The scene before me was like a knife slicing through my heart–a tender tableau of affection and shared understanding. There they were, the two of them, perfectly in sync, as if the rest of the world didn’t exist. If I were still alive, I would undoubtedly have been the thorn in their side, the obstacle in their love story.
Turns out, falling out of love doesn’t take years; it takes but a moment. And in that instant, the obsessive love I had clung to for Grayson vanished like smoke in the wind.
Yet, as I watched him soothing Alice with soft whispers, promising her happiness, the ache in my chest didn’t subside. It was an ache that no longer belonged to love but to something
far more bitter.
I thought letting go of Grayson would set me free. But even in death, I was tethered to him, unable to leave. I followed him as he left the hospital after coaxing Alice to sleep. He drove with purpose, and I, like a phantom shadow, drifted along in his wake.
I followed him as he made his rounds in a department store, buying things he had never once considered buying for me. It wasn’t hard to see the distinction between love and indifference. My ghostly form seemed to grow heavier with every step, weighted down by the bitterness of seeing the man I had loved so deeply pamper another woman so thoroughly.
He visited a food stall next, braving a long line to buy a snack Alice particularly enjoyed. I watched, hollow and aching, as he carried out this act of devotion. It struck me that, during our time together, even asking him to pick up strawberries on his way home was met with annoyance and excuses.
And then, as if fate hadn’t dealt me enough cruel blows, his car stopped at a fruit shop. I floated along, watching as he stepped out and asked the shopkeeper for a pineapple. The owner smiled and commented on his furrowed brows. “Not a fan of pineapple, eh?” she
asked.
“I can’t stand it,” he admitted, his expression softening into something almost shy. “But she loves it.”
Those words–gentle and full of warmth–pierced me like bullets. It wasn’t just the words; it was how he said them. The tenderness in his voice was a tone I had never heard directed at me, not once in all our years together.
I felt the sharp sting of tears, though I no longer had a body to shed them. When I was pregnant, I had craved pineapple so badly that I had begged him to let me eat it. He had refused, disgusted by the smell.