Only one-seventh of Damian belonged to me. Every Wednesday, like clockwork, he would call. “Mal,” he’d ask, his voice smooth and measured through the speaker, “how has your week been?” It was always Wednesday. Only Wednesday. On Monday, a drunken stranger spent ten excruciating minutes kicking at the front door of my rented apartment. I hid inside the closet, my limbs shaking violently as I dialed his number. “The phone you are trying to reach is turned off.” On Tuesday, I was admitted to the hospital with acute pneumonia. The nurses needed a family member’s signature before administering the heavy-duty IV. I called him five times. “Line busy.” Outside of Wednesdays, his phone was a black hole. And every Wednesday, his excuse was as smooth as river stones: “I’m slammed at the clinic, Mal. My phone stays on silent most of the day.” “If you feel unsafe, move to a better building. If you’re sick, ask a coworker to sit with you.” “The situation is already over. There’s no point in transferring your anxiety onto me.” I genuinely believed he was just under immense pressure at work. Until this Wednesday. Wanting to surprise him, I saved up three days of paid leave and flew five hundred miles to his city. Standing in his home office, I found his leather-bound planner lying open on the desk. Every line was filled with neat, precise handwriting. “Monday: Escort Serena to her follow-up appointment.” “Tuesday: Serena is feeling down. Drive her to the coast to clear her mind.” “Thursday: Adopt a kitten with Serena.” The remaining days revolved entirely around her name. Only Wednesday had a faint, offhanded circle drawn around it, with a single initial scrawled in the margin: “M.” One-seventh of him was mine. Six-sevenths belonged to Serena. Suddenly, I didn’t even want that single seventh anymore. Something that isn’t whole isn’t worth keeping. … I tried dialing Damian’s cell again, but it went straight to voicemail. That was the rule of our relationship: the line only connected when he initiated the call on Wednesdays. When I called him, his phone was either turned off or permanently busy. The front desk assistant pushed open the heavy oak door of his private practice, offering me a tight, professional smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Ma’am, this is Dr. Ellis’s private therapy suite. Unauthorized guests aren’t allowed in here,” she said, motioning toward the hallway. “If you’d like to book a consultation, you can step up to the front desk. Please don’t linger.” I carefully placed the planner back where I’d found it. “I’m Damian’s girlfriend.” The assistant blinked, startled for a fraction of a second, before letting out a soft, amused laugh. “You must be joking. We all know Dr. Ellis’s girlfriend.” She leaned against the doorframe. “Miss Serena comes by the suite every week. Two days ago, she fell asleep on the lounge sofa, and Dr. Ellis made all of us hold our team meeting in the conference room on our feet so we wouldn’t wake her.” She pointed a polished nail toward the kitchenette. “You see that glass tea kettle over there? Dr. Ellis bought it specifically to brew herbal tea for Miss Serena’s stomach ulcers. He used to be a strict black coffee drinker—now he’s swapped out all our coffee beans for decaf.” I followed her gaze. On the granite counter sat two matching mugs. One was Damian’s usual cool gray ceramic. The other was a pastel pink glass shaped like a cat’s paw. Last month, he’d mentioned that the clinic had ordered a batch of customized couple’s mugs, including one in pink—my favorite color. I had foolishly assumed it was meant for me. The assistant pulled out her phone and slid it across the desk toward me. “If you still don’t believe me, take a look for yourself.” It was Damian’s social media page. Damian—a man who used to insist that spending time in the kitchen was an inefficient waste of energy—was wearing a dark apron, carefully monitoring a pot of slow-simmered broth on the stove. His caption read: “Cooking homemade soup for a special someone.” I lowered my head and opened my own phone. When I tapped into his profile from my account, there was nothing but a cold, blank divider. He had restricted me from seeing his posts. “All right,” I whispered. “I’ll go.” I turned and walked out of the practice, stepping onto the sidewalk and looking up blankly at the gray overcast sky. In this unfamiliar city, I had nowhere to go. I hailed a cab and gave the driver the address to Damian’s high-rise apartment. I