I laughed—laughed so hard the tears almost came.
Three years of feeling. Three years of giving.
I'd put him before my own future, given up chances to advance, given up the spotlight that should have been mine. And all I got back was: *It was just a small fire.*
The laugh died on my face. My eyes went cold.
"Les, I'm breaking up with you."
He froze, clearly not expecting me to say it that cleanly.
In our entire relationship, I had always been the one to bend first. To compromise. To beg him to stay.
Every fight ended the same way: me apologizing, me tiptoeing around his mood, me smoothing things over.
He was used to my obedience, used to my yielding, used to the certainty that I would never leave.
So all he did was knit his brows and let his voice go hard, laced with threat: "Madge, stop being unreasonable. You want to break up? Fine. Don't regret it."
"I won't."
I looked straight at him. Steady. Not a shred of hesitation.
Les's face darkened completely. He glared at me, snatched his jacket off the chair, and slammed the door on his way out.
The bang was loud enough to shake plaster off the living room wall.
I sat alone in the wrecked, lightless apartment, and finally pressed both hands over my face and cried without making a sound.
Not because the breakup hurt. Because three years of my youth had been thrown away on a man like him.
Because the research I'd fought for with everything I had, and the love I'd given just as hard, had both been stepped on and trampled without a second thought.
Les and I were in the same department at the same university. He was a year ahead of me.
We did our graduate work together, entered the Provincial Key Research Lab together, and became recognized young scholars together.
To everyone on the outside, we were the golden couple, the picture-perfect pair of the research world.
Only I knew the balance had never been equal. Not from the start.
I loved him far more than he ever loved me.
I came from an ordinary family and fought my way here on my own.
He came from privilege, had decent talent, was proud and self-centered, and used to being put on a pedestal.
Michelle Fox was his junior labmate, five years younger, dependent on him since they were students. In front of him she was always soft, always helpless, always *Les this* and *Les that* in that clingy little-sister voice.
I'd minded. Of course I had. But every time, he gave me the same line: "She's just a kid. Why are you making it into a thing?"
I believed him.
I talked myself down again and again. Be mature. Be generous. Try to understand him.
A year ago, the National Core Research Lab was recruiting talent. The entire province had one recommendation slot, and the department unanimously chose me.
It was the platform every researcher dreams of. The goal I had been working toward for over a decade.
But days before I was supposed to submit my materials, Les went cold on me. Threatened to end things if I left. Said if I went, we were over for good.
I lost my mind and gave it up.
Professor Hale was so furious she wouldn't speak to me for days. My colleagues shook their heads.
I smiled and told them, "It's fine. I'll have another chance."
Only I knew that night I locked myself in the lab and cried until morning.
I thought my sacrifice would make him cherish what we had.
Instead, what I got was him taking my international conference slot without a second thought.
What I got was him talking soft to another woman while I was on the edge of dying.
When I came back to the lab, every pair of eyes carried the same look: pity, laced with something harder to name.
I had always been the hardest-working young researcher on the team. My track record was strong. Professor Hale used to call me "a future star in the making."
And I'd let one relationship turn me into a joke.
Professor Hale called me into her office. She looked at my pale face and let out a long breath. "Madge, be honest with me. Is this because of Les Gilbert?"
I kept my head down and said nothing.
