He Cancelled Our Future for Her Anxiety novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Private Room
At the farewell dinner Corinne overhears Dylan tell his friends he cancelled his London ticket for Piper and put her number on his Phoenix booking so she will follow. She reads the confirmation text and walks out without a scene. Back home she finds Dylan was removed from their London flat six weeks ago.
Seven days before our flight to London, I stood in a restaurant hallway with a birthday candle in my hand, listening to my boyfriend explain me to his friends.
The candle was for the cake.
Dylan's friends had thrown us a farewell dinner in the private room at the back, and I had slipped out to ask the waiter for a lighter.
On my way back I stopped at the door because I heard my name.
It was open about four inches.
"What about Corinne?" one of his friends asked. "You two have been planning London since sophomore year."
"Corinne?" Dylan said, in the warm voice he uses when he is proud of me.
"She's the most capable person I know."
"Don't worry about her."
Somebody said, "Dude. You cancelled your ticket and she doesn't know?"
"It's been cancelled for six weeks," Dylan said.
Six weeks.
I counted back and it was the week he had hugged me in the library and told me he couldn't wait to see the Thames.
"Piper can't do Arizona State alone," he went on. "You've seen her. Last spring she couldn't get out of the car at her own dorm."
"Her family never shows up when she spirals," a girl said. "That's why you always have to."
"Her mom and I have an arrangement," Dylan said. "It's fine. It's handled."
I didn't know what that meant.
I only knew he said it the way he says a thing is already paid for.
"So what do you tell Corinne?" the girl asked.
"I posted it on my story an hour ago. She'll see it and work it out."
His chair creaked as he leaned back.
"And when I booked Phoenix, I put her number down for the confirmation text. The airline pings her, she sees it, and she books her own seat. She'll be on a plane to Arizona by Sunday."
Nobody in the room answered him.
My phone buzzed against my leg.
I took it out with the hand that wasn't holding a candle.
American Airlines: Your trip is confirmed. Dylan Kessler. Boston to Phoenix. Thursday, 6:40 a.m.
My name wasn't on it.
My number was.
He had made me the person who gets told after.
"Wait for it," Dylan said, and I heard the smile.
Inside, his friends laughed, not all of them, but some.
I stood very still in the hall.
I could push the door open and shout.
I could throw the cake knife.
Then he would tell it for years: Piper was the fragile one, and Corinne was the girl who lost it at dinner.
I pictured the Phoenix booking page with my phone number typed into it.
It wasn't an apology.
It was a plan, and I was a step in it.
I looked down at the text again.
I had three years with him, a joint savings account for our London flat and a master's program I had worked toward since I was nineteen.
Piper had panic attacks and a best friend who would give up everything for her.
I wasn't going to compete for a seat in his life.
So I stepped out.
I put the candle in my jacket pocket.
I didn't go back into the private room.
I walked to the front of the restaurant, past the host stand and the cold glass case of cannoli.
My phone buzzed again, and this time it was Piper.
Piper had never texted me directly in three years.
Have the best dinner!! Say hi to everyone. Safe flight, Cor, I'm so happy for you two. xx
There was nothing in it I could be angry at.
I turned the phone face down in my palm.
Out on the sidewalk the October air smelled of wet brick.
I opened my banking app, and then I closed it, because the savings could wait until I was sitting down.
I walked home.
Hallie was still at her seminar.
The apartment was dark, and Dylan's hoodie was on the back of my desk chair where he had left it Tuesday.
I sat down on the bed in my coat.
My laptop was open to the London flat we had booked together in June, a two-bedroom in South Kensington with a window over a bakery.
I clicked in to look at the lease dates, only to have something to do with my hands.
Under Residents there were supposed to be two names.
There was one.
Corinne Ashdown. Confirmed.
Beneath it, in gray, was a line I hadn't seen before:
Dylan Kessler. Withdrawn. September 4.
He hadn't just stopped coming.
He had taken himself out of my flat six weeks ago and then kissed me goodnight every single night after.
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