Fated Love, Unwritten Endings

, his angry words echoing in the v

said, my voice quiet. "I assumed.

s like gasoli

nipulated like a pawn in your sick game? You think so little of me, Jali

h a rage that was terrifying in its intensity. "You are

nthouse, slamming the door so hard

through and understood. He wasn't just angry that I had set him up with Frances. He was angry bec

h a price tag. I had bought him. How could he ever see it as

ertainty, that there was no hop

to erase t

ee days from now. Three more

the expensive clothes, the custom-made shoes, the first-edition bo

emory of him, I put into a large pile in the center of the living room. Photographs of us at galas, him lookin

of them. Letters I had written to him over the years, filled with all the words I was

lace. I lit a match and dropped it in. One b

eclarations of love, my hopes for a futu

in him over the old-fashioned way. I had pursued him on campus, a silly, infatuated girl. I had writt

of the medical bills, that I had come up with the desperate, foolish idea of buying his af

can't buy love. You

d the last letter into the ember

the front

on the fireplace. He saw the last corner of a familiar cream-col

ing?" he asked,

flickering firelight. I felt strangely calm, em

f my belongings, the empty spaces on the shelves. A look of dawning hor

" he said, his voice dripping with sarc

't hurt anymor

oice flat. "It will

s. He didn't understand. He couldn't. He tur

s nothing but cold ashes. I look

hought. This time,