Just Passersby

1.

To prepare a birthday surprise for Caleb I, I flew back from New York to Boston ahead of schedule.

To kill time in the Uber to his Brookline apartment, I mindlessly scrolled through Reddit.

A trending post in a relationship advice subreddit caught my eye.

The title was: [Today I messed up. I fell for a guy with a girlfriend. But Im going to confess my feelings on his birthday. AITAH?]

The comments were a bloodbath, a sea of "red flag" and "run, girl, run."

Trying to win people over, the original poster started adding updates, trying to prove she was "the one."

Update 1: I'm a first-year resident at a top Boston teaching hospital. My education and career prospects blow his current girlfriend's out of the water. His girlfriend? A typical trust fund kid who got into a good school through legacy admissions. We all know how much that's worth.

Update 2: We've known each other for almost a year, and I've never even seen a picture of this girl. He's probably either embarrassed by how she looks or by her in general. Me? I'm attractive, straightforward, and we're perfectly in sync, both at work and in life. Weve known each other for 332 days, and our Snap streak is at 300.

I clicked the photo link she included. It was deliberately framed to only show the guy's wrist.

He was wearing the vintage Swiss diver's watch his father had passed down to him.

Even without a face, I knew it was Caleb instantly.

My heart sank. My finger hovered over the screen, frozen.

...

The day we broke up, my best friend tried to console me over brunch. "It's not even cheating, not really. It's just a picture. Don't be so sensitive."

I shook my head. "All those little, meaningless moments they shared with each other... they were all invitations. Invitations for the other person to enter their life."

And an endless desire to share is the breeding ground for love.

I hadn't told Caleb I was coming back, wanting to surprise him for his birthday party.

Just half an hour ago, Caleb had sent me a text with a location pin.

It was a new, trendy hot pot place in the Seaport. He was going with a few other residents after their shift.

[If it's good, I'll definitely take you next time!]

He was the same as always, checking in whenever he had a free moment, acting like the model boyfriend.

I turned off my phone screen. On this cold, rainy Boston night, I had the driver change the destination.

When I walked into the restaurant, they had just sat down.

I pulled the brim of my baseball cap down and chose a booth directly behind them.

I needed to see with my own eyes who this girl from the forums was.

2.

Caleb had just come back from washing his hands when a girl walked up to him, holding a small bowl.

"Here's that special dipping sauce you like. No cilantro, extra spicy. I know your tastes."

Caleb took the bowl from her naturally, tried a bite, then winced and grinned. "Damn, that's really spicy. You shouldn't have any."

A happy smile spread across her face. "Thanks for the warning."

The two colleagues sitting closest to me were gossiping in low voices.

"Dude, are they really not together yet? No one would believe that."

"So many nurses at the hospital have crushes on Caleb, but he keeps his distance from all of them. Guess we know why now. This is a real power couple."

"Seriously, Caleb works like a dog, but he still helps Sienna check her charts on night shifts. That has to be true love."

"Sienna is super into him, too. They've known each other less than a year, right? I went over to Caleb's apartment for drinks once and saw her folding his laundry."

A power couple.

She even folded his laundry.

My phone buzzed. The Reddit post had been updated again.

Update 3: Out for hot pot with my crush! He's so thoughtful, he even tasted my sauce first to warn me it was too spicy. How could anyone not love a gentleman like that?

A reply appeared almost immediately: [He's still someone else's boyfriend. Maybe you should get your head checked instead of being a homewrecker.]

She quickly downvoted the comment until it was hidden.

I put my phone down. At the next table, Caleb and his friends had opened a few beers and started venting.

They complained about everything from how insane the MCATs were to the crazy patients they'd dealt with in the ER yesterday.

Then, someone changed the subject.

"Isn't it Caleb's birthday in a couple of days? Should we celebrate at that old spot in the North End?"

Caleb declined, as always. "I have plans that day. It's just a birthday, no need to make a big deal."

"Come on, you're just saying that because Sienna isn't asking. Sienna, say something."

The girl, Sienna, put down her chopsticks, her voice dripping with a kind of sharp, American confidence. "He's spending it alone with his girlfriend. What am I supposed to do?"

"Girlfriend? Wait, I've heard rumors, but... you actually have a girlfriend?"

I slowly lowered my eyes.

This was my eighth year with Caleb.

We had made it through the so-called "seven-year itch." We had met each other's parents over Thanksgiving and Christmas.

So whether or not my picture was on his social media had long since stopped mattering to me.

Besides, he barely ever used it.

But in this moment, I was suddenly terrified of his answer.

3.

I instinctively chugged my ice water, the cold cubes making my chest ache.

"I do, but we're long-distance. She's in New York."

It was Caleb's voice.

Low, calm, almost detached.

