Simmons, if you're confirming the cancellation, sign here."

I took the pen.

I thought of eight years ago, her pulling me at a run down Cherry Blossom Avenue, breathless, saying, "Hold my hand for a lifetime."

I thought of the first time she kissed me, the tips of her ears gone red.

I thought of her saying, "The first fall after we graduate, I'll marry you."

Those images were like old photos soaked in water, blooming open frame by frame, blurring, fading.

Until all that was left was white.

When the pen touched the paper, my hand shook faintly.

I finished signing and walked slowly across the sales office lobby, one hand braced against the wall, a dull ache sinking through my chest.

Passing the waiting area, out of the corner of my eye I caught it on my phone screen: Duncan had sent another video three hours ago.

I opened it. A concert. The big screen had just cut to the crowd, and Duncan turned his head and kissed the corner of Amelia's mouth.

The whole place screamed.

Off-screen, his voice carried a smile: "We've known each other twenty-some years. What's mine, how could it ever get away."

I switched off the screen and kept walking.

At the corner, I ran straight into two people.

Amelia had her hand on Duncan's arm, saying something to him in a low voice, a bag of documents in her other hand.

She looked up and saw me, and froze. "Brad Simmons? What are you doing here—"

Duncan cut in lightly:

"Amelia came to look at a place with me. Said she wanted to buy me one. Didn't expect to run into you. Small world."

I stopped walking.

The hallway's fluorescent lights beat down white and pale.

I looked at her, and let out a small laugh.

"I came to sign off on the place you didn't want—"

"It's canceled."

"Amelia. We're done."