Chapter 2The 300-Day Streak

I was flying into Austin to surprise Evan. I hadn't told him I was coming.

Just half an hour ago, he’d texted me a location pin. A new Korean BBQ place they were trying after their shift.

[Evan: Smells amazing. If it’s good, I’m definitely taking you next time!]

He was, as always, keeping me in the loop.

I shut off my phone and changed the destination in the Uber app.

By the time I got to the restaurant, they had just arrived. I was wearing a baseball cap and took a booth directly behind them.

I watched Evan come back from washing his hands. A girl I didn’t recognize—pretty, wearing scrubs under a hoodie—walked up to him holding two small sauce dishes.

"This is their house special, and this is the one you always get. I made you both."

Evan took them from her, a perfectly natural gesture. He dipped a piece of brisket in one. "The special is pretty spicy. You should probably skip it."

She beamed. "Thanks for the heads-up."

The two residents sitting closest to me were whispering.

"Are they really not together? I don't buy it."

"I know, right? All those med-school girls were all over Evan and he never gave them the time of day. Turns out his 'destiny' was waiting for him in residency."

"Seriously. The guy is drowning in work, but he still double-checks Chloe’s charts on her overnights. That's 'power couple' material."

"Well, she’s all in, too. It hasn't even been a year, and I heard she’s already been to his place to do his laundry..."

...

Destiny. Power couple. Doing his laundry.

My phone buzzed. A new edit on the Reddit post.

[EDIT 6: At K-BBQ with my crush! He’s so thoughtful, he even worried the sauce would be too spicy for me. How could anyone not fall for a guy like this?]

A comment popped up almost immediately:

[He could be the greatest guy in the world, but he's still someone else's boyfriend. Maybe get your own relationship status sorted out before you get 'the feels'.]

The comment was deleted seconds later.

At their table, Evan and the group were laughing, complaining about everything from the case they’d scrubbed in on to the terrible cafeteria food.

Someone shifted the topic. "Hey, isn't it Evan’s birthday in two days? We should all go out."

Evan shook his head. "Appreciate it, but I’ve got plans. It’s just a birthday, no big deal."

"Oh, come on. Is it because Chloe didn't ask? Chloe, say something!"

The girl—Chloe—put down her chopsticks, her voice suddenly sharp. "He has plans with his girlfriend. What am I supposed to say?"

"Girlfriend? Wait, I heard rumors, but... you actually have one?"

I slowly lowered my eyes.

This was the eighth year of our relationship. We had survived the seven-year itch. Our parents had met. I never cared if he posted photos of me on his Instagram; he barely used it anyway.

But in this one moment, I was terrified of what he would say next.

I took a sip of water and choked, a sharp pain burning in my chest.

"Yeah, I do," Evan said. His voice was perfectly calm. "But we're long-distance."

I remembered my freshman year, the first time I flew from Boston to visit him at his college. He’d insisted on dragging me to his macroeconomics lecture, practically vibrating with the need to show me off. When a guy in the front row turned to ask if it was raining outside, Evan, completely misreading the situation, grabbed my hand and said, "How'd you know my girlfriend was visiting?"

Now... his answer had a 'but'. A 'but' that explained everything.

Before I could even process it, Chloe spoke up, her voice tight with emotion. "Is it because you don't have better options? Aren't you tired enough already, trying to maintain a relationship that has zero practical benefit for you?"

"Love isn't... about 'benefit'," Evan said, his tone stiff.

"Then let's talk about love," she shot back. "Does she know how exhausted you are? Does she understand the pressure you're under? Can you even talk to her about your work? Don't you have even a single... regret?"

Her voice was trembling, thick with a sense of injustice.

The table went silent.

It felt like an eternity before I heard Evan’s voice.

He said, "I have regrets. But I’m forcing myself to make peace with it."

...

My eyes snapped shut.

It was my fault. I was the source of his regret. I was the one he had to 'make peace' with.

He seemed to have forgotten that the whole point of us was that we were each other's peace.

"Okay, okay, this is getting too heavy for K-BBQ," someone said, trying to break the tension. "Evan, what do you want for your birthday?"

Chloe scoffed. "I don't know what you guys are getting him, but I know what his precious girlfriend got him last year. A card. With two sentences in it. They weren't even complete sentences."

"What? Seriously? I thought his girlfriend was smart."

Chloe glanced at Evan, a knowing, sympathetic look on her face. "You'd think. I remember what it said. Something like 'Stay safe' and 'Stay by my side.' I'm not kidding, she's... a little dense. If you can't write a love letter, at least Google some poetry, right?"

My hand, holding my chopsticks, went numb. I didn't even feel the hot oil from the grill splatter onto my skin.

Last year on his birthday, my advisor had me running a critical data set. It was the first birthday we'd ever spent apart. I’d tried to write him a long, beautiful letter, something to prove how much he meant to me.

I wrote and deleted, wrote and rewrote.

And I realized that, after everything, all I wanted to say—all that mattered—were those two simple prayers.

Stay safe.

Stay by my side.

And now, that prayer was being served up as a punchline.

In that single second, I knew Evan was unforgivable.