He Left My Mother to Die, So I Left Him

y mother was in the hospital after a nasty dog bite, so I called my fiancé, Cohen. He was supposed to be my rock.

Instead, I got annoyance. He was in Aspen, on a ski trip with my best friend, Hillary. "What do you want me to do? Fly back right now?" he snapped, before hanging up to get back to the "perfect snow."

The dog, it turned out, was Hillary's. The bite on my diabetic mother's leg quickly developed into a raging infection. I texted Cohen an update, telling him she was getting worse, that they were talking about surgery.

He didn't call back. Instead, Hillary's Instagram story updated: a photo of her and Cohen, cheeks flushed from the cold, smiling in front of a fireplace. The caption was a single heart emoji.

While they were sipping hot chocolate, my mother went into septic shock. As I sat alone in the grim hospital waiting room, staring at my silent phone, I knew he had already made his choice.

He had chosen a vacation. He had chosen my best friend. He had left my mother to die all alone.

She passed away at 3:17 AM. I held her hand until it grew cold, then walked out into the gray dawn. I wasn't just grieving. I was done. I was going to erase myself from his world and burn everything to the ground.