Her eyes were rimmed red, and she looked like a startled little rabbit, so pitiful it tugged at the heart.
Victor turned at once, his tone going soft.
"Where do you think you're going? It's freezing out there, and you just got over a cold."
"But..."
"No buts."
He glanced back at me, as if he'd finally found his way out. "I'll just make things clear with her. You go wait in the room, and don't come out."
"Kathleen is my advisor's daughter, and my junior in the program too. Looking after her is the right thing to do."
"Everything I have today, I owe to my advisor."
"Marie, I'm telling you, don't be petty about this."
I refused to give an inch.
"That your advisor did you a favor is your business. It has nothing to do with me."
"Victor, we aren't even married yet. Whoever you want to take in is your affair. Go ahead and bring her to your own place."
"But this is my home. You made it all the way to a doctorate, all that education, and you still don't get something this simple? Don't be generous with what isn't yours."
Just then, Victor's phone rang, and he took the call.
By the time he hung up, his words had changed.
"Fine. Don't bother moving out."
He grabbed his coat, took hold of Kathleen's suitcase, and turned to head out the door.
"I'll go find her another place to stay in a bit."
The two of them turned to leave, one behind the other, but my gaze was fixed on Victor's travel bag.
"So you're going to stay at a hotel with her too?"
"Marie, I already told you, she's my junior in the program. She's just come to my city. There's no way I can leave her to fend for herself."
Kathleen stepped back in to help him gather his clothes into the suitcase, then flashed me a smile.
"Marie, don't worry. I promise I'll take good care of Victor."
"You'll take care of him?"
I let out a cold laugh. "That's what you said last time too, and you ended up taking care of him all the way into the same hotel room, didn't you?"
"Marie!"
There was anger in Victor's voice. "Can you stop stirring up trouble out of nothing?"
"I already told you, that one time was colleagues snapping photos out of context. We were just talking in the same room, that's all. Don't go spreading filthy rumors."
With that, they turned and slammed the door on their way out.
For the two days that followed, Victor never came back.
Before dawn on the third day, Victor sent me a message.
"The lab got an assignment out of nowhere. I'm going out of town on a business trip, a week long. Don't wait up for me."
Any other time, the moment his message came in, I'd have fired back a reply instantly.
But I stared at this text for a long while.
Then I tapped delete.
Before that, I'd already come across Kathleen's social media feed.
The ones going to the same place on this "business trip" were the two of them, traveling together.
Calling it a business trip was generous. It was more of a company-funded vacation, all eating, drinking, and play.
I closed the chat and called an agent right away to put the home up for sale.
I moved fast. In the span of a single day, I scrubbed away every trace of myself from the marital home, clean and complete.
Even when the agent came to view the place,
he praised how the floors gleamed.
You couldn't even tell anyone had ever lived there.
Hearing that, I gave a bitter smile without meaning to.
Just like me. After all these years, I never really made it into his heart either.
"Miss Henson, this place is excellent in every way, the location, the neighborhood, the layout. With a little more time it would sell easily."
"Are you sure you want to rush it like this, sell within a week? I'm afraid the price might..."
"The price doesn't matter."
I said it without a shred of hesitation. "As long as it sells, the faster the better."
