The Auto Reply That Ended Us

My husband, Glenn, always called himself a low-maintenance, online-only bot. He claimed a Taurus like him just couldnt handle the exhausting emotional demands of a water sign like me. To deal with my supposed neediness, he set up an auto-responder on his phone, specifically for my texts.

On the day of my mothers funeral, I messaged him.

Glenn, my moms service is about to start. How far away are you?

A second later, the reply flashed on my screen.

Sure.

I stared at the screen, a cold weight settling in my chest as I realized I had fallen for his automated machine once again.

Yesterday, when I asked if he could make it to the funeral, he replied: Sure.

Last month, when a strange man followed me for three blocks after twilight and I begged Glenn to pick me up, he replied: Sure.

Last year, a high-profile client who despised me accused me of stealing her designer bracelet. Desperate for help, I called Glenn ninety-nine times and sent ninety-nine messages, begging him to bring the store receipt to prove my innocence.

Every single text received the exact same response: Sure.

He never showed up. The terror and public humiliation of that night pushed my body past its limit, and I miscarried our baby.

He always promised he would change, that he would turn off the automated replies, but he never did.

Now, a notification from his childhood sweetheart, Cecilia, popped up on my screen: Hey Fiona, look at this! Glenns been sending me the cutest stickers to cheer me up. Did he steal these from your phone?

She attached a screenshot of their chat.

The contrast was staggering. Two conversations, occurring at the exact same moment, handled with two entirely different souls.

I ignored Cecilias message. Instead, I opened my chat with Glenn and typed one last message.

Let's get a divorce. Im moving to Norway.

His auto-responder didn't hesitate: Sure.

Staring at that single word, I swallowed the lump in my throat and set up an auto-reply of my own.

My phone buzzed relentlessly in my coat pocket, but I didn't reach for it. I forced myself through the agonizing blur of my mothers service, only pulling my phone out once the burial was complete and the mourners had dispersed.

Okay.

Sure.

Okay.

Sure.

The screen was a checkerboard of cold, mechanical acknowledgments. I let out a dry, bitter laugh at my own pettiness. I had actually harbored a tiny, foolish hope that he might open our chat for once and read what I wrote.

"Glenn, do you think Buster is happy in doggy heaven?"

"Of course he is, Cecilia. Don't cry. Hes running free now."

The familiar voices drifted through the damp afternoon air.

I looked up. A short distance away, Glenn was tenderly wiping tears from Cecilia's cheeks, his eyes filled with a soft, protective warmth I hadn't seen directed at me in years.

My lungs seized, the breath trapped in my throat.

Glenn turned, his eyes catching mine. He froze in surprise, jogging over to me while leaving Cecilia by a fresh mound of earth. "Fiona? What are you doing here? I thought you were at the hospital taking care of your mother."

"Because"

Before I could finish, Cecilia let out a sharp cry of pain. She had tripped on the uneven grass.

"Cecilia!"

Without a backward glance, Glenn spun around and rushed to her side, his voice thick with panic.

"Where does it hurt? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, really... just twisted my ankle. Go back and check on Fiona."

"She's fine," Glenn dismissed, his hands gently examining her ankle. "But you've always been fragile. Let's get Buster buried, and then I'm taking you straight to the clinic."

He helped her up, guiding her steps as they walked right past me. He didn't look at me. Just like my messages, I had been filtered out of his reality.

By some twisted irony, the pet cemetery was situated right next to the public plots.

Glenn cast a brief, unseeing glance toward the fresh grave where my mother lay, then turned his back. He and Cecilia carefully lowered a small wooden urn into the ground, and he spent the next ten minutes meticulously wiping down the tiny granite marker.

A spark of fury flared in my chest, but it died just as quickly, leaving behind nothing but a hollow, freezing silence.

Mom, I thought, looking at the heap of floral wreaths beside me. We both got him completely wrong.

