I don’t know how long I sat there before I forced myself to continue.
Russell wrote that the wedding would be small. Marianne’s family was helping them get settled, and they had found an apartment close to the hospital where she would be working.
I thought I could handle that.
Then I reached the bottom.
Russell asked me not to contact him anymore.
He said Marianne knew how close we had always been, and he wanted to give his marriage a fair beginning. He wrote that our friendship had meant too much to him to let it become something that hurt another person.
His last few lines stayed with me for years.
I hope you have a beautiful life, Sylvie.
I’m sorry.
Russell.
I cried for weeks.
There were nights when I picked up the phone and almost called him anyway. Other times, I started letters and stopped before writing more than his name.
But Russell had made his choice.
So I respected it.
I never called.
I never wrote back.
And Russell never contacted me again.
For a while, I heard small pieces of his life through people who still knew his family.
He and Marianne had a son. A few years later, they had a daughter. Russell built a career and eventually moved farther away.
Then even those little updates disappeared.
Life went on.
I dated. I had relationships, some good and some painful. Once, in my thirties, I came close to marrying a kind man who deserved someone who could give him her whole heart.
But I couldn’t.
Eventually, people stopped asking why I never settled down.
Whenever someone did ask, I gave them the easiest answer.
“I just never met the right man.”
That wasn’t entirely true.
I had met him at 17.
Last Tuesday, I turned 60.
After my parents died, I moved back into the house where I had grown up. I had spent so many years moving from apartment to apartment that returning there felt unexpectedly comforting.
That evening, I had dinner alone and cut myself a small piece of birthday cake.
