He Shared Our Intimacy with a Stranger

For eight years, Mia and Danny Wells have been each other's whole world, surviving the seven-year itch and meeting each other's families. Now a third-year resident at a top teaching hospital, Danny is swamped by his shifts in Seattle, while Mia is far away. She plans to surprise him for his birthday, and he still reports his whereabouts to her as always.

Then Mia stumbles on a forum thread: a woman counting her Snapchat streak with Danny, mocking his unseen girlfriend as uneducated and lovesick, and boasting she can prove her devotion through practical action. At the ramen place where Danny is eating with colleagues, Mia watches a girl named Ronnie mix his dipping sauce and hears the table call the pair a destined power couple. When someone asks about his birthday, Danny says only that he has a girlfriend, long-distance, and admits he has regrets he forces himself to accept.

Ronnie then recites the two lines Mia once sent him, and the table laughs. In that second, Danny becomes unforgivable, and Mia walks out into the Seattle rain with her suitcase.