Too Late, I've Moved On

Synopsis

For six years of marriage, Madeline Lane never remembered my birthday. Every year, I'd buy myself a birthday cake. When she saw it, she'd casually ask, "What's today?" At first, I'd smile and remind her. But after a while, I stopped. This year was the only time I told her a month in advance, "My birthday is on the eighth of next month. Can you have dinner with me?" She didn't look up from her phone and replied, "Sure." On my birthday, she left early, and I waited at home alone until nightfall. When the door opened, she was holding a huge bouquet of roses. The moment I saw the roses, my heart skipped a beat. I thought that after six years she finally remembered. But then she handed me the flowers and said, "I took Ethan to a concert. He said you liked them, so I grabbed them for you on the way back." I looked down at the bouquet. The wrapping paper was crumpled, and the petals were a little wilted. Obviously, something someone else didn't want. I took them and said, "They're pretty." She had always been like this. She was away on business on my birthday. When I broke my leg and was in the hospital for a week, she didn't visit me once. But when Ethan casually mentioned craving something from a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, she'd take a day off and drive forty miles just to pick it up for him. It wasn't that she didn't have time. She gave all her free time to someone else. This was the first time I didn't want to wait for her to put me first anymore.