Years ago, when Glenn was a starving student who couldn't afford a warm meal, my mother had practically adopted him, paying his tuition and treating him like a son. He had promised to repay her kindness with his life, and to love me forever.

Now, he couldn't even see us.

I turned and walked quietly out of the cemetery.

Glenn finally caught up to me near the gates. "It's about to pour," he said, checking the gray sky. "Why are you loitering around a cemetery by yourself? Go home. I have to take Cecilia to the urgent care."

He helped Cecilia into the passenger seat of his sedan, climbed in, and drove away.

The exhaust fumes hit my face, making my eyes water.

For a second, the old urge flared upthe desperate need to text him and scream. Why didn't you ask why I was at the cemetery? Didn't you see the black mourning pin on my lapel? If it's about to rain, why didn't you offer me a ride? Are you that afraid Ill ruin your intimate car ride with her?

Then I remembered the word Sure sitting on my screen.

The answer was already there. There was no point in asking questions when you already knew the truth.

My phone rang. It was an international number.

"Ms. Ross? This is the consulate. Please come in this afternoon to finalize your visa paperwork."

"I'll be right there," I said.

The sky opened up just as I stepped out of the consulate.

I waited under the awning for ten minutes, but every rideshare app showed no drivers available in the storm. Out of muscle memory, I unlocked my phone to text Glenn.

That was when I noticed his new profile picture. It was a matching illustrationhalf of a couple's set. Cecilia's profile now held the other half.

When we first got married, I had begged him to use matching pictures.

"Taurus men are practical, Fiona," he had scoffed. "We don't waste time on childish, performative nonsense."

I closed the app, called Zoe, and confirmed our plans. My flight to Norway was booked for the day after tomorrow.

Two hours later, a taxi finally dropped me off at the house. The moment I unlocked the front door, the rich, savory aroma of pork rib soup hit me. Glenn was in the kitchen, stirring a pot of my favorite comfort food.

"I told you to come straight home," he said, walking over with a dry towel and gently draping it over my wet hair. "Look at you, you're shivering. What took you so long?"

"I had to go to the consulate," I muttered.

"What were you doing at the consulate? Actually, hold that thought... I need to wake Cecilia up." He tossed the towel onto the arm of the couch, pulled out his phone, and dialed her number. He was her personal afternoon alarm clock.

In the past, whenever I felt neglected, I would spend hours scrolling through relationship forums, trying to rationalize his behavior. Taurus men are online bots, the articles claimed. They show affection through physical, real-life stability, not text messages.

But watching him with Cecilia, the theory fell apart.

He was endlessly attentive in person, and online, his messages to her were a constant stream of warmth and humor.

Glenn emerged from the bedroom and ladled a steaming bowl of soup, placing it in front of me with a soft smile. "Drink this. It'll get the chill out of your bones."

I sat in silence, waiting for him to ask about the consulate so I could lay everything out. But the question never came. Instead, he cleared his throat, looking slightly uncomfortable as he brought up the profile pictures.

"Fiona."

"About the matching icons with Cecilia... don't be upset. We actually thought about you when we picked them."

"Look," he said, turning his screen toward me. "You can use this one. It's a little cartoon girl. That way, we all match."

"So I play the child while the two of you play the parents?" My voice was flat. "We become a happy little family of three?"

It was so absurd it was almost funny. I knew without asking that this was Cecilias idea. She had a habit of doing things like this. On my last birthday, she had insisted on a circus theme and made me wear a clown hat. Whenever we walked down the street together, she would grab Glenns arm, then look back at me with a sweet, apologetic smile, asking if I minded.

"Don't be so sensitive," Glenn said, sighing. "Cecilia just thought it was a fun game. We'll change them back in a few days. Besides, if you refuse to join in, shes going to feel self-conscious."

It was always about Cecilia's feelings.

What about mine? Did I even have them anymore?

When I didn't argue, Glenn took my silence as acceptance. He sank into the couch and opened a mobile game, hopping onto a voice call with Cecilia.

