Nine years into our relationship, I stumbled across a post online.
"Does a long relationship without marriage really have no future?"
The top-voted reply was from a man.
Of course.
I've been with my girlfriend for nine years.
In the beginning, I thought she was perfect in every way. Couldn't stand to be apart from her for even a second.
But time has a way of grinding crystal into cheap glass.
Now I'm bored. Just looking at her feels like a chore.
My new secretary at work, though? Now that's a different story.
Young. Pretty. Keeps things interesting.
If she hadn't stuck around this long, I would've dumped her ages ago.
I typed my reply, fingers trembling with indignation.
You're trash!
I've been with my boyfriend for nine years too.
He just proposed a few days ago. We're picking out wedding dresses right now.
I hit send.
The next second, Keith Harding's phone lit up.
……
My profile picture flashed across his screen.
My head went blank. A single, deafening buzz between my ears.
I told myself it couldn't be. It wasn't possible.
But Keith did have a new girl at the office.
Just a few days ago, at a company dinner, she'd run her mouth in front of everyone.
"Together nine years and still no ring?"
"What other reason could there be? He's just not that into her."
"If I were that woman, I'd have enough self-respect to end it myself."
I had been sitting right across from her.
The entire private room went silent, every pair of eyes darting between us in stunned disbelief. Before I could even open my mouth, Keith's expression turned to ice.
The next morning, word spread that she'd been fired.
That same evening, I found a diamond ring in the pocket of Keith's overcoat.
It was the exact one I'd kept in my favorites folder for three years.
So what does that prove?
The original poster replied with a tone I recognized all too well. Casual. Dismissive.
I ticked off my little secretary the other day, so I bought her a ring to smooth things over.
She didn't want it. I shoved it in my pocket and forgot to toss it.
Then my girlfriend found it.
I didn't feel like dealing with the drama, so I just proposed on the spot.
She cried and laughed at the same time. So moved, so grateful.
Funny thing is, I used to daydream about proposing to her. Planned it out a hundred different ways.
But watching her blubbering like that, all I felt was bored.
What a waste of a perfectly good ring.
Looked way better on my secretary's finger anyway.
He'd posted a photo.
The hand in the picture was slender and pale, the ring catching the light alongside glittering rhinestones on a fresh manicure.
I looked down at my own hand.
The same ring sat on a finger roughened by years of housework, the skin around my knuckles cracked and dry.
After college, Keith had chosen to start his own company.
I'd already landed a decent job by then. A good one, even. But I quit without a second thought to support him.
During the best years of my life, I lived in a basement apartment smaller than a parking space. The communal bathroom at the end of the hallway always reeked of stale cigarettes and cheap liquor.
Friends my age were out shopping, going to parties, keeping up with trends.
I was doing Keith's laundry and cooking his meals, my hands raw and red from the cold water.
I was standing off to the side during his meetings, pouring tea and refilling glasses, legs locked straight for hours because I couldn't afford to sit.
I was crouching on the floor after he stumbled home from client dinners and passed out, scrubbing up the mess he'd left behind.
Keith had appreciated all of it. Once.
The day Harding Group went public, as the bell rang on the NASDAQ trading floor, he held my hand in front of the cameras.
"Everything I've achieved, every honor I've earned, I owe to the woman I love."
But that was years ago.
Now he sat somewhere typing with a cold smirk on his face.
Her biggest value? She makes a halfway decent live-in maid.
A reply popped up almost instantly.
At least a maid gets paid. Yours does it for free AND sleeps with you.
