The screen read 23：37.
Thunder still rolled beyond the window. Tim Armstrong was out late, working and entertaining clients. He hadn't come home.
I cooked myself a bowl of noodles with greens and made my thirtieth-birthday wish.
I posted the wish on social media. Visible only to me.
【Wishing Tim health, safety, a thriving career, and all the money in the world.
Wishing the two of us another year better than the last, every year as sweet as the first.】
I finished cleaning the kitchen at 00：30.
Tim was still busy. Our pinned chat thread still ended on the message where he'd told me he was working late.
I scrolled up. His only other text that day was a single "Happy birthday" sent around noon.
He must have remembered during his lunch break.
I did my best to swallow that petty sting of not being the first thing on his mind, and left him a message.
【Hangover tea's in the thermos. Don't drink too much. Love you.】
I screwed the lid on the thermos, set it on the coffee table, and glanced down at my phone. A tiny red notification dot had appeared on my social media feed.
I tapped in. My private post, the one only I could see, somehow had two new comments.
【He'll be safe and he'll get rich. His career will take off.】
【But in the year you turn twenty-nine, he falls in love with Pansy Dickerson. You and him,
or rather, he and us, don't get another year.】
——
I backed out and opened my own profile.
The commenter's WhatsApp handle was identical to mine.
I hit "Add Friend." The other side accepted almost instantly.
Before I could even figure out what to ask first, a message came through.
【I know you have a million questions. But right now, just listen.】
【I'm you, five years from now. It's 2031 where I am.】
【May 17, 2026. Your birthday. Tim isn't working late. He's with Pansy Dickerson.】
My eyelid twitched hard and I gripped the phone until my knuckles ached.
Absurd.
Tim and I had been together since college. Campus sweethearts to husband and wife, nine years woven into every corner of our lives.
The rush of first love had long since settled into shared meals and quiet seasons, the kind of closeness that couldn't be shaken by a stranger's words on a screen.
I set the phone down without a second thought.
The notification chime went off again.
At the same moment, Tim called.
“Hey, babe. You asleep?”
“I'm sorry, babe. It's your birthday and I'm stuck at work, I couldn't be there……”
Relief loosened something in my chest, and I smiled.
The smile barely formed before it froze on my lips.
Through the phone, clear as day, I heard a voice call out “Tim”.
I knew that voice.
Pansy Dickerson.
The new girl at his company.
Bubbly, outgoing, good personality, good degree.
My heart dropped, and a slow, bewildered numbness crept in behind it.
Before I could say a word, Tim seemed to shift positions. His voice went quiet, then loud again.
“Babe, I'm wasted. A coworker's about to drive me home. Leave the door unlocked for me, okay?”
The line went dead.
On my lock screen, the unread message still waited.
I sat in silence for a long time. Then I opened it.
Just one line.
【Check the pocket of his old winter coat.】
Tim's closet was full of clothes I'd bought him.
Dress shirts, suits, and all the way in the back, one heavy winter coat.
I'd bought it with my very first paycheck.
That winter in the capital had been brutal. Our rental had no heat, and the cold seeped through every gap in the window frame and settled into our bones.
Tim wore that coat and held me tight.
“Muriel Sullivan, just let me work a little harder. I promise I'll give you a good life.”
We held each other through one winter after another.
Later, when things finally stabilized, he still wouldn't let me throw it away.
“Muriel, this coat is the armor you gave me.”
