Boyfriend Stood Me Up Seventeen Times And Said Next Time—I Quit Chapter 05

Boyfriend Stood Me Up Seventeen Times And Said Next Time—I Quit Chapter 05

I glanced out the airplane window one last time. The city lights stretched out bright and endless below.

The glow brought me back to when I was eighteen. Julian held my hand under a streetlamp and made a promise.

“I’ll never let you be alone, Chloe.”

I’d believed every word back then.

I learned later that promises aren’t broken only when someone lies. They break when the person who made them simply forgets.

I powered off my phone and stepped onto the jet bridge.

The plane lifted off into the sky, and I did not shed a tear.

I pulled a small notebook out of my carry-on bag and flipped to the final page.

For the past three months, I’d kept a running list inside it.

The first time Julian forgot something important to me.

The second time.

The seventeenth time.

I’d written down the exact date and what had happened each and every time.

I used to think keeping track like this was ridiculous.

Why tally up every hurt like balancing a ledger when you loved

someone?

Eventually, I understood why I did it.

When disappointment piles up for too long, you start questioning yourself.

Am I being too sensitive?

Am I overreacting over a bag, a meal, some pain meds? Is all of this really worth throwing away twenty years together?

I needed those words written down in black and white. They stopped me from falling for his empty excuses time and time again.

The plane soared through the clouds. I closed the notebook gently.

I whispered to myself, quiet but firm.

“That’s enough, Chloe.”

I found out later what happened right after I sent that text.

Julian was standing in front of Tiffany’s birthday cake at that very moment.

Tiffany closed her eyes and folded her hands to make a wish, her voice soft and sweet.

“I wish Julian would spend every single birthday with me from now on.”

The coworkers around them teased and cheered.

“Wow, that’s basically a confession!”

Tiffany blushed and looked over at him shyly.

Julian held a lighter to the candles, but his mind was elsewhere.

He kept replaying the sight of me standing by the refrigerator that morning.

I’d told him I could never drink strawberry milk, not since we were eighteen, all because of him.

He’d brushed it off back then, annoyed that I was bringing up old memories.

Now, the memory flooded back sharp and clear.

I’d spent three days sick in the hospital because of that expired milk.

I’d been pale and weak, yet I’d smiled and told him it wasn’t his fault.

He’d cried uncontrollably while holding my hand that day.

He swore he would remember every single little thing about me forever after.

What had he actually remembered, though?

“Tiffany, the candles are burning down!” she urged him.

Julian snapped back to the present. His phone lit up in his hand a second later.

He read my message.

[No need, Julian. I’m gone. I’m on the flight tonight.]

[From now on, we walk separate paths.]

Sienna told me later that his face turned deathly pale in an instant.

Tiffany reached out to grab his arm, confused.

“Julian, what’s wrong?”

He shoved her away roughly before she could touch him.

The cake tipped sideways, smearing frosting all over her dress. She let out a shocked cry.

Julian paid her no mind at all. He grabbed his car keys and bolted for the door.

“Julian! You promised to stay with me tonight!” Tiffany called after him.

He never slowed his pace.

“Move aside.”

“But it’s my birthday!”

“Yesterday was Chloe’s birthday too.”

He froze mid-step after saying the words.

He had known all along.

He had just realized it far too late.