Ryan broke up with me again. This time, I thought about going to the river to clear my head, just like I did when he first dumped me at eighteen. But the wind off the water was freezing. Screw it, I'm going home. On the way back, I passed a BBQ joint. I figured I'd be too heartbroken to eat, just like when I was twenty. Turns out the guy makes a mean brisket. Finally got home and thought about doing what I'd done at twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four—sending Ryan one of those pathetic "please take me back" essays. But then my boss texted. Business trip. I spent nearly a month in the next city over, practically launching a whole second career. Ryan finally cracked and called me. "Why haven't you apologized yet?" That's when I realized I'd forgotten something. Getting older makes heartbreak complicated in weird ways. I tested the waters: "Sorry, sorry—been swamped. Forgot to write the essay." "So... should we just call it quits?" 1 My friends were talking about how Ryan was planning to propose. Ryan just smiled, all casual about it. "Why would I need to propose? Zoe's obviously going to marry me." "When it happens, Maya's going to be my bridesmaid. She's been asking me about it forever." I couldn't even tell what mattered more to him—marrying me or having his childhood friend Maya as a bridesmaid. I took a sip of water. "I've already got bridesmaids lined up. My college roommates. We made a pact—whoever gets married, the rest of us stand up there together." Ryan didn't even look at me. "So add another bridesmaid." "Can't. There's four of them. You can't have an odd number of bridesmaids. It's bad luck." He sounded irritated. "Then find someone random. Maya's never been a bridesmaid. Can't you just do this one thing for her?" Everyone else had gone quiet. They'd seen us fight like this before. They never got involved because I always ended up apologizing, and Ryan would give me the cold shoulder for a couple days before we made up. Nobody wants to be the clown in someone else's relationship drama. This time I stood my ground. "No thanks. I want to make my own decisions about my wedding." Ryan got in my face. "What if I insist?" I didn't answer, but Ryan got the message. He lost it. "Fine! We're done, Zoe. Don't contact me again." He stormed out, leaving everyone else awkwardly frozen. After I said my goodbyes, people tried to lighten the mood. "Zoe's got this under control. She'll get Ryan back. That's just how guys are—go sweet-talk him and it'll blow over." "Zoe, you can't spoil men like that. The more you baby them, the worse they get. You've been way too good to him!" "That wedding date you guys picked was mediocre anyway. Let me have my uncle check his calendar—he's got a gift. None of the couples whose dates he's picked have gotten divorced." I smiled but didn't say anything. 2 I wandered around alone, trying to clear my head. My mind kept replaying everything between Ryan and me over the years. We'd had crushes on each other in high school, made it official in college. Survived the brutal long-distance phase, made it through the endless adjustments of living together. Every stage had its failures. Every time, I'd fought like hell to fix things. I kept asking myself: why? Is this what love is supposed to be—this humiliating? Shouldn't love be about compromise? About supporting each other? But every time I decided to leave, another voice would pipe up: "If you quit now, doesn't that make all those years of effort a complete joke?" So I'd grit my teeth and keep going, hoping I could make him see, hoping we'd actually make it. Lost in thought, I ended up at the river. I used to call it "Tear River" as a joke—it was close to campus, and starting with that first breakup, it had witnessed countless crying sessions over this relationship. But tonight it was freezing. Before I could even get properly melancholy, I had goosebumps. I pulled my jacket tighter. Forget it. I'll be sad at home. I turned around and spotted the BBQ place. Funny thing—I'd been here plenty of times. Once, after a fight with Ryan, I rage-ordered fifty skewers and couldn't choke down a single bite. The owner's skills had seriously improved. I'd just come from dinner but got sucked in by the smell of grilled meat. Didn't want to repeat history, so I only ordered twenty skewers. Polished them off and realized I could've ordered more. When your mouth's busy and your stomach's full, your heart doesn't feel quite so empty. Standing at my front door, I hesitated. We'd lived together so long—every corner of this little place held memories of our life together. But when I opened the door and saw the overflowing trash that nobody had taken out, the empty drink bottles lying around, the shoes scattered everywhere—I felt more angry than sad. The anger seemed to burn up all my tears. After I cleaned everything up, I opened my phone to hide some posts so I wouldn't torture myself later, and saw my boss had tagged me in the group chat with feedback on my proposal. By the time I closed the document, dawn was breaking. I was shocked to realize the first day after the breakup had just... passed. So in that fresh morning light, I blocked Ryan on everything. 3 Ryan never came back. I knew he was waiting for me to cave. I figured I would too—I'd done it so many times before. Humbling yourself for love stops feeling humiliating after a while. But every time I picked up my phone, something more urgent came up. Either I had to submit a proposal or a client needed something. Before I knew it, eight or nine days had passed without any contact. I'd somehow accomplished something I thought was impossible, and it wasn't nearly as torturous as I'd imagined. At the morning meeting, my supervisor said we had an important client and needed to send someone to be on-site until the project wrapped—at least a year and a half. I raised my hand without thinking. He looked at me. "Single people get priority." "I'm single," I shot back. The whole conference room laughed. Everyone knew about my legendary relationship with Ryan. But when the supervisor asked around, nobody else volunteered. Makes sense—leaving headquarters for that long could make your position awkward when you got back. Career-wise, it wasn't the smart move. But for me, besides getting some distance from Ryan so I could think clearly about the relationship, the client was in Harbor City—a place I'd always wanted to go. Ryan had never been willing to leave. For him, nowhere was more comfortable than here, so he refused to go anywhere else. He wouldn't even let me visit Harbor City for vacation. Friends joked that he was afraid I'd go and never come back. I could only smile. In the end, the supervisor picked me—you can't force someone who doesn't want to go. Before I left, he warned me repeatedly: "You can't bail on this, okay? Whatever happens with your boyfriend, you've got to see this year and a half through." I smiled. "Mission accepted." 