What the Sea Wind Took

Ten years into our secret relationship, Alex pulled out a ring at a yacht party. He leaned against the deck railing, his tone lazy. "Actually, I'm planning to propose tonight. " The crowd erupted instantly. Someone whistled, someone pounded on a table telling him to get down on one knee, and guessed who the mystery woman he'd kept hidden for ten years might be. I stood at the back of the crowd, so nervous my breathing came in ragged bursts. For ten years, Alex had never publicly acknowledged our relationship. During the hardest days of his startup, he said investors didn't like founders weighed down by romantic attachments. Then, once he became New York's most sought-after biotech rising star, the excuse became that the board and the media loved scrutinizing his personal life. Time after time, I believed he just wasn't ready yet. For him, I gave up a research position at Harvard, lost our child, and didn't even make it to my mother's bedside before she died. And now, he had finally pulled out a ring. Without even thinking, I reached for the pair of dark blue cufflinks in my pocket. I had spent three months of my savings to craft them as a tenth-anniversary gift. But he didn't stop in front of me. He brushed past me, walked up to Lillian, who had just returned to New York after ending her second marriage in Europe, and dropped to one knee. The deck fell silent for a heartbeat, then erupted into even louder cheers. Alex slid the ring onto Lillian's finger, and smiled carelessly. "See? Told you she wouldn't dare make a scene even after seeing the ring. Ten years, and when has she ever really stood up to me?" Lillian looked past his shoulder at me, undisguised triumph gleaming in her eyes. So the proposal hadn't been spontaneous. They had bet on whether I would make a scene. I wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes and turned to leave. So ten years really could be worth this little. Chapter 1 "Professor Harris, about the position you've been holding for me. I've decided to accept it." I held my phone, standing on the empty deck at the stern of the yacht. The sea wind pressed my hair flat against the side of my face, but my voice was calmer than I had expected. The line went quiet for a few seconds. "Evelyn, are you sure?" Professor Harris's tone carried both surprise and caution. "Two months ago you told me your partner was in New York and that you wanted to stay there. The lab kept this opportunity open because I believe in your ability, but once you sign the appointment papers this time, you can't back out again for personal reasons." I looked down at my hands. The pair of dark blue cufflinks had pressed two deep red marks into my palm. On the inside of each cufflink, a tiny line of engraved text: From nothing, to side by side. Those were words Alex had said to me ten years ago, when he was first starting his company. Back then, he couldn't afford an office, so we squeezed into a leaky attic apartment in Brooklyn. He handled the investor pitches while I organized his experimental data, revised his business plans, and reached out to clinical partners. At our poorest, we shared a single cold sandwich, and he held me and said, "When I make it, I'll make sure everyone knows you're the one who stood by me all the way." He made it. But everyone only knew him as the genius founder who had built everything from scratch. No one knew I had helped him build the company's earliest technical framework. No one knew that every time a project spiraled out of control, it was me working behind the scenes to patch the holes. "I'm sure." I slowly curled my fingers shut. "I don't have a partner anymore." Professor Harris didn't press further. He simply said, "Then come back. Boston winters are cold, but the lab will always have a place for you." "Thank you, Professor." I hung up. Behind me, cheers erupted again from the cabin. "Kiss her!" "Alex, you're finally acting like a man!" Through the floor-to-ceiling glass, I watched Alex lean down and press a kiss to Lillian's forehead. Someone knocked over the champagne tower, golden liquid running down the white tablecloth onto the floor. Fireworks bloomed over the dark ocean, and everyone was cheering for them. I walked to the stern alone and opened my palm. Over ten years, I had walked beside Alex from debt-ridden graduate student to newly minted mogul with an entire Manhattan office building to his name. The year I received Harvard's research invitation, his first funding round had just fallen through. Creditors blocked the entrance to his rental apartment, and he had broken two ribs in a fight. I carried him on my back through a blizzard for a long time before flagging down a car willing to take us to the hospital. Lying in the hospital bed, eyes bloodshot, he grabbed my hand. "Evelyn, I have nothing right now. If you leave too, I won't make it. Please stay. Once the company stabilizes, I'll go to Boston with you." I stayed. Later, I got pregnant unexpectedly. The company was fighting for a