Girlfriend's lie

The heroic act that landed me in the hospital with a concussion also brought my eight-year girlfriend, Jessica Miller, to my bedside. Playing a little game, I pretended to have amnesia and asked her who she was.

She hesitated, then replied calmly, "We went to school together."

1.

We went to school together… I stared at Jessica, searching for a flicker of a joke in her eyes, but there was none. She was serious, and…distant. I forced a smile, the words "Just kidding" catching in my throat. Schoolmates? Not even friends.

It hit me that if the doctor hadn’t called, she probably wouldn't have come at all. But I didn’t confront her. I just kept up the charade, offering a weak smile. As she stared at her phone, my heart sank. "If you’re busy, you don't have to…"

"I am actually pretty busy. Since you’re okay, I’ll get going," she interrupted, grabbing her purse and heading for the door.

Perhaps I still held a sliver of significance in her heart because she paused at the door, glancing back. "Take care," she offered.

I nodded politely, the smile fading the moment she left. Jessica and I had been together for eight years, since college. We kept our relationship secret at work, initially because we thought office romances were frowned upon. Later, as we both became directors, leading competing teams, it seemed even more complicated. But the company didn't forbid dating. I’d asked her about going public, but she always brushed it off.

Sometimes, I wondered if our relationship was already over in her mind. Now, I didn’t have to wonder anymore.

She’d wanted out for a while, hadn’t she? The doctor told Jessica I was fine, and when my story contradicted his, she didn’t question it. She simply declared us former classmates. Perhaps she didn’t care whether my amnesia was real or fake. Or maybe, more accurately, she was just making her position clear. After all, if we were broken up, she’d be free to be with Ethan.

2.

I’d seen the changes. Eight years, nearly three thousand days and nights – we knew each other inside and out. Her shift in behavior was obvious.

It started when a new guy, Ethan Blake, joined her team. He was good-looking. The only person in the company with the last name Blake was our CEO, Katherine Blake. And wouldn’t you know it, Ethan listed Katherine as his mother on his employee paperwork.

At first, Jessica explained away her attentiveness to Ethan, saying he was young, fresh out of college, and the CEO’s son, so she needed to look after him. She assured me I had nothing to worry about; she wasn’t interested in “puppy-dog types” like him. Jessica didn't know that her "puppy-dog," fresh out of college, was three years older than me.

Then, I needed a video file and borrowed Jessica's laptop. Her password had changed. When I called her, she told me the new one: Ethan's birthday.

I naively dismissed it as a coincidence, until I saw her desktop background – a photo from a bar, featuring a man’s hand making a heart shape. I remembered h...