"Glenn? Did Fiona change her picture yet?" Cecilias voice drifted clearly through his speakers.

"No. She's being petty about it."

"Oh... maybe we should just change ours back. I don't want you guys fighting because of me."

"Don't worry about her. Let's just play."

Hearing them talk about me like a mild inconvenience in my own living room should have made me scream. Instead, I just looked down at my soup. The pork tasted metallic, almost rancid.

The next morning, I began packing my suitcases right in front of him. Glenn didn't ask a single question. Instead, he grabbed my arm and insisted we go to a local escape room event.

"All our friends are going to be there," he urged. "It'll cheer you up."

I didn't have the energy to fight him, so I let him lead me out the door.

The moment we arrived at the venue, Cecilia bounced over and slipped her arm through Glenns.

A few of our mutual friends laughed, throwing teasing glances our way.

"Glenn, honestly, if we didn't know better, we'd think you and Cecilia were the ones married."

"Yeah, man, thinking of trading up?"

Cecilia's cheeks flushed a delicate pink, but she didn't detach herself from his arm.

"Cut it out," Glenn snapped, though there was no real anger in his voice. "Cecilia is like a sister to me. Besides, my wife doesn't have an issue with it, so why do you?"

He turned to me, offering a tense, reassuring smile. "Right, honey? You don't mind at all."

I forced a polite nod. "I don't mind."

I used to care. I used to scream and cry, begging him to draw a line between himself and Cecilia. But he never listened.

Our worst fight had happened a year ago, on the night of the bracelet incident. I had called him ninety-nine times from the police station, terrified and humiliated as store security threatened to strip-search me.

He didn't answer a single call because he had put my notifications on mute. He claimed I was "too high-maintenance and sensitive." While I was undergoing the most degrading night of my life, he was at Cecilias apartment, fixing a clogged drain.

The stress and terror of that night caused me to faint. By the time they wheeled me into the emergency room, the heartbeat was gone. Our five-month-old baby was dead.

When Glenn finally strolled into the hospital room hours later, his face was a mask of mild regret. "I'm sorry, Fiona. Cecilia texted me that her pipes were bursting, so I had my phone face-down... I'm devastated about the baby too, but we're still young. We can always try for another one."

I had thrown my pillows at his face, screaming until my throat bled.

I fell into a feverish state and fought with him for seven straight days. In the end, his elderly parents came to my hospital bed, weeping and begging me to forgive him. Glenn wept too, writing out a long, handwritten promise never to ignore my calls again.

My heart, weak and desperate for love, had softened. I wanted to believe there was still a shred of hope for us.

But love doesn't survive infinite cuts. It bleeds out slowly until there is nothing left. The day my mother died, the last drop drained away.

The game we were playing tonight was a murder mystery LARP with a heavy romantic drama theme.

I expected Cecilia to claim the role of Glenn's primary love interest, but to my surprise, she handed the "current wife" character sheet to me.

Our friends praised her for being mature and respectful.

But as the game progressed and the clues were revealed, Cecilia walked over to my station and slammed a piece of prop evidence onto my table.

"You're the home-wrecker!" she declared, her voice dripping with venom that felt entirely real. "You took advantage of my time abroad to seduce my childhood sweetheart!"

I realized then what this was. She was using a silly parlor game to publicly brand me a thief.

I let out a soft laugh, reached into my folder, and pulled out the counter-evidence.

"You abandoned him for a wealthier life overseas," I read from the script, looking directly into her eyes. "He was a broken shell of a man until he met me. Now that you've crawled back, what exactly is your goal?"

Glenn sat in the center of the room, his face pale and incredibly tense as he watched our exchange.

"Hey, guys, it's just a game," one of our friends muttered, sensing the sudden shift in temperature. "Let's not get too carried away."

Soon, the story reached its climax.

The game master turned to Glenn. "The childhood sweetheart is the regret you've carried for years. The current wife is the harbor that saved you from the storm. Player One, who do you choose to spend the rest of your life with?"