4 My first days in Harbor City were genuinely hectic. I worked overtime for two straight weeks, didn't even have time to find my own place. Just stayed in the hotel the client arranged. It wasn't until the third weekend that I finally had time to explore. The city looked pretty much like it did in all the blogs and magazines I'd read, but being there in person revealed all these different kinds of beauty. I thought: I made the right call coming here. When my mom called, I was actually surprised. It had been over a year since our last conversation ended badly. They'd started pressuring me to get married at twenty-five and kept at it until I was twenty-eight with no results. Then they actually found Ryan's contact info on my phone and reached out to him directly. I could imagine how nasty they'd been—Ryan didn't speak to me for a whole month after that call. My mom has a nice voice, actually. I just don't know how she manages to say such awful, soul-crushing things with it. "You're not seriously planning to wait until you're thirty to get married, are you? We could dig eight generations back in the family tree and not find anyone like you." "Well, I'm expanding your horizons then." "I don't have time for your nonsense. Your sister saw on your social media that you broke up with that Ryan guy. Is it true? You used to make up after a few days, but I've been watching—it's been a while this time. Is it really over?" I said impatiently, "If you've got something to say, just say it. Don't beat around the bush. I've got work." "That temper of yours—just like your father. No wonder you two can't be in the same room." "If you don't get to the point, I'm hanging up." I heard my mom's voice rush out: "Don't hang up! I just wanted to ask—if you're free this weekend, your aunt set you up with someone. Want to meet him? He works in your city." "Oh, well, probably not the same city anymore. I forgot to tell you guys—I moved." 5 My mom's voice suddenly got louder. "Why are you changing jobs again for no reason? You've always been like this since you were little—way too headstrong." Too tired to argue, I cut to the chase. "Is this guy one of Aunt's clients or her boss? Or does she have some connection to him? Otherwise she wouldn't be pushing so hard." My mom, who'd been so loud a second ago, started hemming and hawing. "Well, he's the son of your cousin's boss, but his credentials are really good! Your aunt wouldn't set you up with someone bad, would she?" I have no idea how she could say that without a shred of shame. If she were standing in front of me, I'd definitely check to see if she was even blushing. "Are you sure about that?" "Do you have to be so sarcastic? So last year your aunt introduced you to someone who was a little inappropriate—she cried and apologized! She really didn't know about his situation, or why would she have introduced you?" I was too tired to argue. If she didn't know anything about him, why did she insist on setting us up in the first place? My dear aunt had introduced me to an armed robber. After I refused multiple times, she gave him my address. If Ryan hadn't come home when he did that night, I don't know what would've happened in that dark stairwell. I only found out later that the guy was the nephew of one of my aunt's big clients. She'd asked my mom for a photo and sent it without doing any research. When he expressed interest, she immediately handed over my address. The whole thing happened without my involvement. When I wanted to go to the police, my aunt made it clear she wouldn't testify—she couldn't afford to offend that big client. So the whole thing just got swept under the rug. And now she's back at it. "Tell Aunt to stop using me as a bargaining chip. Otherwise when I come home for the holidays and lose my mind, don't say I'm mentally ill." "You ungrateful child!" 6 The moment I hung up, everything felt peaceful. I'd never realized how wonderful a quiet environment could be. I efficiently finished revising a proposal and dropped it in the work chat. The client team responded with a stream of praise emojis that made me feel pretty good about myself. I posted on social media: Another day of crushing it. I'd always had decent social connections, but I was surprised by how much engagement this post got. Lots of friends left comments. Zoe's all about her career now! I tried to meet up with you all week and you were too busy. Turns out you were home working? Still working? Your castle walls are about to fall, you know that? Why haven't you deleted that breakup post yet? Haven't you guys made up? Did you not put enough effort into the surprise this time? You're totally ignoring us strategic advisors. I replied to each one: Been on a business trip. Let's hang when I'm back. My heart is the castle, and it's empty. We didn't make up. Right after I replied, my phone rang. It was the girlfriend of one of Ryan's buddies—we used to have dinner together a lot. "Where have you been living it up, Zoe?" "Just working. Pretty busy lately." She paused, then said quietly, "Are you on a business trip? I stopped by your place the other day and knocked, but you weren't home." "Yeah, I'm out of town. Did you need something?" She quickly said, "No, no, just haven't seen you in a while. Wanted to grab dinner." "Sure, I'll call you when I'm back from this trip." "Sounds good!" I was about to hang up when I heard her say, "Have you heard about Ryan and Maya lately?" I told the truth. "Not really. Been really busy." I didn't want to engage, but she kept going anyway. "Ryan and Maya have been super public lately. They're showing up together at all these parties. I heard Ryan gave her a huge diamond ring for her birthday!" "Everyone's speculating about whether they're getting together. Ryan hasn't confirmed anything. We all figured he's still waiting for you to apologize!" I found myself laughing. Before she could continue, I asked, "What exactly did I do wrong?" She hesitated. "Huh? But you've always been the one to apologize before. I thought this time you'd also—" "I apologized because I still cared. But what if I don't care anymore?" I heard a loud door slam on her end. And Ryan's friend yelling, "Ryan!"
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