rang the doorbell, but no one answered. With numb, freezing fingers, I typed my birthdate into the digital keypad. “My passcode will always be your birthday, Mal. You can come home whenever you want.” That was what he had told me the day he moved in. I entered the six digits three times. Each time, a harsh, mechanical chime buzzed back at me. The lock had been changed. So I stood there in the drafty hallway for two full hours, the chill seeping through the soles of my shoes. Until the elevator signaled with a soft “ding”. Serena stepped out, wrapped in an oversized cream cashmere coat that clearly belonged to Damian. She carried a tote bag filled with fresh groceries. Seeing me, a flicker of surprise crossed her eyes, quickly replaced by a soft, delicate smile. “Mal? Why are you standing out in the cold? Come on in.” She casually punched in a long string of numbers. The lock chimed softly. “Welcome home, Serena.” The door swung open, releasing a wave of central heat. Serena turned to me, resting a delicate finger against her lips. “Try to keep your voice down, Mal. Damian stayed up all night helping me through a panic attack. He didn’t fall asleep until dawn, so let’s not wake him.” She slipped her feet into a pair of plush pink rabbit slippers and offered me a pair of disposable ones from the closet. Inside the shoe rack, the light-blue slippers that had once been reserved for me were nowhere to be found. Damian came downstairs half an hour later. When his eyes fell on me, his steps faltered, and the faint relaxation around his mouth vanished completely. “Why didn’t you give me a heads-up before flying over here?” “I tried calling you,” I said softly. “Your phone was off.” “Are you blaming me again?” His voice instantly hardened. “I’ve explained this to you dozens of times—when I’m working with clients, I need absolute, undivided focus.” I gripped the hem of my sweater, the fabric bunching under my fingers. Serena stepped forward, pressing a mug of warm water into his hands. “Damian, don’t be so harsh. Mal just missed you.” Damian took a sip, his posture softening slightly, though his tone remained dry. “I’m not being harsh. I just wish she would learn to be a little more independent.” He turned his gaze back to me. “Mallory, you’re twenty-eight years old. Stop pulling these surprise drop-ins to check up on me. It’s exhausting and meaningless.” “Independent.” The word sank into my chest like a jagged shard of glass. I used to suffer from severe separation anxiety. When we first started dating, I couldn’t even walk down to the corner store at night without holding his hand. On stormy nights, I would burrow into his chest, refusing to sleep unless his arm was around me. In the dead of winter, I’d shove my ice-cold hands directly under his collar to steal his warmth. Back then, he would wrap his arms tightly around me with a gentle, exasperated laugh. “What are you going to do if I’m not around to take care of you?” But then he changed. My desire for closeness became a constraint; my reliance on him, a burden. “Mal, we both need breathing room,” he had told me when he decided to take the position in Chicago while leaving me behind in Charleston. “A long-distance dynamic will be good for us. It’ll force you to grow up.” So he left me alone in Charleston and built a life here, where Serena lived. During the first six months apart, I would sit in my empty living room after work, staring at the walls in total silence. I suffered from insomnia night after night, only able to drift off if I buried my face into an old button-down shirt he’d left behind. In the beginning, he called every night to talk me to sleep. Then it stretched to every two days, then every three. Until finally, it settled into Wednesdays. Until I was left with only one-seventh of a man. I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “You changed the passcode on the front door.” Damian pinched the bridge of his nose. “The system went through a security update two days ago, so I updated it while I was at it. Do you really need to make an issue out of something so trivial? You could have just rung the bell.” “I stood out there ringing it for ten minutes.” “Then I didn’t hear it. What do you want me to do about it now?” “Change it back.” “Fine,” he said without hesitation. “When I have a moment.” At ten that evening, Serena changed back into her street shoes and left. Finally, the apartment belonged to just the two of us. I showered and pulled the