Cecilia gazed at Glenn, her eyes shining with unshed tears as she delivered her final lines. "I was young and foolish, and I let you go. But we're here now. We can finally fix what we broke."

She extended her hand to him.

I remained seated, my hands folded in my lap. I didn't read my prompt. I didn't beg, and I didn't offer a dramatic plea. I simply watched.

Glenn looked at Cecilia's hand, then at me. For a man who usually never hesitated to touch her, his hand remained frozen at his side.

"There are some roads you can't walk down twice," he said quietly, choosing the second optionthe wife.

Cecilia's smile faltered, her hand dropping slowly to her side.

I felt no satisfaction, no rush of victory. It didn't matter who he chose in a game. Tomorrow, I was leaving.

After the event, Cecilia insisted on coming back to our place for dinner, and Glenn agreed.

While Cecilia was washing her hands in the restroom, Glenn cornered me in the hallway. "She's just here for a quick meal, Fiona. Don't make a scene. Just play nice for an hour, and once she leaves, I'll make it up to you. I'll take a month off work, and we can go visit your mom's place. I'll buy you whatever you want."

I looked at him, feeling an overwhelming sense of pity. "There's no need. I'm not angry."

Glenn blinked, searching my face. "You're... really not mad?"

"I'm not," I said sincerely.

Why waste anger on a man who was already a stranger?

"Oh, thank god," he breathed, a visible wave of relief washing over him as he hurried into the kitchen to start cooking.

Cecilia walked into the living room, glancing toward the kitchen before turning her sharp eyes on me. "Fiona, do you honestly believe Glenn loves you?" She didn't bother hiding her contempt anymore.

"It doesn't matter," I replied, sitting down on the couch.

"Of course it does," she sneered, pulling out her phone and opening her messaging app. "Glenn isn't some cold, unresponsive robot. He's only like that with people he doesn't care about. See for yourself."

She handed me the phone.

Scroll after scroll of their chat history. Glenn sending silly face emojis, responding within seconds, reminding her to take an umbrella because of a 10% chance of rain, sharing photos of his lunch, and writing paragraphs of affectionate text.

It was a systematic execution of every excuse he had ever given me. Each message was a tiny dagger peeling back the scar tissue on my heart, but instead of making me weep, it only cemented my resolve.

"Fiona," Cecilia whispered, leaning close. "What's the point of holding onto a man who only gives you his leftovers?"

"You're entirely right," I said, looking up at her.

I reached into my bag, pulled out a document, and laid it on the table. "Since you love secondhand goods so much, you can have him."

It was a divorce agreement, already signed by me.

Cecilias eyes flared with greed. She didn't even read the terms; she snatched the papers up and ran straight into the kitchen.

"Glenn! I have a contract proposal from the office that needs your signature right now!" she called out.

I sat in the quiet living room, waiting. Less than a minute later, Cecilia walked out of the kitchen, a victorious smirk plastered across her face. Glenns bold signature was scribbled at the bottom of the page.

Glenn followed her out a moment later, carrying platters of foodevery single dish was Cecilias favorite.

I ate a few silent bites of rice, excused myself by saying I was exhausted, and went to our bedroom. I packed the remainder of my things, lay down, and slept more deeply than I had in years.

At five in the morning, I walked out of the bedroom with my suitcase.

On the living room sofa, Glenn and Cecilia were curled up together, fast asleep under a single throw blanket.

I didn't wake them. I quietly slipped out of the house, locked the door behind me, and headed to the airport to catch my flight to Norway.

At nine o'clock that morning, Glenn stirred.

"Morning, Glenn. Have some milk," Cecilia said, handing him a glass.

"Milk needs to be warmed up with a spoonful of oats first. Fiona always does it that way," Glenn mumbled, taking a sip. He looked around the quiet house. "Where is she? Is she still asleep?"

"Oh, her?" Cecilia smiled, sliding the document across the coffee table. "She's gone. And this house is finally ours."