Sweet Romance11 min read
When the Pot Burned: A Story of Leaving and Coming Home
ButterPicks15 views
I ask Matthew, "Do you love me?" every chance I get.
He always smiles and kisses the corner of my lips. "Of course I do. Do you even need to ask?"
But one chat on his phone says the same thing to someone else: "Do you love her?" His answer was, "She's suitable for daily life."
I hold the phone, and everything tilts.
"Suitable for daily life," I say out loud to the empty apartment. The words sound small, like an old coin.
We started like most couples who think their hearts will hold forever. He gave me his phone password, his bank passwords, the key to his home. "No," I said at first. "I don't need all that." He shoved things into my hands anyway. "No, you must take care of me," he said. He wanted me to be in charge. I thought that was love. I thought it was trust.
One evening, I asked, "Can I see your phone?"
He had just come out of the shower, towel over his shoulders and hair still wet. He reached for my phone and then took mine. He frowned, just once, small and controlled. I knew that look. Most of the time Matthew was calm and steady. His anger showed up rarely, and only when he made a mistake. That small flaw once felt safe, like a secret meant only for me.
I pulled up his chat and found the conversation. The messages were casual, but his tone was different. He called her "Isabella" in a way that used to be my name. He wrote, "She's suitable for daily life." He wrote, "She will fit in the house." The words stacked into a ladder I didn't want to climb.
"Matthew," I said, showing him the screen.
He froze. "It's just chatting. Don't take it too literal."
"But you told me over the road, in front of everyone, that you loved me," I said. "You made a show of it."
"I did," he admitted. "I still mean it."
He kept saying the last three words like a charm. But when they met his face, they slipped.
He had a call with "Isabella Vega" not long after. I watched him soften the moment he saw her name. "I'll come after work," he said low when he answered. "Okay, later." Then he shut the door to his study and the sound closed off my warmth.
At first, I blamed the small things. A missed call. A late return. But then I saw their photos—Matthew smiling, arms around people I did not know, a woman pressing cake into his face as he laughed in that way he used to laugh with me.
When I asked Frederick, his coworker, about her, Frederick laughed and dodged. "She just came onboard. She has connections. She can help the firm." He leaned forward, eyes bright. "Wait until we IPO. Then you'll get your wedding."
I tried to breathe. My mother's voice wound in my ear like a rope. "Use your head, lock him down," she said. "Make him yours."
There was a ring in the bedside drawer. Shiny and new. I put my hand on it. It once felt like a promise. After some nights, it felt like something else—an anchor that someone else might carry.
When the company annual night came, I went because he asked me politely. He wore a suit and looked like the center of a photograph. Isabella wore blue and moved like she knew every camera. At the event, between wine and clapping, I sat with small strangers and drank one whole bottle faster than I meant to. When I went to look for him, a corner showed what I feared: a woman leaning close to him, laughing, touching. I saw them at the restroom door, Isabella's waist against him, her voice honeyed.
"How was I?" she asked, tipsy.
"Enough," he said, half joking, half comfort.
When I stepped into the light, their eyes found me. Matthew pressed his body forward like a shield and pushed Isabella away. "She's drunk. I'll take her home," he said.
"Don't," I said, the words thin as glass. "You don't take her home. Come with me."
He looked at me like I was a small storm. "She can't go alone."
"Then call a ride," I said. "Please don't do this."
He hesitated. He took her arm. "I'll be back soon," he told me.
I watched him walk away with the same man who had promised forever. The rest of the night blurred. The next morning, a picture on Isabella's feed showed Matthew in my small kitchen, making congee, the kind I had taught him to make when he was hungover. The caption said, "Someone making me soup at midnight." Her tone was a tease. My throat closed.
I left. I packed a single suitcase and called Emmalyn. "Come get me," I said. She came within an hour, flung something, and hit Matthew on the forehead with it. He made a noise and I did not look back.
I moved into a shabby fifth-floor flat with no elevator. Florence Costa's distant nephew was supposed to bring the keys, but he was late. The house smelled of old cooking and the kind of silence that belonged to people who had always lived alone. I wanted a place to be only mine, even if small.
The evening I moved in, the pot on the stove caught and black smoke filled the room. I panicked and couldn't get the key to turn. Adan Jordan—my new neighbor—appeared, hand gentle, eyes calm. He opened the door, fixed the lock with a click, pulled the smoldering pot away, and opened windows until the air cleared.
"You're okay?" he asked, wiping soot from my sleeve.
"Thank you," I said, my voice shaking.
"You're welcome. I'm Adan. I'll be upstairs." He sat on my couch like he belonged to the place, drank water, and left his number on a scrap of paper. His way was straightforward, no fanfare. Quiet help is a kind of caring I had forgotten.
Days after, he installed a smoke alarm, tightened the sink, and fixed the light. He made soup for me the night I had a fever and sat until I slept. He would sometimes tease me, "You should call me your hero in the acknowledgements," and I would laugh because I was surprised to feel safe.
Matthew did not stop. He sent messages, the kind that pressed and then begged. He tried to guilt me, to show how ill he was. He drank himself into a hospital bed, and once he was away from my sight, his body—once bright—looked fragile, like an old fruit.
