No One’s Waiting for Him Anymore
He also loved to set me up.
If anyone showed even the slightest hint of interest in me, he would move heaven and earth to play matchmaker.
Marcus is back in the country, he told me, leaning against his car. He wants to get dinner, asked me to bring you along. He glanced at me. "You should go. I think he's still into you."
"You weren't interested back then, but maybe it'll work out this time."
His tone was more sincere than when he'd proposed to me two years ago.
I'd lost count of how many times he'd tried to sell me off like this. In the past, I always refused.
But this time, I smiled and nodded. "Alright, I'll go."
In the tenth year of loving Leo, I finally let him go.
1.
Leo was driving me home when he suddenly called my name just as I was getting out of the car.
I turned. He had one arm resting on the open window, the ember of his cigarette glowing in the dark.
He gave me a lazy smile. "This time, after you see Marcus, don't go crying to me on the phone, begging me to pick you up."
I smiled back. "I won't."
"And if things do work out between us, I'll have you to thank."
The night air was cool against my bare skin, a chilling, clarifying sensation. "I think it's time I had a real relationship. As for us..." I paused, searching for the right words. They caught on my tongue. "Whether you're looking for a girlfriend or just a warm body in your bed, that's your business."
"Let's just call it quits between us."
The year I loved Leo the most, he must have noticed the way I looked at him, because he started avoiding me at every turn. He'd answer one out of every ten of my calls, reply to two out of every ten texts. But just when I'd resolved to put some distance between us, he'd reach out, asking if I was taking care of myself.
The first time I met Marcus was one of those rare occasions when Leo sought me out, saying he wanted to take me somewhere fun.
But when we got there, I went to buy a bottle of water. When I came back, Leo was gone. Only Marcus was left, waiting.
"He had to leave," Marcus said. "He told me to hang out with you."
I blinked, trying to process his words. "What does that mean?"
Marcus's features were sharp and cool, but his gaze was intense, focused. "I like you," he said simply. "Leo said he'd introduce us."
I later learned the full story. When Marcus first told Leo he was interested in me, Leo had raised an eyebrow. "Sure, I can set you two up. In exchange, give me your cousin's number." And just like that, Leo had pushed me toward someone else.
Right at the moment when I was filled with hope, thinking he'd finally stopped avoiding me. I'd tried on a dozen different outfits before meeting him, wanting to look perfect.
Seeing my eyes welling up with tears, Marcus frowned. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize... he didn't explain things to you."
That day was a disaster. I walked home aimlessly, tears streaming down my face.
I called Leo. The line was busy. I called again. Still busy. I kept dialing, my actions mechanical.
Marcus caught up with me from behind, his hand closing around my wrist. He knelt before me and gently swapped my high heels for a pair of flats he was holding. "Come on," he said softly. "How much farther do you have to walk? I'll walk with you."
Just then, Leo's call came through.
I was sobbing so hard I could barely speak, managing only to call him a bastard.
"What's wrong?" he asked, his tone casual. "Did Marcus give you a hard time? Alright, alright, I'm coming back to get you."
On the way there, I'd been in the passenger seat. On the way back, Leo's new girlfriend was sitting there. She was beautiful. When she got out of the car, she and Leo shared a long, lingering kiss.
His lips were stained a deep red. He took her hand. "I'll drop my friend off first, then I'll come find you tonight."
The girl smiled shyly. I whipped my head around, staring out the window at the reflection of his handsome, faithless face.
This was back in college, when we still lived with our parents. We'd been neighbors for almost twenty years. No matter how much we fought, we always walked the same path home.
Suddenly, Leo slung an arm around my shoulder, leaning in to look at my eyes. He smiled faintly. "Still crying? What could possibly be worth all these tears?"
"You don't like Marcus? I can introduce you to someone else, how about that?"
"When you were seventeen, you followed me around, tattling to our parents that I was dating. Now you're trying to ruin my love life again."
"Clara, have you ever met a bigger third wheel? If it were anyone else, I'd have decked them by now."
I stared at his face, which seemed to have shed the last of its boyishness, and a bitter ache filled my chest.
He was always so carefree, so thoughtless.