I remember my freshman year of college, the first time I visited him in Boston.

He insisted on dragging me through Harvard Square, wanting every single person he knew to see that I was his girl.

A classmate in front of us asked if it was snowing outside.

Caleb, completely missing the point, grabbed my hand, his eyes shining. "How did you know my girlfriend was here from New York?"

Not like now.

His answer was a statement, a turn, and a void, all in one.

Sienna couldn't help but speak up, her tone oozing with a self-righteous sort of logic.

"Is it because you don't have better options? Or is the sunk cost just too high? Why maintain a relationship that does nothing for your career?"

Caleb was silent for a moment. "Relationships you can't calculate them like a business ROI."

"Then let's talk about feelings. Does she know how tired you are after a shift? Does she understand the pressure of residency matching? Don't you have even a little bit of FOMO, a little regret?"

Sienna's voice cracked, full of grievance and resentment, as if she were the victim here.

The table fell into an awkward silence. The air felt thick.

After what felt like an eternity, I finally heard Caleb's voice again.

He said, "I have regrets, but I force myself to live with them. And my situation right now... it doesn't let me think too much."

...

I squeezed my eyes shut.

It was my fault.

I was the source of his regrets.

I was the reason he had to force himself to accept his life.

I was the one who put him in a situation where he "couldn't think too much."

But he seemed to have forgotten that we started this journey together for the sake of each other's dreams.

"Alright, alright, this is getting too heavy. Caleb, what do you want for your birthday?" someone said, trying to break the tension.

Sienna said spitefully, "I don't know what you guys are getting him, but I know what his precious girlfriend gets him. Last year for his birthday, she sent him a card with two lines on it. They weren't even complete sentences."

"She can't even write two sentences? Isn't Caleb's girlfriend a graduate from a top university too?"

Sienna glanced at Caleb and continued her rant. "That doesn't mean anything. You know how worthless some degrees are these days. I remember it just said something like 'Stay safe' and 'Always here.' Seriously, it was so lame. She would've been better off copying lyrics from a pop song."

4.

I stared blankly at my fork, not even noticing when the boiling broth from the pot splashed onto my hand.

Last year on Caleb's birthday, I was in New York, stuck in the lab with my advisor, rushing to meet a life-or-death project deadline.

It was the first time since we'd been together that I didn't celebrate with him.

I had wanted to write a long, long message to prove how much he meant to me.

But I wrote and rewrote, deleted and started over.

In the end, I realized there were only two things I truly wanted to say to him.

Stay safe.

I'm always by your side.

But the words I had written with such devotion were now being served up as a joke, casually mocked at a dinner table in Boston.

In that single moment, Caleb became unforgivable.

I stood up, left the hot pot restaurant without a sound, and dragged my suitcase out into the night.

In the depths of a Boston autumn, a cold rain can feel like the start of winter.

I pulled my hoodie tighter and walked aimlessly down Newbury Street.

A long line snaked out of an Italian pastry shop, the kind of old-school place that had been a Boston institution for decades.

I remembered back in high school, at our public school in San Francisco.

I was huddled in my seat, wearing a big hoodie, and casually mentioned to my deskmate that I was craving a cannoli.

"The place in North Beach is the best, but the shells get soggy by the time they deliver," she'd said.

My deskmate tossed me a bag of crackers. "Just eat these. I'll buy you some for prom next year."

But Caleb, who sat behind me, had remembered.

Before our evening study session, a white box tied with a blue ribbon was sitting on my desk.

Caleb didn't even look up, his voice as steady as ever. "I was downtown anyway. Eat it while it's fresh."

On our next SAT practice test, I still scored ten points higher than him.

My deskmate joked, "Caleb, Clara beats you at everything. If I were you, I'd poison her cannoli."

He just smiled, his gaze serious and focused on me. "I'm not here to compete with her for valedictorian."

Later, we made a pact to go to the East Coast together.

I went to college in New York; he was going to grind it out in Boston.

The day he drove me to the airport, my parents didn't cry, but his eyes were red. He looked like a little boy who had lost his favorite toy.

"Are you going to meet some finance bro in New York and leave me? I'll work really hard, I promise."

I hugged him. "Never."

5.

From the day I agreed to be his prom date, I was determined to hold his hand through every season of our lives.

That Christmas, I took an overnight train from New York to Boston.

I had a few of our high school friends trick him into going to the skating rink at the Boston Common.

When Caleb saw me pop out of a giant gift box, he just stood there and stared at me for a long time.

So long that I thought he had frozen solid.

"What's wrong? Aren't you happy to see me?"

He suddenly pulled me into a fierce hug, shouting into the falling snow, "Clara, we're going to get married, right? I really, really want a home with you."

"That way I can see you every day. I'll love you forever."

...

Countless beautiful memories played out in my mind like an old film reel.

