After Seven Years, I Finally Chose Myself

Seven years with the man I loved, and our chat thread had been reduced to two numbers: 1 and 2.

1 meant he was coming home tonight.

2 meant he was with Michelle, his childhood sweetheart, and he wouldn't be home at all.

I'd asked Winston Cobb once, who mattered more—me, or Michelle Henson.

I'd even threatened him. Abortion. Jumping off a building. Anything to force him to choose.

Every single time, he chose me without hesitation. And then, without hesitation, he turned and walked straight back to Michelle.

Today was our engagement party. The whole room glowing, everyone toasting me, telling me I'd finally gotten everything I wanted—my first love, made real at last.

And his phone wouldn't stop buzzing. I knew exactly what it meant. Michelle was at it again.

He started to stand on reflex. I laid my hand gently over his. "Today is our engagement party. You're still going to go to her?"

He stroked the back of my hand. "Be good, Ethel Winfield. Michelle isn't well. She can't manage without me."

"I promise, I'll be back before you know it. I won't ruin our party. You have my word."

He tapped the tip of my nose. "You're the only bride I'll ever have."

The next second, he slipped his hand free, turned, and walked away. No hesitation.

Exactly like every time before.

What Winston didn't know was that this time, once he left, there would be no place for him in my future. Not ever.

——

He moved fast, his back clean and resolute, and from start to finish he never once glanced back at me.

The previous eighty-seven times, every time he abandoned me like this, I came apart.

I cried, I screamed, I begged at the top of my lungs, desperate for him to stay one more second, to look at me one more time.

Eighty-seven times I clawed at him to stay, and eighty-seven times I came up with nothing.

My hysteria, my breakdowns, my pleading—to him it was all just meaningless noise.

But now, I didn't want to do this anymore.

The moment he vanished completely from sight, my phone buzzed.

A message from the law school professor.

"Ethel, congratulations on your engagement. But an overseas exchange opportunity like this doesn't come twice. Think it over once more. Don't make yourself regret it."

I stared at the screen, my eyes stinging.

Everyone said I was lucky. That after all the twists and turns, I was about to land my happy ending with my first love.

Winston was young and accomplished, the youngest university professor barely two years out of school, brilliant, golden, his whole future stretched out smooth and bright before him.

Our old college classmates all thought I'd married up, way above my station.

To keep pace with him, for one promise of forever, I'd turned down a job at a top law firm and stayed at the school as a teaching assistant instead.

People whispered behind my back that I wasn't good enough for him, and I swallowed every word of it, never said a single syllable to him about it.

In these seven years with him, I had never once lived for myself.

It was always wherever he went, I followed.

This exchange opportunity—the professor had brought it to me three times now.

Every time before, my answer had been no. Because I loved Winston. I wanted to stay by his side for the rest of my life.

But now, after watching him walk away from me eighty-eight times, after eighty-eight times of being left behind so he could run to Michelle—

It wasn't just that I wasn't good enough for him. In his heart, I had never weighed as much as Michelle Henson.

My love, my devotion, my sacrifices—none of it ever measured up against a single moment of Michelle needing him.

This time, I didn't want to choose him. This time, I wanted to choose myself.

I didn't hesitate. I told the professor yes.

I put my phone away, pressed down the hollow ache in my chest, and smiled as I explained to the relatives and friends that something had come up at Winston's school and he'd had to leave early.

Mom clutched my hand, her eyes full of worry. "Are you sure everything's okay? Is he coming back or not?"

I shook my head. Winston wasn't coming back.