A Farewell to Waiting

The cellphone vibrated once on the table. It was Forster Chester's Twitter avatar flashing. Opening the chat window, the first message read, "Make dinner tonight." No small talk, no asking how I'd been these past three days. Then, a picture popped up. A silver necklace lay in a black velvet box, the moon pendant shimmering with tiny sparks. I stared at that photo for a few seconds. I remembered why we'd been cold for the last three days — he worked overtime till late, I made porridge waiting for him, but then I saw a "Good night" message from Rue Limbaugh on his cellphone. I asked him what was going on, he said I was making a fuss over nothing, then slammed the door and went into the guest room. We haven't said a single word to each other in these three days. He probably thought a necklace alone could bury this whole thing. I hadn't even started typing when a new message popped up. "Rue James's coming too, cook some extra food, she's been eating well lately." The name "Rue James" hit my heart like little stones tossed into an already calm lake. I walked to the entrance hall where three silver suitcases stood side by side, their zippers tightly closed, each tagged with "Ava Limbaugh" in my handwriting. I grabbed my cellphone and took a photo of the suitcases. Before pressing send, I hesitated for two seconds. Should I say a bit more? Like explain why we're breaking up? But then I thought, maybe it wasn't necessary after all. In the end, I just sent one message: "Forster, we're already broken up." After sending it, I put my cellphone down on the shoe cabinet. I turned around and kept sorting through the books in the living room, packing them into boxes one by one.