I was nineteen. My most vivid memory of Leo was the day he pushed me off on another guy and got his first official girlfriend.
That night, I hid in the dark, crying and praying. Please, God, please. Don't let me love him anymore.
2.
When I saw Marcus again, he had matured.
I asked him what he liked so much about me that he was still asking me out after all these years.
"What did you like so much about Leo?" he countered.
The shadows of the trees danced on our faces, half in light, half in darkness, obscuring our expressions.
"Whenever Leo was around," he said, "your eyes would follow him. Even when you were doing your own thing, you couldn't help but sneak glances at him."
So everyone knew. Everyone could see how much I had loved him.
"Now that you're over him," Marcus said, his voice earnest, "why not give me a try?"
He asked so seriously. It reminded me of a spring night years ago, when Leo had asked me the same thing.
Two years after we graduated from college, Leo's grandmother fell gravely ill. His family pressured him to take over the company, to find a stable girlfriend, to get married, to have children.
One night, he got incredibly drunk and grabbed my hand. "Clara, be my girlfriend, just for a while. My family adores you."
"If I'm with you, they'll stop worrying."
"Besides," he slurred, "you don't like any of the guys I set you up with. So why not give me a try?"
When we were little and played house, Leo was always the dad, and I was always the mom. He used to ask his parents, "When can I grow up? I want to marry Clara."
I was a sickly child, and Leo would refuse to go to school, insisting on staying by my side. He'd tell my parents, "You don't take good care of Clara! I'm taking her home with me!"
But as we grew up, I was the only one who remembered those promises. Over time, they became an obsession I couldn't escape.
Maybe if I just had him, the pain would stop.
My heart hammered in my chest. I grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him.
Leo and I continued that ambiguous relationship for a long time. It was a confusing, intoxicating entanglement. Sometimes, in moments of passion, he would whisper "baby" in my ear.
It made me brave enough to ask him once, my voice barely a whisper, "Do you like me? Even a little?"
He lazily lifted his eyelids, not having heard me clearly. "What?"
But my courage failed me. I couldn't bring myself to ask again. I just let his hand rest over my heart.
During his grandmother's final days, Leo knelt on one knee in her hospital room and proposed to me. Our hands were clasped so tightly they were slick with sweat, but neither of us let go. The two rings he held clinked together with a clear, sharp sound.
For a moment, I almost believed I had finally found the happiness I'd been chasing.
In the winter of my twenty-fourth year, Leo's grandmother passed away.
It was a long time before our two families gathered for a meal again. Afterwards, Leo offered to drive me home. In the car, he slipped the ring off his finger and tried to put it on mine, alongside the one I was already wearing.
"It's a little big. You should get it resized."
"This was just to make my grandmother happy," he said casually. "Now that she's gone, it doesn't really mean anything."
"But I remember you really seemed to like these when we picked them out, so you can have them both."
I froze. Leo reached out and playfully pinched my cheek. "You didn't actually think I was going to marry you, did you? We agreed this was just pretend."
"We're adults, Clara."
I stared at him for a long, silent moment.
Then, I started to laugh. It was true. Loving Leo all these years was like holding a glass while someone kept pouring boiling water into it. Eventually, the pain becomes unbearable, and you have no choice but to let go.
Fine, delicate snowflakes drifted down from the sky, landing on my eyelashes like tears.
"You don't need to drive me home."
After graduation, Leo and I had both moved out of our parents' houses and gotten our own places. He lived downtown, I lived in the suburbs. We hadn't been on the same path for a long time.
3.
Leo spent two years abroad. We barely spoke.
The only time we saw each other was during the first year, at Christmas. Both our families decided to visit him and celebrate together. His business partner here was hosting, and when he met me, his admiration was obvious. He asked Leo to set us up.
Leo just smiled. "I can ask for you, but you don't stand a chance."
The partner was indignant. Leo just stuck his hands in his pockets, his tone confident and certain. "She can't accept anyone else."
I had been standing just outside the door and heard everything. A bitter, ridiculous feeling bloomed in my chest. So, he knew. Perhaps Leo had always known how I felt.
Leo introduced me to his partner, then asked me with a glint of amusement in his eyes, "What do you think? Want to give him a shot?"
