Part 2No One’s Waiting for Him Anymore

When I saw Marcus again, he had matured.

I asked him what he liked so much about me that he was still asking me out after all these years.

"What did you like so much about Leo?" he countered.

The shadows of the trees danced on our faces, half in light, half in darkness, obscuring our expressions.

"Whenever Leo was around," he said, "your eyes would follow him. Even when you were doing your own thing, you couldn't help but sneak glances at him."

So everyone knew. Everyone could see how much I had loved him.

"Now that you're over him," Marcus said, his voice earnest, "why not give me a try?"

He asked so seriously. It reminded me of a spring night years ago, when Leo had asked me the same thing.

Two years after we graduated from college, Leo's grandmother fell gravely ill. His family pressured him to take over the company, to find a stable girlfriend, to get married, to have children.

One night, he got incredibly drunk and grabbed my hand. "Clara, be my girlfriend, just for a while. My family adores you."

"If I'm with you, they'll stop worrying."

"Besides," he slurred, "you don't like any of the guys I set you up with. So why not give me a try?"

When we were little and played house, Leo was always the dad, and I was always the mom. He used to ask his parents, "When can I grow up? I want to marry Clara."

I was a sickly child, and Leo would refuse to go to school, insisting on staying by my side. He'd tell my parents, "You don't take good care of Clara! I'm taking her home with me!"

But as we grew up, I was the only one who remembered those promises. Over time, they became an obsession I couldn't escape.

Maybe if I just had him, the pain would stop.

My heart hammered in my chest. I grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him.

Leo and I continued that ambiguous relationship for a long time. It was a confusing, intoxicating entanglement. Sometimes, in moments of passion, he would whisper "baby" in my ear.

It made me brave enough to ask him once, my voice barely a whisper, "Do you like me? Even a little?"

He lazily lifted his eyelids, not having heard me clearly. "What?"

But my courage failed me. I couldn't bring myself to ask again. I just let his hand rest over my heart.

During his grandmother's final days, Leo knelt on one knee in her hospital room and proposed to me. Our hands were clasped so tightly they were slick with sweat, but neither of us let go. The two rings he held clinked together with a clear, sharp sound.

For a moment, I almost believed I had finally found the happiness I'd been chasing.

In the winter of my twenty-fourth year, Leo's grandmother passed away.

It was a long time before our two families gathered for a meal again. Afterwards, Leo offered to drive me home. In the car, he slipped the ring off his finger and tried to put it on mine, alongside the one I was already wearing.

"It's a little big. You should get it resized."

"This was just to make my grandmother happy," he said casually. "Now that she's gone, it doesn't really mean anything."

"But I remember you really seemed to like these when we picked them out, so you can have them both."

I froze. Leo reached out and playfully pinched my cheek. "You didn't actually think I was going to marry you, did you? We agreed this was just pretend."

"We're adults, Clara."

I stared at him for a long, silent moment.

Then, I started to laugh. It was true. Loving Leo all these years was like holding a glass while someone kept pouring boiling water into it. Eventually, the pain becomes unbearable, and you have no choice but to let go.

Fine, delicate snowflakes drifted down from the sky, landing on my eyelashes like tears.

"You don't need to drive me home."

After graduation, Leo and I had both moved out of our parents' houses and gotten our own places. He lived downtown, I lived in the suburbs. We hadn't been on the same path for a long time.