Part 2He Shared Our Intimacy with a Stranger

I remembered the first time I visited him in college.

He dragged me to his lecture, desperate for his professor and every classmate to know I was his girlfriend.

A student in the front row simply asked if it was raining outside.

Danny, ignoring the question entirely, grabbed my hand, his eyes shining. “How did you know my girlfriend was here?”

He’s not that person now.

His one sentence contained an answer, a caveat, and an implication.

Ronnie couldn’t stop herself from speaking up.

“Are there no good options closer to you? Are you not working hard enough? Why are you trying to maintain a relationship that gives you absolutely no professional benefit?”

Danny was silent for a moment. “I don’t look at emotional connections in terms of benefit.”

“Then let’s talk about feelings! Does she know how exhausted you are, how much pressure you’re under? Don’t you have a single regret?”

Ronnie’s voice was strained, thick with suppressed tears and fierce resentment.

The entire table fell quiet.

After what felt like an eternity, I finally heard Danny’s voice.

He said, “I have regrets, yes. But I force myself to be okay with it.”

“And my situation right now doesn’t allow for messy emotions.”

...

I shut my eyes tightly.

It was my fault.

I was the reason he had regrets.

I was the one forcing him to compromise and settle.

I was the one who put him in a position where he couldn’t let his mind wander.

But he seemed to have forgotten: we got together in the first place because we were each other’s whole circle.

“Alright, alright, this isn’t the right place to hash this out. Danny, what do you want for your birthday?”

Someone tried to lighten the mood.

Ronnie huffed defiantly. “I don’t know what you guys are getting, but I know what his precious girlfriend sent him last year. A card with two lines, not even complete sentences.”

“She couldn’t write two full sentences? Danny’s girlfriend can’t be that uneducated, can she?”

Ronnie glanced at Danny and continued her rant. “I wouldn’t be so sure. It was something like, Be safe and stay well, and Always by my side. Seriously, so lovesick. I mean, if she couldn’t come up with something original, she could at least copy a decent quote!”

I gripped my chopsticks, staring blankly. I didn’t even notice the boiling water splashing onto my hand.

Last year, for Danny’s birthday, my research advisor had me running data analysis for two straight days.

It was the first birthday we hadn’t celebrated together since we started dating.

I had tried to write a long, heartfelt letter, pages to prove how vital he was to me.

But I wrote and rewrote, and every time, I realized the only two things I truly wanted to say were those two lines:

Be safe and stay well.

Always by my side.

My earnest, sacred words were now a joke. A casual punchline at my expense.

In that one second, Danny Wells became unforgivable.