I bravely saved someone but hit my head. My girlfriend of eight years came to visit me in the hospital. I pretended to have amnesia and jokingly asked her who she was. She paused, then her voice calm, she said, “We’re classmates.” Classmates… I stared at Chloe’s face, my girlfriend of eight years, trying to find a hint of a joke, but there was none. She was serious, and so… calm. I forced a strained smile. The words “Just kidding!” got stuck in my throat. Classmates? Not even close friends. I wondered if she would’ve even come if the doctor hadn’t called her. But I didn’t question her. I just put on a normal smile. Watching her glued to her phone the entire time, my eyes darkened. I replied, “If you’re busy, you don’t have to…” “I actually am quite busy. Since you’re fine, I’ll head out.” She cut me off before I could even finish, grabbed her bag, and walked out. Maybe I still held a tiny bit of importance in her heart. After she pulled the door open, she turned back and looked at me, cautioning, “Get some good rest.” A faint smile lingered on my face, and I politely nodded. But that smile didn’t last long. The moment she left, it vanished from my face. Chloe and I had been together for eight years, ever since university. But no one at the company knew about our relationship. At first, we just felt workplace romance was a bit awkward. Later, we both became directors, each leading our own departments, competing for sales. At that point, it was even harder to go public. But the company didn’t forbid dating. Sometimes I’d ask her about going public, but she’d always just smile it off. Sometimes, I even doubted if our relationship was just a shell of what it once was. Now, I didn’t have to doubt anymore. She’d wanted to break up for a long time, hadn’t she? The doctor told Chloe I was fine. But when my condition didn’t match what the doctor said—when it was contradictory—she didn’t question it. She even flatly stated we were just classmates. Maybe she didn’t care if I had real amnesia or was faking it. Or more accurately, she just wanted to use those words to make her stance clear. After all, if we broke up, she could be with Leo.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t noticed her changes. We’d been together for eight years, over two thousand nine hundred days and nights. We knew each other inside out, so close we were practically one person. I could spot her abnormal reactions instantly. Back then, a new employee, a pretty handsome guy named Leo, joined her team. Only our Chairman shared the surname “Eleanor” in the entire company. And coincidentally, when Leo filled out his personal information, he listed Eleanor as his mother, Eleanor Smith. At first, Chloe would explain to me that she was taking care of Leo because he was young, just graduated, and the Chairman’s son, so she had to look after him carefully. She even told me not to worry, saying she wasn’t into that puppy-dog type. But Chloe didn’t know that the “puppy-dog” she claimed was young and just graduated was actually three years older than me. Later, I needed a video for work. My laptop wasn’t handy, so I borrowed Chloe’s. But to my surprise, her password had changed. I called her to get it, and that’s when I found out her password was Leo’s birthday. Just as I was naively thinking it was a coincidence, her wallpaper had changed too. It was a photo of a bar, and the main subject in the picture was clearly the hand of some guy making a heart shape. I remembered, she used to be super bossy, telling me not to change my wallpaper, and she promised she wouldn’t change hers either. So for years, my computer wallpaper was her photo, and her computer wallpaper was my photo. I also remembered she hated places like bars. Perhaps Chloe belatedly remembered this, because just after I opened her laptop, she immediately called me back. “Alex, that wallpaper? An old employee accidentally changed it for me.” She told me not to overthink it. I believed her, but after that, she never let me touch her computer again. I don’t know if she changed it back. But she also didn’t know that I actually knew who that man was the whole time, because his hand was too distinctive. There were many similar incidents after that, like the celebration dinner the company held when she landed a big deal. I was working on another project at the time, so I didn’t go to that party. That day I was so busy I couldn’t even eat, but I still called Chloe right away to congratulate her. I even had a surprise planned for her. But she didn’t answer the phone. Maybe she was busy. I sent her a text, but she didn’t reply to that either. Until I saw her post on Ins: she was holding a bouquet of roses, smiling so sweetly. I’d sent her Lisianthus, her favorite. Leo also posted on Ins that day, and he too was holding a bouquet of roses, grinning widely. Their photo location and poses were identical. At first glance, it looked like they were about to go public. Chloe even left a comment on his post: *Don’t forget to grab dinner.* I can’t remember how I felt then, only that the day after that happened, I saw the flowers I’d sent her in the trash can outside the company. And in her office, there was that bouquet of roses. She once told me she hated roses, calling them tacky. But it turns out, people eventually become tacky.
I stayed in the hospital for two days. After my last check-up confirmed I was fine, I was discharged. Chloe hadn’t contacted me at all during these two days, not even a message about me being discharged. But thankfully, she did buy me my favorite cake. So I decided to give her one more chance. I placed the cake on a chair and called Chloe, my voice gentle. “Chloe, I’m discharged today. Could you come pick me up?” We silently agreed not to mention my amnesia stunt. There was a moment of silence on the other end. After a while, she finally spoke: “I’m a bit busy over here. How about you come back on your own?” She asked tentatively, and it was my turn to fall silent. Then she offered to call a car for me. I just shot back, “How busy could you possibly be?” My words clearly caught her off guard, because I’d never been so sarcastic with her before. And I knew the company was currently in a restructuring phase; it shouldn’t have been that busy. Yet she was telling me she was busy. I could even hear faint, noisy singing in the background. She didn’t answer, maybe still processing, but I just hung up, laughing at myself a little bitterly. Love or not love, it’s always so obvious. I remembered that summer when I was working out of town. I suddenly came down with a high fever. Drowsily, I called Chloe. Then I fell asleep—actually, I passed out from the fever. When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed, and she was tiredly watching over me, her eyes bloodshot. She said she sensed something was wrong with me and rushed over from another city overnight. She hadn’t even had time to change out of her pajamas and slippers. “Alex, you have no idea how scared I was when I was banging on your door and you weren’t answering me.” “When I saw you lying unconscious in bed, I nearly lost my mind!” “Thank goodness, you’re awake now.” She buried her head in my chest, my shirt soaked with her tears. Back then, she really cared about me. But now, all I could say was, things change, people change. I expressionlessly tossed the cake into the trash can. Suddenly, a girl walked up to me and softly asked, “You don’t like it?” I was stunned. She immediately explained, “I’m the little girl you saved back then! I just got out for summer break these past few days, so I’m sorry I’m late.” “I heard you were getting discharged today, so, this is a small gift for you. If you don’t like it… then if there’s anything else you need, I… I’ll do my best to help you.” So, the cake was from someone else. I apologized to the girl, explaining the misunderstanding. Inside, I was laughing bitterly at myself. This time, Chloe and I were truly over.
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