Three days later, Ethan still hadn’t realized I was serious.

Maybe that was the saddest part.

For eight years, I had loved him so openly that he had become convinced my love was permanent.

No matter how many times he chose Bianca.

No matter how many nights I waited alone.

No matter how many humiliations he disguised as jokes.

He believed I would always be there.

On the morning of my flight to Yunnan, I packed one suitcase.

Everything else stayed behind.

The dresses Ethan bought me.

The framed photographs.

The necklace he gave me on our third anniversary.

Even the engagement ring I had worn for years despite the fact that every conversation about marriage somehow ended with:

“What’s the rush? We’re basically married already.”

Apparently, he had been right.

He already had a wife.

Just not me.

I placed my keys beside the ring and left.

At the airport, Ethan finally called.

“Maya, where are you?”

His voice was irritated.

Not worried.

Not frightened.

I looked through the glass at the plane waiting outside.

“Airport.”

There was silence.

Then he laughed.

“You’re really doing this?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know.”

His tone changed.

“Maya, stop being ridiculous. Bianca’s birthday is this weekend. I already told everyone we’d go together.”

I almost smiled.

Even then, his first concern was Bianca.

“I won’t be there.”

“Then come back after your little tantrum.”

“My resignation was approved yesterday.”

This time, the silence lasted longer.

“What?”

“I quit my job.”

“Maya.”

“And I moved out.”

His breathing stopped for a second.

Then his voice hardened.

“Over a stupid contact name?”

“No.”

I watched people walk toward the boarding gate.

“Over eight years of stupid things I kept pretending didn’t matter.”

He started talking quickly.

About misunderstandings.

About friendship.

About how Bianca had always been part of his life.

Then he said the sentence I had heard a hundred times.

“You knew what she meant to me when we started dating.”

“Yes.”

I closed my eyes.

“I just didn’t understand what I meant to you.”

The boarding announcement sounded.

“Maya, don’t get on that plane.”

Eight years ago, those words would have stopped me.

Three days ago, they might have made me hesitate.

But something inside me had already gone quiet.

“Goodbye, Ethan.”

I ended the call.

Then I blocked his number.

Yunnan was colder than I expected.

My new job wouldn’t start for another month, so I rented a small apartment near a lake.

The first week, I slept.

The second, I started eating properly again.

The third, I realized my stomach barely hurt anymore.

It was strange.

For years, I thought I had terrible gastritis.

Maybe what I really had was a life that made me sick.

My friends told me Ethan was looking for me.

He went to my old office.

He contacted my sister.

He even showed up at my parents’ house.

I told everyone the same thing.

Don’t give him my address.

Then, one evening, an unfamiliar number called.

I almost ignored it.

But I answered.

“Maya.”

Bianca.

I said nothing.

Her voice was different from the sugary tone she’d used that morning.

“Ethan and I aren’t together.”

I looked out at the lake.

“That has nothing to do with me.”

“He’s been acting crazy since you left.”

Still nothing to do with me.

Then she suddenly snapped.

“You really think you won?”

I laughed.

It surprised both of us.

“Bianca, I wasn’t competing.”

“You’ve always been jealous of me.”

“No. I was tired of being asked to tolerate you.”

She went quiet.

Then she said coldly:

“He chose me because I’ve known him longer.”

That sentence would once have destroyed me.

Now it sounded almost childish.

“If he chose you, why are you calling me?”

She hung up.

Two weeks later, Ethan found me.

I was leaving a café when I saw him standing across the street.

He looked exhausted.

For the first time since I’d known him, his clothes were wrinkled.

“Maya.”

I kept walking.

He grabbed my wrist.

I looked down at his hand.

He immediately released me.

“Please.”

That word sounded strange coming from him.

“I came all this way.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“I know.”

His eyes were red.

“I broke things off with Bianca.”

“There was nothing to break off, remember?”

His face tightened.

“It wasn’t what you think.”

I almost admired his persistence.

Even now.

Even after crossing hundreds of kilometers.

He still couldn’t simply tell the truth.

“Ethan, I heard her.”

“It was one night.”

I stared at him.

His expression changed the moment he realized what he had admitted.

One night.

So there had been something.

He stepped closer.

“I was drunk. We crossed a line. I regretted it immediately.”

“Our anniversary.”

He lowered his head.

“I know.”

“You left me waiting on our anniversary and slept with her.”

“I made a mistake.”

“No.”

My voice was calm.

“You made thousands of choices.”

He looked up.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you chose her when you gave her my seat. You chose her when you abandoned me at that gas station. You chose her every time she humiliated me and you called me insecure.”

His lips trembled.

“You chose her when I told you I was sick and you took my medicine to her.”

“Maya…”

“And you chose her that night.”

Tears finally appeared in his eyes.

“I’ll fix it.”

That was when I understood something.

Ethan genuinely believed love was a broken object he could repair whenever he finally felt like trying.

But love wasn’t a cup.

You couldn’t smash it against the floor repeatedly and expect glue to make it new.

“I don’t love you anymore.”

His face went completely still.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“You’re angry.”

“No.”

“You’ve loved me since university.”

“I did.”

The past tense hurt him more than anything else.

He reached into his pocket.

Then he pulled out a small velvet box.

My heart didn’t move.

He opened it.

A diamond ring.

“I bought this before coming here.”

For years, I had imagined that moment.

Ethan kneeling.

Ethan finally choosing me.

Ethan asking me to become his wife.

Instead, standing beside a quiet street in Yunnan, I felt almost nothing.

He lowered himself onto one knee.

“Maya Luo, marry me.”

People nearby turned to look.

I stepped backward.

Eight years ago, Ethan had knelt in the rain and promised there would only ever be me.

Now he knelt again.

But I wasn’t the same woman listening.

“No.”

His face collapsed.

“Maya, please.”

I shook my head.

“You should go home.”

“I don’t have a home without you.”

I looked at him for a long moment.

Then I said the truth he should have understood years ago.

“You did.”

“You just kept leaving it to go somewhere else.”

I walked away.

This time, Ethan didn’t follow.

Six months later, I heard through an old friend that Bianca had gotten engaged.

Not to Ethan.

Apparently, after I left, Ethan had finally tried to make their relationship official.

Bianca rejected him.

She told him she had never wanted responsibility.

She only liked knowing she could take him away from me whenever she wanted.

For once, I didn’t feel satisfaction.

I felt nothing.

By then, I had a new apartment, a new job, and a life that no longer required me to beg anyone to choose me.

One morning, Siri misunderstood something I said and opened my contacts.

Ethan’s old name appeared in the search history.

I stared at it for a second.

Then I deleted it.

Eight years disappeared with one swipe.

And strangely, that was when I finally smiled.

Because leaving Ethan hadn’t been the moment I lost the man I loved.

It was the moment I stopped losing myself. pasted