Just then, Neil's phone chimed an alarm.
He shut the laptop, didn't spare me so much as a glance, and stood to leave.
Before I knew it, I'd called out to him. "Neil, my hand…"
He paused, glancing back at the swollen, red mess on the back of my hand.
"Time's up. I have an important industry conference this afternoon."
Then he turned and walked out.
The nurse couldn't stand to watch. She pressed the call button for me.
The woman in the next bed handed me a heating pad. "Here, honey, use mine."
The doctor and nurse hurried in, changed my dressing, treated the allergic reaction.
I lay alone on the hospital bed and got through the worst hours by myself.
By evening, the fever had finally dropped a little.
I leaned against the headboard, scrolling through my phone without really seeing it.
On social media, Edwina had posted a dozen times all afternoon.
Every single one was Neil playing with her golden retriever.
In the photos, his profile carried a smile—patient, focused.
I looked down at the swelling that hadn't gone down on my hand, at the bruise the IV had left behind.
Then I opened a resale app.
I listed the couple's smartwatch Neil had custom-made for me.
The electronic shackle that, to fall in line with his every schedule, had buzzed at me every minute to tell me what to do next.
I didn't need it anymore.
Once I was discharged and home, I packed away everything I'd bought to suit Neil's tastes, piece by piece.
His preferences, the rules he'd set, his whole sense of aesthetics—all of it went into boxes.
Half the apartment stood empty, and I felt a lightness I couldn't put into words.
At dawn, Neil got up and didn't find the 104-degree water waiting on the nightstand.
He walked into the closet, and there was no pressed shirt either.
He checked his watch out of habit. "Your slacking today has set my morning routine back by eight minutes."
I was sitting at the dining table, eating the donuts and coffee he'd never once let me touch.
Steaming hot, the smell of food I hadn't had in ages.
I didn't look up. "That's your problem."
Neil's face went dark. He probably thought I was still throwing a fit over the anniversary.
He said nothing more, cold-faced, fetched his own water and dug out a shirt, then slammed the door on his way out.
That afternoon, the lock clicked.
Neil came home with Edwina.
He had a fierce sense of territory and had laid down a hard rule: no outsiders in the house.
Once, when my best friend got her heart broken and came to crash for a single night, he'd thrown her out on the spot, stone-faced.
But now Edwina was wearing my slippers, sitting on my couch like she owned the place.
She had a tub of ice cream in her hands.
Cream dripped onto the rug, leaving a wide stain.
Neil saw it and only walked over, gently offering her a wet wipe.
"Careful, don't get it on your hands."
Not a word of blame.
Yet the last time I'd accidentally spilled a few drops of coffee, he'd thrown out my entire coffee setup.
Along with the beans I'd gone to such trouble to collect from all over the country.
I ignored them and went on packing my own things, fitting the last few books into a box.
Edwina got up, curious, and walked straight into my studio.
"Wow, sis, you're amazing."
The paints Neil had demanded I arrange neatly by color family—she rummaged them into a mess.
Holding a cup of boba, she stepped closer to my easel, thoroughly intrigued.
The next second, her hand tipped.
A full cup of boba spilled in its entirety across the painting on my desk—the one I'd worked on for half a year.
That was the piece I'd spent half a year preparing to enter in the competition.
Neil heard the commotion and walked in. He looked at the wreckage all over the floor and blamed me first.
