He showed me how he handled uncertainty.
Instead of asking, he tested.
Instead of discussing, he judged.
Instead of sitting across from me and explaining why my reaction bothered him, he walked out and left a note.
The breakup still hurt.
Seven years do not disappear because you suddenly understand why something ended.
There were memories attached to almost every part of my adult life.
There were plans I had assumed would happen.
A home.
Marriage.
Maybe children.
For a few hours that Valentine’s Day, I thought one of those plans was finally becoming real.
There really had been a ring.
There really had been a proposal planned.
But the part I eventually stopped mourning was the proposal itself.
Because marriage would not have magically solved the problem exposed at that table.
It would have carried it forward.
There would have been another test.
Another expectation I was supposed to understand without being told.
