Farewell, My Lover

It was the middle of the night when I woke up, wanting to look at the photos Matt had taken of me trying on wedding dresses. Instead, I found a string of texts: “Nina, I’m getting married soon.” “Seven years… I guess it’s time to move on.” “I wish it was you trying on wedding dresses with me today.”

1.

I’d been trying on dresses all day and crashed as soon as I got home. I woke up sometime in the dead of night and instinctively reached for Matt beside me, but the space was empty. The shower was running. My stomach growled the second I threw off the covers, like the duvet was some kind of hunger seal. Matt was probably starving too, judging by how quickly he’d passed out earlier. I grabbed my phone and ordered a large portion of our favorite dumplings. Tossing my phone aside, my gaze landed on Matt’s. I punched in his passcode and opened his photo gallery, eager to see the pictures of me in the wedding dresses. A grin spread across my face as I scrolled through them. I remembered the look on Matt’s face when I’d stepped out from behind the curtain. He’d stared at me for ages, completely speechless, his eyes full of… something I couldn’t quite place. Then they’d welled up. It took him a long moment to find his voice. “God, Lily, you’re finally marrying me,” he’d choked out. My heart had hammered in my chest.

I locked his phone, but before I could put it down, the screen lit up with a new text message: “Matt, I’m coming back to the States.” I hesitated. Snooping wasn’t my style. I’d always believed Matt was a good guy, the right guy. But something compelled me to open the message. There were only a few texts in the thread, the most recent one a picture of me in one of the wedding dresses.

Matt: “Nina, I’m getting married soon.”

Matt: “Seven years… I guess it’s time to move on.”

Matt: “I wish it was you trying on wedding dresses with me today.”

There was no reply until just now, Nina’s message about arriving back in the States. My heart sank like a stone.

2.

We’d been together for four years, and I knew Matt had an ex named Nina. He rarely spoke about her, but I'd pieced together a picture of her from his friends. She was his "one that got away," the pure, untouchable first love. They’d met in high school. Back then, Matt wasn't the successful entrepreneur he was now, just a lonely, picked-on orphan. Nina had been his light in those dark days. She’d “saved” him, they’d gone to college together, built a life together, become the campus power couple. Just after graduation, as Matt was planning to propose, Nina had dumped him out of the blue and moved abroad. Everyone, including his friends, had been shocked. “If they hadn't broken up,” one of them had sighed, “Matt would probably be a dad by now.”

The bathroom door opened with a click. Matt stepped out, water dripping from his hair, a loose robe hanging around his frame. “Lily, I’m starving,” he murmured. He noticed his phone in my hand and froze. I looked up at him silently, then turned the sc...