On the Day of the Earthquake, My Fiancé Left Me for Another Woman Chapter 1

On the day the San Francisco earthquake hit, Liam told me he had joined the hospital's emergency response team and was leaving that very night.

I calmly packed his suitcase for him. As he dragged it toward the front door, I stopped him and asked, "Do you think you really know me?"

He looked back at me, frowning, clearly confused by the question.

"Like... what's my Myers-Briggs personality type?" I smiled faintly. "Never mind. Have a safe trip."

We had an appointment at City Hall this Thursday to get our marriage license.

To make that happen, I had worked overtime for the better part of a month just so I could take a half-day off during the workweek.

But after he derailed my plans time and time again, I realized our relationship had reached its absolute limit.

* * *

Perhaps because I hadn't been an emotionally supportive girlfriend during this brief separation, Liam took the initiative to call me at 11:30 PM on Thursday.

It sounded like he had belatedly realized today was the day we were supposed to get married. His voice was exhausted as he offered apologies.

I stared at the blinking cursor on my Word document. I had been sitting there since 10:00 PM and had managed to type exactly two lines. Only other fiction writers understand the absolute agony of writer's block.

His phone call chased away a fleeting spark of inspiration in my brain. Just like every other time he broke a promise, it made me incredibly irritable. Naturally, my tone wasn't great. "Yeah, I know. Get some sleep."

I was about to hang up when he quickly added, "The hospital will give me a few days off when I get back. We can go get the license then."

A person with good morals probably shouldn't say something upsetting to a doctor who is risking his life to save earthquake victims. But I believed that dragging things out would only cause more pain.

Since he wasn't going to be part of my future plans, he shouldn't be interrupting my present.

My work was important to me, too.

"I'm afraid that won't work," I rejected him coldly. "Liam, from now on, my reasons for taking time off have nothing to do with you."

"What does that mean?" He paused for a moment before asking.

"It means we're breaking up." I sounded like I was reading a corporate memo. "We've had a lot of happy memories over the years, but regardless, I wish you all the best in the future."

I hung up, blocked his number, and deleted his contact.

To make a clean break, I even unfriended him on Venmo.

That weekend, I packed up everything that belonged to him and had it delivered to his old apartment. I changed the passcode on my front door, deleted his fingerprint access, and then unblocked his number just long enough to text him: When you get back from SF, go straight to your own apartment. Don't come here.

Then, I blocked him again.

That night, Liam used a random phone number to call me. He patiently and gently apologized again. "Chloe, it was wrong of me to postpone getting our license without talking to you first. But I thought you would understand. I am a doctor first, and myself second."

"I know," I replied, my fingers flying aggressively across my mechanical keyboard. "I genuinely praise and admire your decision to volunteer in the disaster zone. But if you think our problems are just because you postponed a piece of paper... Liam, you're insulting my intelligence."

"If you're going to keep acting oblivious, stop calling me. It does nothing but ruin my mood."

Before today, I was willing to speak to him politely when breaking up.

But after seeing an article published by the media company I used to work for, everything about Liam suddenly made me sick.

Even though it was an entertainment gossip blog, during a massive event like the San Francisco earthquake, they pivoted to disaster coverage. However, the writers were still gossip columnists at heart. Under a clickbait headline like "Race Against Time: Gorgeous Doctors Perform Joint Brain Surgery," the article subtly tried to ship the two attractive neurosurgeons involved.

The handsome doctor was Liam.

The gorgeous doctor was the woman he had secretly written about ten years ago on a postcard at a tourist trap: "Unrequited love is miserable. I'm just waiting for the woman I love to break up with her boyfriend."

I don't know what state of mind a twenty-one-year-old Liam was in when he wrote that sentence.

But ever since I accidentally discovered that photo with his desperate confession written on the back, all the strange, subtle shifts in Liam's behavior recently made perfect sense.