"My love life is none of your business."
He laughed, as if my reaction was exactly what he expected. "You don't like this one, you don't like that one. What kind of guy do you actually like?"
He leaned in close, his eyes searching mine as if trying to see into my soul. "Or is it that you like guys like me? I mean, we always did have amazing chemistry."
He moved closer and closer, his eyes shimmering.
I turned my face away, my voice cool. "I don't like you, either."
Leo just hummed in response and straightened up. "Alright, then."
"When you do find someone you like, be sure to let me know."
Later, I saw a post from a mutual friend who had visited him. In the photo, Leo was smiling, a beautiful girl beside him looking at him with adoration. His new flame, apparently.
The caption read, "Long time no see. Leo's still got it with the ladies."
I calmly liked the post. I felt none of the old pangs of jealousy, like when I used to search for him on the sports field in high school, watching him surrounded by girls, my heart aching as he charmed them all. None of the bitter disappointment of the time he handed me a pink envelope and asked me to give the love letter to another classmate.
That New Year's Eve, Leo and I confessed to our families that our engagement had been a sham. After a round of scolding us for being so foolish, they finally accepted that there was nothing between us.
Only my mother looked at me, her expression full of unspoken words. She had seen the "Book of Answers" in my room, a popular fad at the time. I had filled an entire page with Leo's name, over and over again.
When he returned from abroad, I tossed the book in the trash without a second thought. I looked at my mother and said, "Don't worry. I'm over him."
Two years passed. At Leo's welcome-home dinner, our parents were chiding us both. "You're not getting any younger. Isn't it time you two settled down?"
And so, Leo casually brought up Marcus's invitation.
He asked me again if I wanted to see Marcus, but his tone suggested he was already prepared for my refusal.
"Fine, if you don't want to go, then don't... Wait, what did you say?"
I had said yes.
4.
The family dinner ended late. My parents were worried and insisted Leo drive me home.
"You should probably use the GPS," I said.
Leo shot me a look. "I've driven this route a thousand times. I know it by heart."
"Is that so? You have a good memory, then." My reply was lukewarm.
His fingers, which had been tapping on the steering wheel, stilled. "Clara, you've changed."
"Everyone changes." I turned to look out the window. We drove the rest of the way in silence.
When we arrived, Leo tried to follow me upstairs, but I pushed his hand away.
"Two years ago, you left so quickly, I never got a chance to say what I needed to say."
"What we had wasn't a real relationship, so it's not technically a breakup, but it still needs a proper ending. This is it."
"And from now on, stop meddling in my life under the guise of helping me."
His expression was unreadable. "Are you mad at me?" he asked suddenly.
"Can you at least unblock me?"
I met his gaze, my eyes clear, my voice even. "I never blocked you."
"Then why don't you answer my calls or reply to my texts?"
He trailed off, the smile completely vanishing from his eyes.
I hadn't blocked him. I had simply stopped responding. Just like he used to do to me.
From my window, I saw Leo standing downstairs in front of my building until the middle of the night. The streetlight stretched his shadow long and thin on the pavement as he smoked one cigarette after another.
Twenty-odd years of my life, all entangled with him, flashed before my eyes like a movie montage. I switched off my bedroom light.
And now, here was Marcus, still waiting for my answer.
"You might find that once you have it, it's not what you thought it would be," I cautioned him.
Just like it was for me.
Marcus took a deep breath, as if steeling himself. "Clara, I don't know if you ever guessed, but all those anonymous birthday gifts you receive every year... they're from me."
"I just wanted to tell you, over and over again on that day, how much your existence means to me."
"I've tried to give up on you," he confessed, "but I can't."
"So please, just take pity on me."
He stood there, a tall, strong man, suddenly looking so small and vulnerable.
In him, I saw a reflection of my former self.
The spring blossoms fell around us like soft rain, and for a moment that felt like an eternity, I said nothing.
Then, I reached out and took his hand.
"Okay," I said. "Let's give it a try."
When I got home later that night, I saw Leo leaning against my door.
He held up his phone. It was a picture Marcus had posted, of the two of us kissing at the top of a Ferris wheel.
"You're together?"
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