Lance Simmons was a planner in the most extreme sense of the word.
When we'd hold hands, when we'd hug, even the exact date we'd sleep together — he entered it all into his calendar in advance and sent it to my phone.
If the date hadn't come, he wouldn't cross the line by so much as an inch.
Even in a tender moment, if I leaned in first, he'd frown and push me back.
"Frankie, it's not time yet."
I loved him, so I was willing to move at his pace.
Until that evening, on the very day his schedule said intimacy was supposed to happen, there came another knock at the door — Melanie Cobb, the neighbor.
She was crying her eyes out.
"Lance, a pipe burst at my place. Could you come take a look?"
The man who a second ago clung to his principles now threw on his coat without a moment's hesitation, grabbed his toolbox, and hurried out the door.
I lay on the bed, staring at that schedule on my phone screen, and felt only how absurd it all was.
He'd set so many rules and boundaries around us, yet he was willing to break every one of them for Melanie Cobb.
If that was how it was, there was no point keeping the schedule.
I didn't hesitate anymore. One by one, I deleted every last one of those ridiculous entries.
...
By the time Lance came back, it was already midnight.
At this hour, by his own routine, he should have been asleep long ago.
Seeing me still sitting up in bed, something like surprise flickered in his eyes.
"Frankie? Did I wake you?"
I didn't answer. I just looked at him quietly.
When I said nothing, he sighed, walked over to the bed, sat down, and softened his voice.
"Frankie, Melanie is our neighbor, after all, and she's out here on her own, trying to make it in a city where she doesn't know a soul. When she has an emergency, isn't it only right for us, as her neighbors, to look out for her a little more?"
Those gentle words dragged me straight back to what had happened three years ago.
To end our long-distance life, I'd quit my job, hauled my heavy luggage to the exit at the Ashford station, and called him to come get me.
On the other end of the line, he'd turned me down, cold.
"Frankie, it's noon right now, my lunch break. You can't let your arrival throw off my routine. Take the subway over yourself."
I felt sorry for how hard he worked, so I chose to understand.
So I gritted my teeth and changed trains three times, alone in a strange city, before I finally reached the apartment.
And now, for Melanie Cobb, he could walk out during the intimacy window he'd scheduled himself.
The tears finally came. I looked at him and choked out the question:
"But Lance, she threw off our plan. Just now, we were supposed to..."
"Frances Heath!"
Before I could finish, the warmth drained from his face in an instant, and his voice turned thick with mockery.
"Are you really that desperate?"
I stared at him in disbelief, feeling the blood in my whole body go cold.
He seemed to sense he'd said too much. His brow creased, and he tossed it off carelessly.
"Fine. We'll make it up next time."
He tugged at the blanket and lay down with his back to me.
"Stop making a fuss. I've got a morning meeting tomorrow."
Before long, the even sound of his breathing drifted over from beside me.
I lay there in the dark, dazed, like a soul with no body left to hold it.
Only in that moment did it hit me, like waking from a dream, one cruel fact.
Lance Simmons never truly dealt with what I was feeling.
Just like now — I was still torn apart by what he'd said and done, while he had already fallen asleep with a clear conscience.
If I kept making a scene, maybe he'd humor me with a couple of soothing words.
