“Stop overthinking it. Picking you up and dropping you off has never been a hassle to me. I'd happily go out of my way for you for the rest of my life.”
That was what he used to say. Last month, I was running late and asked him to drop me at the office.
He frowned and said：“You're a grown woman, not a grade schooler. Don't you think it's embarrassing, needing a ride every single day?”
I tapped back to the comment someone had left me earlier.
Replied：“You're right. It really is time I started relying on myself.”
Maybe the moment I hit send, I finally let go of whatever I still felt for Cliff Harding.
I put the phone down and slept like I was falling into nothing.
When I drifted back to consciousness, the first thing I heard was Trudy Swanson's voice, sharp with fury.
“Tracey, are you an idiot? You had a fever and you didn't take anything, and you didn't even tell me?”
“If I hadn't thought to call you when I did, you would've fried your lungs for good.”
Her anger was laced with the kind of fear that comes after the danger has already passed.
“I'm sorry……”
I'd scared her. I wanted to apologize, but the moment I opened my mouth my voice came out so wrecked and sandpaper-rough I couldn't even finish the word.
“Enough. Your throat's still inflamed. Stop talking.”
Trudy glared at me, exasperated.
Then muttered, “What is Cliff, dead? I called him a bunch of times and he didn't pick up once.”
“He used to lose his mind when you got sick. Now he can't even be reached by phone.”
Junior year, winter.
I'd spiked a sudden high fever. By the time Trudy noticed, it was already three in the morning, and she couldn't get me to the hospital alone. So she called Cliff.
It was the coldest night of the year. He had me on his back, unconscious, running through empty streets with no one else around, his voice shaking the whole way：“Tracey, you're gonna be fine. I'm almost there. I'm almost there.”
“Trace, hang on. We're so close.”
By the time he reached the hospital, sweat was soaking his hair and tears were running down his face.
His eyes wild with panic.
When I woke up, even the doctor couldn't help saying：“Young lady, you've got good taste. A boyfriend who loves you that much? Hold on to him.”
I looked where she was looking.
Cliff was slumped in a chair outside the room, clothes rumpled, eyes closed, asleep.
She said：“He was afraid his snoring would wake you. No matter how much I told him to come inside, he refused. Just fell asleep out there like that.”
Back then, his love was the kind nobody could question.
And I'd thought, stupidly, that I would never marry anyone but Cliff Harding.
It never occurred to me that his love would burn out like fireworks—five years, and it was gone.
I spent two days in the hospital.
Cliff didn't call once.
I didn't let myself care.
The day I was discharged,
I asked Trudy：“Are you free? Come look at cars with me.”
Trudy stared at me, stunned.
“Cliff drives you to and from work every day. Why would you buy a car?”
I pressed my lips together.
And told her everything that had happened recently.
Including the part about him giving my medicine to someone else.
Trudy was livid before I even finished.
“How did I never see what a scumbag he is? Stringing two women along, and while you're lying there sick he takes your meds and gives them to her? He can drop dead! Break up with him. Break up with him right now!”
Breaking up was a given.
I'd just been too sick to deal with it.
I nodded.
Took out my phone and sent him the breakup text.
“Now can you come look at cars with me?”
I wasn't just buying a car. I needed a new place to live.
We were done. I couldn't keep staying at his apartment.
