"After surviving something like that, we both knew. We were meant to be. We got married without a second thought."
The ache in my chest deepened until it was unbearable. I had never felt so pathetic in my entire life.
So while I'd been glued to the news back home, sleepless and sick with dread, crying until I had nothing left, he'd been overseas. With her. By her side the whole time.
When the news of his death reached me, grief tore me apart. I passed out from crying, again and again.
I'd been clutching his clothes, burying my face in the fading scent of him, ready to end my own life—and all that time, he'd already found someone else. Already chosen her. Already planning a wedding.
"When we first got together, I had a falling-out with my roommate. I was going to rent some cheap place in the old quarter, but he took every penny he'd saved and bought me an apartment near work. Put it in my name."
The memory surfaced without warning.
When we were looking for a place to rent, the sun-facing rooms cost two hundred dollars more a month. I couldn't bring myself to spend it, so I lived in a room with no sunlight for two years.
My clothes never dried properly. I got a urinary tract infection.