make-or-break partnership at the time, and Alex had been living in the office for a month straight. I flew to Chicago on his behalf to handle the regulatory paperwork and started hemorrhaging at the airport. The doctor said the baby was gone, and because of the damage to my body, future pregnancies would be far more difficult for me than for most people. Alex knelt by the hospital bed and swore he would never let me suffer again. Then my mother fell critically ill. He was courting a key investor who would only negotiate with me. I closed the deal for him in the conference room. By the time I rushed home, my mother had already stopped breathing. It wasn't that I never regretted it. But every time I did, Alex would hold me and say we were working toward a shared future. I believed all those sacrifices would one day earn me a family I could claim openly. Until tonight, when he traded away ten years of my dignity with a single ring, just to make Lillian smile. "Told you she wouldn't dare make a scene." He was certain I couldn't leave him, certain that even after being publicly humiliated, I would go back to the apartment as always and have his soup waiting. I walked to the edge of the deck without hesitation and uncurled my fingers. The pair of dark blue cufflinks plunged into the sea without a sound. Just like ten years of my youth, swallowed silently by the darkness. I pulled my coat tight around me and walked down the gangway off the yacht. The shore was bitterly cold, the sea wind carrying the smell of salt and damp wood. I opened a ride-hailing app and typed in the Manhattan apartment address. Behind me, a boom shook the air as fireworks lit up half the harbor. I didn't look back. Chapter 2 I pushed open the apartment door. Inside, everything was dark. On the living room coffee table sat the pot of soup I had made that afternoon. Alex had a weak stomach and hadn't eaten before the party. Worried he'd come home in pain, I had poured the soup into a thermos to keep it warm. I walked over, twisted off the lid, and poured every drop down the kitchen sink. The faint smell of herbs was washed away by the cold water. I went back to the bedroom and dragged a dust-covered suitcase from the bottom of the closet. Ten years sounded like a long time, but the things that truly belonged to me amounted to pathetically little. The closet was full of dresses, handbags, and coats Alex had sent over. Every time he broke a promise, denied our relationship in public, or left me sitting alone in a restaurant because of a phone call from Lillian, he would have his assistant deliver an expensive gift. I used to read those gifts as apologies. Now I understood they were just the price he paid for my silence. I didn't take a single one. I packed only a few old sweaters I had bought myself, two pairs of jeans, my research notebooks, and the old watch my mother had left me. Before I finished packing, the door lock clicked. Alex was back. The bedroom door swung open. He reeked of alcohol and Lillian's signature white floral perfume. His tie hung loose across his chest, and a smear of lipstick marked his collar. Seeing me crouched on the floor packing a suitcase, he frowned slightly but showed no trace of alarm. "Why'd you leave early tonight?" He leaned against the doorframe, his tone steady as if nothing had happened. "Didn't even say goodbye. Lillian asked if you were feeling sick." I went on folding clothes without answering. He walked in and looked down at me. "Lillian just went through a terrible marriage. She's been in a bad place emotionally. Everyone was there tonight, so I made a little bet using you to cheer her up. The ring was a party prop. The engagement was a joke. Don't take it seriously." He reduced a proposal that had trampled my dignity in front of everyone to a joke. I placed my mother's watch in the inner pocket of the suitcase and zipped it shut. When I still didn't speak, he grew impatient but put on his usual magnanimous air. "I know you feel wronged. How about this: I'll transfer the beachfront villa on Long Island into your name tomorrow and get you a new car. Weren't you eyeing that silver sports car in the magazine last month?" He tossed a set of keys onto the bed, his tone like someone coaxing a child who couldn't take a hint. "Be good, Evelyn. Don't ruin everyone's night over one party." In his eyes, ten years of devotion and tonight's humiliation could all be settled with a house and a car. I finally stood up and looked him straight in the eye. "Alex." "What?" He raised an eyebrow. "You're going to dig up old grudges again? Use the baby and your mother to guilt me into apologizing?" Something roared in my head. He knew those were my deepest wounds, and he could still throw them in my face that easily. "You proposed to Lillian in front of everyone just to make her happy and bet on whether I'd fight back." I looked into his eyes and said every word slowly. "And now you're using my mother and my baby to shut me up?" Alex's brow immediately furrowed, irritation