Up until yesterday, I had just turned down an interview offer from a top medical center in Minnesota, wanting to stay on the East Coast, closer to him.

Because I couldn't bear the thought of Caleb being alone anymore.

But I didn't know then that in American love stories, "forever" is often just a word tossed around in the heat of hormonal passion.

And I didn't know that Caleb was no longer alone.

Every day I wasn't by his side, every Thanksgiving I missed

He had found my replacement.

I went to the apartment Caleb was renting. I still had some things to pack.

The computer in the study was on, the screen still open to a chat app.

The girl was in his residency program. Their Snap streak was exactly 300 days.

A little cartoon ghost on the screen waved at me, as if mocking my stupidity.

I scrolled up through the messages, one by one.

[This sticker is so cute, it looks just like you! Did the attending yell at you today?]

[No, he was just in a bad mood, a little loud.]

[Caleb you're too nice, are you an angel?]

[You're nice too.]

...

[Caleb look at this meme about residents, I'm dying, it's literally me.]

[Hahahaha, that's literally us.]

[I noticed you didn't go to the cafeteria for breakfast. No time?]

[Morning rounds were too crazy, I missed it.]

[You're so lucky you have me. I brought you a bagel and coffee!]

...

[Caleb, are you engaged?]

[What are you talking about? Of course not.]

[Oh, I just heard you had a girlfriend. But not married means you're still a free agent.]

[...Don't overthink it. You're on nights tomorrow, right?]

[If I survive my shift tomorrow, I'll buy you a burger!]

[Good luck then.]

...

[We're still on for dinner tomorrow night, right? If it gets too late I'll crash at your place. Same deal, you get the couch.]

[Thumbs up emoji]

[As repayment, I left some fruit on your desk. I washed it.]

[Thanks.]

[Anytime. See you tomorrow.]

[Deal.]

6.

They went from sharing anatomy videos to making funny memes of each other.

And now, they talked about everything.

The sheer volume of their chat history made me feel like a complete fool.

They talked about their high schools and college football games.

They talked about a new coffee shop on the Charles River and the sunset after a long shift.

While Caleb was busy shadowing his attending in the OR, too busy to even reply to my texts, he somehow found the time to comfort Sienna after a patient yelled at her.

For the past year, I had felt so bad for him, working shift after shift with no time to sleep, that I never video-called him unless it was absolutely necessary.

But Sienna could casually message him anytime, complaining that he almost let their Snap streak die.

While I was worried about his health, ordering him expensive vitamins and healthy meal preps, reminding him to go to the gym

He was out celebrating Sienna surviving a night shift by eating greasy, high-calorie fried chicken with her.

And then there was the day I was having a complete breakdown over my thesis.

A huge error in my experimental data had wiped out two months of work.

I just shattered.

I couldn't help it, I called Caleb.

He declined the call and sent an auto-reply: [I'm busy right now.]

I thought he was busy.

But according to their chat log, that was the day he took Sienna to the TD Garden for her first-ever concert.

He didn't want to be disturbed.

Now I finally understood. The data error only destroyed two months of my work.

The impurities in my relationship with Caleb had destroyed eight years of my life.

7.

Tears streamed down my face, completely out of my control.

Two new messages synced on the computer screen.

[Are you sure we can't hang out on your birthday?]

[Next time.]

[...Okay.]

[Pat on the head emoji]

[You promise. We have to celebrate together next year.]

[Yes, ma'am. Whatever you say.]

The Reddit thread was updated again.

Update 4: He drove me home after dinner~ We almost broke through that final barrier tonight. I'm more of a guide in relationships, I can help him see what's really in his heart, but now's not the time... I want him to figure it out for himself.

The post was accompanied by a picture she took from the passenger seat, reflected in the side-view mirror.

Caleb's hand was stroking her head, a slight smile on his lips.

The comments section exploded:

[OP, this is the third time this has shown up on my feed, I can't take it anymore! You have to go for it! Go get your man! If the long-distance girlfriend is so awful, you're basically saving him!]

[Exactly! OP is beautiful, smart, and successful. Why should she put up with some rich girl who coasted by on her family's name? Go for it! You only live once!]

[Wait, am I the only one who finds this disgusting? An emotional affair is still an affair. OP sounds like a narcissist.]

[Shut up, you upstairs. This is true love. In a relationship, the one who isn't loved is the third wheel!]

I calmly sent Caleb a single text message.

[We're over.]

Caleb replied almost instantly: [You can't make it back? For my birthday party? What's with you? You missed last year, now you're missing this year too. My Clara is such a busy woman.]

He thought I meant I couldn't make it back to Boston.

I turned off my phone and didn't reply.

Caleb.

From now on, I won't be at any of your birthdays.

Busy or not, I just won't be there.