Chapter 2

"How come you're at the hospital?" My friend paused and asked instinctively.

I replied, "My brother William was in a car accident. I'm here to take care of him."

"Oh, is William alright?" he asked.

"Yeah, he's fine," I replied.

Even my friend knew the right thing to ask first. But Victor? Not a single word of concern from him.

Out of hundreds of messages, all I got was suspicion and mistrust.

Victor acted like my messages were invisible, just venting his anger in the chat, completely ignoring me.

"Emily," my friend said, now understanding the situation and hesitating before speaking. "Victor was probably just worried because you weren't replying or picking up.

"You know how it is with couples..."

He trailed off, not finishing his sentence. Maybe he realized he didn't really have a leg to stand on.

After tossing out an excuse, my friend hung up. The hallway fell silent again.

I couldn't sleep, so I opened up our chat.

I started scrolling through all the little moments Victor and I had shared.

He was the cool, aloof guy everyone admired in the computer science department.

I relentlessly chased him for ages before he finally agreed to be with me.

But then he said, "I should warn you. I have separation anxiety. You need to answer my texts and calls immediately, every time.

"You can't be away from me for too long, and you need to let me know exactly where you are and what you're doing, even the little things."

Back then, Victor blushed and stammered, "If you can't handle that, then I guess I can't be with you."

I was head over heels for Victor. There was nothing I couldn't accept.

Besides, checking in with him all the time just felt like a sweet little ritual of happiness.

I thumped my chest and swore, "I'll make sure you can always find me, Victor."

At first, we were really sweet together. I'd check in with him on my own, and Victor never got too clingy.

But then, after we graduated from college and I started job hunting, things changed.

When I went out for a graduation dinner with my roommate and our professor, that was the first time Victor showed his separation anxiety.

I'd already told him the date and time of the dinner.

But the moment he found out our professor was a man, Victor totally lost it.

He snapped, "You're not going. You can't leave me. Are you trying to dump me?

"Emily, you're not going. If you go, we're done."

I tried everything to convince him, even pulled out a family photo to show the professor was just a harmless old guy.

I explained, "Ryan Ruiz's got grandkids, and he's retiring this year. I'm just..."

"No!" Victor grabbed my keys and phone, then locked me inside the apartment.

When the dinner was over, I saw a message from my roommate: [Emily, if you didn't want to come, that's one thing.

[But did you really have to report Professor Ruiz? That's just disgusting.]

It turned out Victor had taken my phone and sent a complaint to the counselor.

He used my name to accuse Ryan of harassing me. Ryan got called in, and the whole dinner was ruined.

I was at my breaking point and stormed over to confront Victor.

But he just looked at me with a wounded expression. "Emily, I love you. I have separation anxiety.

"I can't handle you having dinner with another guy.

"Emily, everything I do is because I love you. How can you not believe me?

"Emily, do you still love me? You do, right? Please, tell me you do."

Victor was so desperate and vulnerable that I just couldn't bring myself to refuse him.

Fortunately, the accusation was completely unfounded, and Ryan was still able to retire honorably.

But after that, Victor turned into someone I barely recognized.

If more than three minutes went by without a reply, he'd start blowing up my phone until I finally picked up.

And replying wasn't enough. I had to apologize over and over, practically begging him to forgive me.

Only then would Victor finally let it go.