comforter up to my chin. Damian slid into bed behind me, his long arm draping over my waist. “You’re so rigid, Mal,” he murmured, his jaw resting in the curve of my shoulder. “You’ve changed so much. You used to curl up right against my chest before you could sleep. Why are you acting like a stranger?” I stared down at his forearm resting against my stomach. The silver promise ring I’d bought him years ago was missing from his wrist and fingers. “If I hadn’t forced myself to get used to sleeping alone,” I said quietly, “I would have lost my mind to insomnia a long time ago.” On those endless nights, I had stared at the ceiling until dawn broke through the blinds. Every text I sent him dissolved into silence, met only with an offhanded “Sorry, didn’t see this” on Wednesday evening. If I hadn’t learned to put myself to sleep, I would have burned out completely in the waiting. The arm around my waist stiffened. Damian let out a weary sigh. “Do you really have to bring up such depressing topics on the one night we actually get to see each other?” He pulled me an inch closer. “I know the distance hasn’t been easy on you. You’ve always wanted a pet, right? Once this busy stretch at the practice winds down, I’ll take you to pick out a kitten.” “I don’t like cats.” “Stop being difficult, Mal.” “I like dogs,” I said, my voice steady. “My whole life, I’ve only ever liked dogs.” He frowned into the darkness. “What’s the difference?” I reached down and firmly pried his hand off my waist. “There’s a massive difference. Your planner was very clear: on Thursday, you’re taking Serena to adopt a kitten. You got the person wrong, Damian. And you got the preference wrong.” He sat up abruptly, the warmth leaving his voice. “You went through my private belongings? Mallory, when did you turn into the kind of person who snoops through someone else’s office?” I felt the last thread of fight leave my body. The word that used to terrify me slipped out effortlessly. “Damian, let’s break up.” He stared at me in disbelief. “Break up? Because I misremembered whether you preferred cats or dogs?” He took a deep breath, deliberately dropping his pitch to a soft, therapeutic tone. “Mal, Serena has severe clinical depression. Her ex abandoned her, and she’s had intense suicidal ideation—you know how deep the cuts on her wrist were.” “She requires my professional intervention. As a healthy, functional adult, do you really lack this much basic empathy?” I couldn’t survive without him, so I was forced to become independent. Serena couldn’t survive without him, so she was granted his presence. My fingernails bit into the palms of my hands until my skin stung. Damian reached over, pulling me against his chest and lightly patting my back. “All right. Don’t cry. I promise you, once her condition stabilizes, I’ll wind down our private sessions and set firm boundaries, okay?” On the nightstand, his phone suddenly vibrated. It was Serena’s custom ringtone. He answered instantly. “Serena? What’s wrong? Hey, take a deep breath. I’m coming right over.” He didn’t even put on socks. Barefoot, he walked to the closet, pulling on a pair of slacks and a dark button-down shirt with practiced haste. “Serena is having a panic episode. I have to step out. Get some sleep.” After the front door clicked shut, I reached under my pillow and picked up my phone. I dialed my mother’s number. I swallowed the bitterness in my throat. “Mom… I’m thinking about moving back home soon.” My mother let out a bright, surprised laugh on the other end. “Really? Are you coming back to start planning the wedding with Damian? I’ll take off work tomorrow and start repainting your bedroom… We need to start looking at caterers…” “Mom,” I cut her off gently. “We broke up.” Silence stretched over the line for a long moment before my mother spoke again, her tone instantly softening into something tender and fierce. “Did my girl get her heart broken?” she asked softly. “It doesn’t matter what happened. Home is here. When you get back, I’ll make that crab bake you love.” Damian didn’t come back all night. By morning, I realized I had left my handbag at his clinic the previous afternoon—it had my driver’s license and my house keys inside. I called his phone. Unanswered. I gave a self-deprecating laugh, got dressed, and took a cab straight to his suite. Inside the consultation room, Serena was draped over the reclining leather armchair, her hair slightly tousled, her skin flushed. Damian was kneeling beside