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He couldn't do this to her again. He was always running late for their dates or just cancelling last minute.

The door opened. Willow turned her head, hoping Mark was finally turning up for their date. But a couple walked through instead. They shared a kiss before the waitress led them to their table.

The waiter came back to refill her water for the second time. She avoided his eyes, knowing the look that would be waiting there. Pity.

Willow looked at the empty chair across the table. Still pushed in. It was damn embarrassing, having your date turn up late or not at all.

She checked her phone again. Still no messages. She'd tried calling him, but it kept going to voicemail. She didn't know if she should just leave. It was already twenty past seven. He should have been here twenty minutes ago. The last time Mark had turned up thirty minutes late, he'd said he was sorry and he wouldn't do it to her again. Here she was anyway. The pattern had gotten worse the longer they'd dated.

It was two years tonight. And he hadn't even bothered to turn up on time. She'd even reminded him about it at the office.

At the next table, a couple were sharing their dessert. It was romantic. The woman laughed at whatever the man had said as he used his thumb to wipe away some cream from the corner of her mouth and put her hand flat on his chest like she couldn't help but touch him.

Willow felt the tears fill her eyes as she turned back to the empty chair across from her. She reached for her bag when her phone on the table suddenly lit up.

Mark: Sorry Willow

She quickly wrote a reply.

Willow: How long will you be?

Oh, thank God. He was coming.

Mark: Something came up at work. I'm going to be here until late. I won't make it in time.

Willow read it twice. Something came up.

Willow: It's our anniversary.

Mark: I know babe, we'll do it another night.

He'd typed babe like that fixed something.

She looked up. The restaurant was filled with couples, and she was here sitting alone. The couple at the next table had finished their dessert. The restaurant was filled with couples, and she was here sitting alone. Why couldn't she have that with Mark? Instead, she was sitting here alone because something came up. Something always came up. It was like he was just feeding her enough to keep her hooked.

Willow: I'll call you in a few minutes and you better answer.

Getting up, she ignored everyone who turned to look at her. She pulled more than enough cash from her purse and dropped it on the table. Clutching her phone, she walked out of the restaurant with her head held high.

As soon as she was outside, she called Mark. It rang eight times. She didn't think he was going to answer at first.

Then he was on the line. "Willow, look, I can't really talk right now."

She could hear noises in the background, including a woman giggle.

"Sounds like you're really working hard. Who else is there?" she said.

"Don't start. I don't want to hear your nagging." His voice dropped, all annoyance and no guilt anywhere in it. "I'm not doing this with you tonight."

"Doing what? Answering a simple question?"

"Why do you have to do this? You're so needy all the time. It's like you don't trust me. I said I was sorry, but work is more urgent than sitting down for a meal. For an anniversary, we aren't even married."

She felt sick at that. Nagging. Needy.

It wasn't the first time she had heard those words from him, and they landed the same way they always did, like something small and sharp sliding between her ribs. She wasn't either of those things. She just wanted her boyfriend to show up for her.

And tonight he hadn't even bothered to call.

She wanted to trust him, she really did, but there were moments that made it hard. The woman giggling in the background just now. The party a month ago where Mark had disappeared into the garden for thirty minutes and come back with a woman on his arm and a smear of lipstick on his cheek. He had an explanation for that too, the woman had come onto him, he'd pushed her off, but she'd managed to get close enough to kiss his cheek. What could he do? He couldn't exactly be rude.

And the way he was with other women, right there in front of her. He never crossed a line exactly, but he was overly friendly, almost flirtatious, in a way that made her stomach pull tight every time she watched it happen. When she had brought it up, he had looked at her like she was exhausting.

He was naturally friendly, he told her. He couldn't help it if women misread his attention. He wasn't going to start being rude to people just because she had a problem with her own insecurity. If anything, she should be flattered that other women found him attractive, because at the end of the day, she was the one he went home with.

Somehow, by the time that argument had finished, she was the one apologising. For making him feel like he couldn't hold a conversation with another woman without being accused of cheating.

She was still thinking about that now, turning it over in her mind, trying to work out where the line was between gut instinct and paranoia.

Was she doing it again?

"I sat alone at that restaurant for twenty minutes, Mark." She had been there longer because she was always early to everything. But he didn't need to know that. "I wouldn't even care if this were the first time you had made me wait. But it isn't the first time, and you promised you would be more considerate. You could have called."

"And now you're calling me at work, making a scene, because I can't leave when I'm needed here. Because I'm not jumping to your tune." The woman laughed near him again, like they'd caught every word. "This is exactly what I mean. You can't let anything go. Ever. You always bring up the past and throw it in my face."

"I'm not the one who—"

"Look, I don't have time for this. I've gotta go." She could hear he was no longer paying attention to the phone call. Bored with all of it. "You're being dramatic again. It's no big deal. We'll arrange something next week. Call me Monday when you've calmed down."

"Calmed down?"

"Forget it, Willow. I really can't talk right now." There was a moment of silence. Willow thought for a second he had hung up. When he spoke again, his voice was almost offhand, like the words cost him absolutely nothing. "Maybe if you weren't dead wood and stiff in bed, I'd make more of an effort to be there with you tonight. Maybe think about that over the weekend before calling me Monday."

Her heart stopped. He was with other people. They could hear him saying this to her.

"What?" The word came out small and airless.

The line went dead. But not before she heard a bark of laughter.

She stood on the sidewalk with the phone still pressed to her ear, listening to nothing. The city moved around her, all of it completely indifferent to the fact that her boyfriend of two years had just called her dead wood and stiff. Out loud. In front of whoever was standing near him.

She pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at the screen. His name was still there. The call timer sat at four minutes and eleven seconds.

Dead wood and stiff in bed.

She'd never been with anyone else. Mark was the only man she'd ever slept with, which meant if that was true, she had no way to argue with it. No frame of reference. No evidence to the contrary.

The back of her throat burned with bile. She wasn't going to cry on a sidewalk over Mark Callahan. She absolutely was not.

She pulled up Paige's name and hit call.

It rang only a few times.

"I was just thinking about you," Paige said. "How's the anniversary dinner? Please tell me he actually showed up this time."

Willow opened her mouth. Closed it again.

"Willow."

"He didn't show up. I left and called him," she said. Surprised she sounded normal when her insides were doing somersaults. "And then he called me pathetic in bed. In front of someone. He told me something came up at work." Dead wood. In other words, pathetic or terrible. It meant the same thing.

Silence on the other end. Then, very carefully, Paige said, "Where are you right now?"

"Outside the restaurant."

"Don't move. I'm coming to get you, and we are going to drink something expensive and talk about what an absolute piece of garbage Mark Callahan is. Maybe this is your wake-up call."

Willow let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine. And no one would blame you for not being fine after being publicly humiliated by a man who doesn't deserve the ground you walk on." A pause. "Also, pathetic in bed? You? I don't buy that for one second."

"You've never slept with me, Paige. I think maybe I'm not very good. He could be right."

"Okay, you have me there. I'm sorry, hon, but I like men a little too much to try you out to prove Mark wrong. Just stay there. I'm on my way now."