flashing in his eyes. "Why bring up the past? Your mother's gone, and it's not like you have zero chance of having kids down the line. Do you really have to dig all that up right now and kill the mood?" Kill the mood. Ten years of blood and tears, and in his eyes, it was just killing the mood. He seemed to realize he'd gone too far and stepped forward to hold me. "Come on, don't do this. I'll cancel my lunch tomorrow and take you car shopping. Pick whatever you want, okay?" His hand hadn't reached my shoulder when his phone suddenly rang. A ringtone he had set for exactly one person. Alex froze, then immediately pulled out his phone. Lillian's name was on the screen. When he answered, his voice softened instantly. "What's wrong?" A woman's tearful voice came through the phone. "The hotel lost power, and there's thunder outside. I'm alone in my room, and I'm a little scared. Can you come over?" Without looking at me, Alex turned and headed for the door. "Don't be scared. I'm on my way. Lock the door and don't open it for anyone." He grabbed the car keys from the bed. At the doorway, as if suddenly remembering I existed, he said without turning around, "I'm going to check on her. She just got back to New York and doesn't have anyone she can trust here. Go to bed. Don't wait up." The front door slammed shut. I stared in the direction he had disappeared, then bent down, folded the last coat neatly, and tucked it into the suitcase. "Fine." I pulled the suitcase zipper closed. "I'm done waiting." Chapter 3 The next morning, just past dawn, I was woken by my phone buzzing. Alex's name flashed on the screen. I answered but didn't speak. His voice came through the speaker, tired from staying up all night but still self-righteous. "Evelyn, you up? Lillian's craving the crab cakes from that little spot in Brooklyn. I've got an international video call at eight that I can't get out of. Go pick up an order and bring it to her hotel. Make sure they put it in an insulated bag. She doesn't eat anything cold." His tone was as casual as if he were giving instructions to a personal assistant, as if last night's argument had never happened. He had always been like this, used to being taken care of, used to putting the damage he did to me on hold for later. I looked at the apartment key I had already set down on the coffee table and cut him off calmly. "Alex, we're done." For a few seconds, the other end of the line was silent. Then he let out a cold laugh, barely containing his anger. "What's gotten into you this early in the morning? All because of last night's party? Evelyn, give it a rest." He didn't believe for a second that I would actually leave. "I ask you to drop off one breakfast and you act like a martyr? Lillian has a bad stomach. You're usually so good at taking care of people, aren't you?" He paused, a warning threading into his voice. "It's been ten years. Your whole life revolves around me and the company. You don't have a real job, no income of your own. Even your health insurance is on my plan. Where would you go if you left me?" "You don't actually think Harvard's invitation from ten years ago still stands, do you? If you went back now, who would even remember you?" He was using ten years of sunk costs to hold me hostage. He thought he had already ground me down into a vine that could only cling to him. I thought of ten years ago, when his startup failed, creditors chased him, and he broke his ribs falling in the snow. I carried him on my back for a long time, and he clung to my shoulder, crying. "Evelyn, I'll never let you suffer again." Time turned promises into jokes and the man who once loved me into someone handing out charity. "Don't worry about me." My voice didn't waver in the slightest. "Alex, you're free." I hung up. I canceled our shared phone plan, deactivated my old number, and snapped the backup SIM card in half. I signed out of our shared cloud storage, revoked his access to my personal email, medical accounts, and travel apps, and transferred all my important files to a new account. As for the jewelry and credit cards he had given me, I left them all on the living room table. I wheeled my suitcase to the door and left the apartment key in the tray by the entryway. Before closing the door, I took one last look at the place I had lived in for ten years. There were the walls we had painted together, the red wine he had knocked onto the carpet the night his company took off, and the bedroom where I had lain alone for three days after the miscarriage. But it had never been my home. Two hours later, I sat in the terminal at LaGuardia Airport, holding a one-way ticket to Boston. Sunlight poured through the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows onto my shoulders. I felt no fear, only the kind of relief that comes from cutting away dead flesh. The wound was still bleeding, but at least it would no longer fester. When the boarding announcement came on, I stood, took my suitcase, and walked toward security. This time, I didn't look back.