15
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A month later.
I was listening to music in a bar when I overheard Lucas’s friends at the next table, both men and women.
I was wearing a baseball cap pulled low, dressed all in black and huddled in a corner, so they didn’t recognize me.
I heard my name in their gossip.
So Lucas wanted to break up with me.
He said it had dragged on too long, we were both tired of it, both fed up.
I thought for a while, then started packing up things at home.
Clothes, shoes, toothbrush and cup, and some of the so–called tacky decorations I had forcibly brought in – big and small, everything that belonged to me, I gathered it all up.
This way, when his new girlfriend moves in, she won’t argue with him over seeing things I left behind.
I packed up these odds and ends, taking most to the dump and selling some secondhand.
Among them were our wedding photos from when we traveled abroad with the family on a whim. Aunt and Uncle had a copy too. In the past I really treasured them, hanging them in the most prominent place at home.
But of course these couldn’t be sold secondhand, so I had to throw them away.
Before leaving, I took one last look around the house.
Alright.
Not a trace of me left.
Oh wait.
I left a big brown teddy bear on the living room sofa.
I had bought it because I thought it looked like Lucas.
I pinned a note to it.
“Teddy bear for Zoe.”
How much did Lucas like Zoe?
That time when the three of us were in the car together, I was driving, Lucas was in the passenger seat.
Zoe was sitting behind me.
When we were hit by that out–of–control truck, Lucas shielded me from the flying debris, but the deformed car body trapped me tightly. My legs were pinned under the steering wheel, shattered glass piercing my thighs, blood flowing freely.
Maybe it was the body’s self–protection mechanism, but at that moment I felt numb, I couldn’t even feel the pain.
I heard Zoe’s painful moans from behind. Lucas, ignoring his broken arm, got out of the car to open her door and carry her out.
Only after that did he have the energy to tend to me.
