When the Obsessiveness Leaves Me

I couldn't wait to see Adrian's face when he came home and found the house transformed.

When he finally returned, he froze at the doorway, his brows immediately furrowing.

"Juliana, I don't care if this amnesia is real or fake. You're thirty years old. Can you stop acting like you're still twenty? How childish."

He didn't even step inside. He slammed the door and left.

One of the porcelain figurines I'd carefully picked out toppled from the cabinet and shattered across the floor. I knelt, gathering the pieces, fitting them back together. The jagged cracks looked like badly sewn scars.

Stroking its tiny head, I whispered, "Little porcelain man, you know Adrian's always like this. Don't cry. Don't cry…"

Once again, I comforted myself.

In the days that followed, I tried every trick in the book to cross paths with him.

When it rained, I showed up under his office with an umbrella. Unfortunately, he drove off in his luxury car with Vanessa by his side. When they passed me, he didn't even lower the window, and the splash from the wheels soaked me through.

When I heard he'd be at the golf course, I went early and even crammed in a quick lesson with a coach just to impress him.

The second he spotted me, he turned without a word and headed for another green, leaving me stranded and humiliated.

Still, I brushed it off. I would keep trying. Alas, Adrian never spared me a real glance.

On the sixth day, he finally came home. I'd been working in the kitchen all morning, my hands blistered, just to put a feast together.

He rubbed his temple, then swept the plates straight into the trash. "Juliana, could you stop with these little acts of self-pity? It's exhausting."

I hadn't meant to cry, but the weariness in his voice cut deep. His dark eyes fixed on me dismissively, like everything I'd poured out was worthless.

Tears spilled fast, hitting the floor one by one like broken pearls.

Adrian went quiet, then let out a sharp laugh. "What are you pretending for? Haven't you been used to this for years?"

On one's own lips, those words tasted like bitter humor. On someone else’s, they stripped you of all dignity.

After he left, I sat staring at the food in the trash, staring at the emptiness of this house filled with nothing but loneliness.

I thought, 'Do I really not understand why my thirty-year-old self wanted a divorce? Or do I just refuse to understand?'

That night, I sat at my desk, staring at the journal and the unsigned divorce agreement.

My best friend, Hannah Price, had once asked me on the phone, "What exactly is so special about Adrian Halloway? What's made you love him for fifteen years straight?"

I could never put it into words.

When we first met, I could list a hundred things I admired about him, but the more I loved him, the less I could explain why.

Isn't that what a teenage crush was? No rhyme or reason, just hurling every ounce of love at someone until you hit a wall and can't turn back.

I closed the journal again.

Maybe the thirty-year-old me had been too proud, too unsure of how to act, so she left it to the version of me with only twenty years of memories to choose for her.

Even if it was the last chance.

I sent Adrian a message: "Adrian, today was my fault. I'm sorry. Will you come home tomorrow? Please."