her, holding one of her wrists in his palm while using a soft towel to gently dab the perspiration from her forehead. They were so close their shoulders touched, wrapped in an intimacy that looked effortlessly natural. “Damian… you stayed with me all night. Won’t Mallory be upset?” “Even if she is, I couldn’t just leave you when you were in crisis.” I pushed the heavy oak door open. It swung inward with a low squeak. Damian looked up, his expression freezing for a brief second. “What are you doing here?” He stood up smoothly. “Serena just had a severe episode. She’s still emotionally unstable, so I’m stabilizing her. Don’t overthink this.” Serena’s eyes flushed red. “Mal, please don’t misunderstand… Damian is just far too responsible…” “I came to get my bag,” I said, walking past them toward the shelving unit. Before my hand could reach the leather strap, violent shouts echoed down the hallway outside. “Quack! Get out here!” A man with bloodshot eyes burst through the doorway, clutching a small glass prescription bottle. He pointed a trembling finger at Damian, screaming at the top of his lungs. “What kind of sleeping medication did you prescribe my wife yesterday?! She swallowed it and went straight into comatose shock! The ER doctor said the dosage was three times the maximum limit!” Serena let out a sharp shriek, shrinking into the corner of the room, trembling violently. “It was you!” the man roared, his eyes locking onto the corner. “You handed her the bottle yesterday!” He raised his arm, preparing to hurl the thick glass bottle with all his strength. It happened in the span of a single heartbeat. Damian suddenly grabbed my arm and shoved me violently into the space between the man and the corner. He stepped back, covering Serena with his body. “It wasn’t her!” Damian shouted at the man. “You’ve got the wrong person! The girl who handled the medications yesterday wasn’t her—it was this one!” He was pointing at me. A high-pitched ringing echoed in my ears. The heavy glass bottle left the man’s hand, flying through the air and smashing directly against my collarbone and hand. A sharp, searing pain exploded down my nerve endings. I remembered a time when I had nicked my finger slicing an apple, and Damian had turned the apartment upside down looking for the first-aid kit, his hands shaking as he bandaged a tiny one-centimeter cut. Now, to shield another woman from a mess of his own making, he had thrown me into the line of fire. Security guards rushed through the door, tackling the enraged man to the floor. The police arrived shortly after, cuffing him and leading him away. The consultation room was left in ruin. Once Serena’s hysterical crying finally settled into quiet sniffling, Damian seemed to snap back to reality. He rushed toward me, dropping to his knees on the carpet. His face drained of color as he saw me sitting on the floor, my hand soaked in crimson. His hands hovered over my wound, trembling, afraid to touch me. The panic on his face looked almost comical. “Mal… I…” “I was just trying to de-escalate him,” he stammered, his voice tight. “I didn’t think he’d actually throw it. Serena can’t handle any physical trauma right now, so I had to secure her first.” “I’m her therapist first, Mal, before I’m your boyfriend. You understand that, right?” The cut throbbed painfully, but inside my chest, everything had gone eerily, terrifyingly quiet. Blood was seeping into the cuff of my sleeve. I forced myself to stand up, ignoring the sharp pang in my shoulder. “No, Damian. I don’t.” He reached out to support me. “Mal, let me take you to the emergency room.” I took a step back, dodging his reach. “No need. I can go myself.” As I turned toward the door, Damian called after me, his tone laced with mounting frustration. “Mallory!” “You didn’t use to be like this! You used to need me to hold your hand just to get a routine flu shot! You wouldn’t even look at the nurse! You needed me to bandage a tiny cut on your finger!” I stopped at the threshold and looked back over my shoulder. “Damian,” I said quietly, “you got what you wanted. I’m independent now.” Behind me, Damian’s breath hitched sharply, accompanied by Serena’s muffled, theatrical weeping. I didn’t turn back. I walked out of the building and made my way to the urgent care clinic down the street. After the doctor stitched and bandaged my hand, I headed straight to the station and bought a one-way ticket back home.
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