No-Refund Romance

Chapter 1

At a friends’ get-together, my best friend sent me a link.

[How do I make my girlfriend of ten years dump me]

I swore under my breath and tapped it open.

The poster was my boyfriend.

The title and the avatar hit me at the same time, my mind went blank.

First thought, my friend had to be mistaken.

My hands shook as I scrolled to the top and read every word.

The more I read, the heavier it sat in my chest.

The post was detailed.

Painfully detailed, every little thing laid out so neatly that not believing it felt like lying to myself.

He wrote about how hard it was to win me over, how giddy and golden those first months were.

Then I bombed an exam, and to stay close to me he quietly applied to a college near mine without telling anyone.

After graduation, work put us in different cities, a long stretch apart. We saved more than four hundred round-trip stubs. Back then he must have loved me, he wanted me cushioned in his palms. He never called it hard.

He could read my moods even when I dipped for no reason.

He would go off his food, buy a ticket in the middle of the night, and sit twelve hours on a train just to see me.

It felt like he had endless energy, endless affection.

He wrote that he did not know when it changed, only that he grew tired.

Then came the car accident. I almost died getting him out. One arm never fully healed. I cannot lift anything heavy anymore.

He was afraid of being the villain, so he would not be the one to say it first.

But he was done with me.

He could not stand being around me. He did not want updates about my day.

Sometimes just the sound of my voice set his nerves on fire, and at his worst he wanted to spit, “Why don’t you just die.”

I do not know how I made it to the end of the post.

I do not know how I ended up opening the comments.

Most people said the same thing, that when a guy acts like this he already has someone else, and the girlfriend becomes the speed bump on his way to a new love, so of course everything she does annoys him.

He did not reply.

He liked one answer.

[OP, I get you. I wanted out after three years. She was such an idiot. Missed every hint. Loved me so hard she lost her pride, and it made me sick. I almost cheated.]

I do not know if he liked it because he thinks I am that idiot who disgusts him, or because he almost cheated too.

“Olivia, what’s wrong, why are you crying”

Someone across the table asked.

Ethan looked up from his phone.

His brow ticked, then he pulled a napkin and dabbed my tears, his voice flat and impatient.

“We’re at dinner, why are you crying”

The woman next to me tried to joke.

“You two have been solid for years. Honestly, whenever I run into a jerk, thinking of you and Ethan gives me faith in love again.”

That used to make me melt.

Now I could barely breathe.

All I could see was that thread.

I turned and looked at Ethan.

He has always been like this in public, the impatience in his tone, the clipped sentences.

But he never slacked in what he did for me.

So I never questioned it. Compared to all the talkers who never show up, Ethan seemed like the better deal.

I even told myself it was our odd little dynamic.

I never thought the impatience was real, real enough to make him wish me dead.

Or maybe he really did fall for someone else and cheat.

Chapter 2

I barely spoke on the drive home.

I used to tell him every little thing, and he would keep quiet.

If I kept going, he would pinch my cheeks with his fingers and say, "You never stop, can you just be quiet"

I would bite his finger and say, "No."

Then I would look up and smile, soft as I could be. He was cool on the surface, but we had both given so much that I never questioned us.

I did not know where we went wrong.

Maybe he was simply tired.

Maybe there was someone else.

Back at the apartment, I stayed quiet.

Before, he would have noticed right away and asked what was up. Tonight he just looked relieved and said, "I am going to game, you go to bed."

He could not wait to get away.

I stared at the study door after he shut it. In the shower I could not hold it in, I crouched and cried.

We had ten years together, Ethan and I. In those ten years there were so many points when he could have broken it off.

When I tanked an exam and he aced his, when he could have gone to the school of his dreams.

After college when work split us between two cities, more than six hundred miles apart.

Not once did I imagine it would come now, when I loved him enough to believe we were unbreakable and could make a life together.

I did not know if he was walking too fast or I was too slow, I just never matched his pace.

We had already made it through the hardest years. The moment I believed I would love him to the end, he was already restless.

I do not know how long I cried in the bathroom. When I came out, the study door was ajar. I heard his low laugh, the kind he uses to soothe someone.

I pushed the door and he did not notice.

I thought of that reply he liked.

I stood there a while, then went back to the couch and waited for him.

I thought about everything I might have done wrong. When exactly he started to pull away. All the odd little changes lately.

No matter how I turned it over, it kept landing on the same question.

If he really had someone else, what was I supposed to do.

He played until midnight, then came out.

There was a smile he had not managed to hide. The second he saw me on the couch, it vanished. His face tightened.

"Why are you still up"

I looked at him.

"Ethan Brooks, can we talk"

"It is late, talk about what, you already talk all day, can I just get some sleep"

He started for the bedroom.

My eyes stung.

I do not know how I used to convince myself that it was just a sharp tongue and we were comfortable after so many years, that he still loved me underneath it.

Right before he stepped into the room, I finally asked what had been burning in my head since that post.

"Ethan Brooks, did you fall for someone else"

His face changed.

"I spend a few hours gaming and you jump to I am into someone else, what next, the minute I travel for work you will say I am shacking up with someone, Olivia Hart, do I not get one inch of personal space anymore, do I have to be glued to you twenty four seven"

As if one more word from me would strip him of every bit of privacy.

It choked off everything I was about to say.

He grabbed his pillow and walked back to the study. "I am sleeping in here tonight."

He did not care how I felt, not even a little.

Two years ago he was still upset about doing distance. The night I fainted and almost did not make it to the ER in time, his eyes were red from crying.

When I woke up, he held me so tight I thought he would fold me into his chest.

"You scared me to death just now," he said.

Then he made up his mind to give up his path and be with me. He was afraid it would happen again and he would regret it for life.

That Ethan, the one who loved me so much.

How did he stop loving me right when I dropped everything and ran to him.

I sat on the couch.

I opened that thread again and read it over and over, plus the reply he had liked.

My eyes burned, tears fell and dotted the screen.

I wanted to go to the study and force the talk, to ask if he truly had feelings for someone else.

I was afraid of what he would say, so I sat there the whole night.

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