Isabella, the other woman, kept appearing at work events. She laughed too loud in places she didn't belong. She tried to be friendly to me in a way that felt like a challenge. I kept my distance and focused on drafts, on small articles, on the steady click of the keyboard.
One night, Frederick called with urgent news. "Matthew collapsed. He was drinking," he said fast. "Come to the hospital."
I stared at the ceiling. The past and its soft harness made me tired. "I won't," I answered. "We are done."
"You should go," he insisted.
I did not go. I could not be the nurse to fix what he had broken by his choices.
Days later, I saw a post that he was discharged. I visited the hospital from the corridor, glanced through a window, and left. My heart was no longer his place.
Life grew ordinary in the broken, good way. I bought cheap eggs at the market and learned how to make two new soups. I dipped into my drafts and found work. My sentences became lighter and truer. Adan came over with a duck on a snowy evening and said, "You've got to eat. And if you want, I will not leave until you finish." He was careful because he could see I had been handled roughly by someone I loved.
"You're too steady," I said once, testing him at midnight.
"Good," he answered. "Someone needs to build a home. It should not collapse."
Months passed in clothes and cooking and work. Emmalyn clucked and tried to set me up with "some decent fellows." My mother called, furious at first, then quieter. "Just get your life sorted," she said. There were moments I missed the idea of Matthew—how it used to feel that two people could be forever. But the reality had a different voice.
Then came the company gala. I did not plan to go, but Frederick, who had always been loud, called and said, "We need to celebrate a win." I found myself walking through the doors, dressed simply but cleanly. The room shimmered, silver and champagne everywhere.
At the far end, Isabella waited—more brilliant than before. She saw me, widened her eyes in a way that asked a question and then decided not to answer it. I smiled, cool like a dish put back into the ice.
"Juliet," she said too loudly. "Fancy seeing you here."
I answered, "Isabella."
Then Matthew arrived. He was thinner. He looked for me and then found me. He came over, eyes soft with a self-pity I had seen too often. "Juliet," he said. "I—"
I raised a hand. "Matthew," I said, "What do you want?"
He had no answer for that. He looked at Isabella, a shade of bewilderment that was almost childish.
A few minutes later, Frederick, a man who'd watched it all unfold, nudged me. "Stay," he whispered.
The gala unfolded like stage machinery. There were speeches and glasses and a tall pyramid of champagne. Isabella moved like a plant with painted leaves toward the edge of the crowd. She had been working this room for weeks.
I made a choice. I walked up on stage when the host called for photos and stood behind the microphone.
"Excuse me," I said. "I have something to say."
The room hummed. People turned. Matthew's face went from nervous to alarmed. Isabella's skin fell like a curtain.
"I am Juliet," I said. "I used to be the woman Matthew called his. I stood in his kitchen. I packed his lunches. I was told I was the one. But a phone call and a chat said I was only 'suitable for daily life.' I want to ask him now—does he still love me?"
A laugh rippled. Matthew's mouth moved, but the microphone caught my next sentence.
"I found messages. I found photos. I know he spent nights with Isabella. He came back with stories about comforting her. He told her 'I'll be there' the way he promised me forever. The difference is that one woman was a chapter. The other was turned into a staying place."
A hush fell. Isabella walked toward the stage, heels sharp on marble, and stopped three steps away. Her face was an open ledger.
"Isabella," I said. "Did you know he told me he loved me on the street?"
She opened her mouth. "No—"
"But you were there in his texts."
"I—" She flailed, and the crowd shifted. Frederick and other coworkers watched, mouths tight. Phones in pockets lifted like a flock.
I held a printed page—a handful of messages I had printed earlier. "Here," I said. "This is what you all want to see."
Matthew's hand found the microphone stand and held on like he could staunch a leak.
"What are you doing?" he hissed into my skin.
"I am telling the truth," I said. "You're both pretending to be wronged and wrongdoer at once."
A woman near the front whispered, "This is messy."
"Messy?" I laughed, a small thing. "No. It's simple. You made choices."
Isabella, taken by the lights and the crowd, changed color. Her eyes darted for salvage.
"Juliet, this is not the place—" she started.
"Why not?" I said. "Because it's your stage too? Because you can smile through it? Tonight is the night we celebrate honesty, right? You told the firm you'd bring help and resources. You promised. But you also put yourself between a man and his promises."
The crowd murmured. A man snapped a photo. Someone behind me said, "She has the receipts." Phones were up, lights small like a new constellation.
Isabella's posture failed. She said, "I—I didn't know he loved you that much. We didn’t mean—"
"It doesn't matter what you meant," I said. "Meaning isn't kindness."
She made a sudden, loud attempt at denial. "He said we were nothing. We were just friends."
"Then why the midnight soup photo?" someone called. A laugh, mean and small, rose.
Isabella's face lost its sheen. Her cheeks reddened. She reached for words and only found thin air. People shifted; they had started to take sides. The hostess, embarrassed, tried to steer the program back on track.
Then Frederick stood and spoke in a voice that used to be playful and was now iron. "Matthew, did you tell Juliet all this was nothing? Did you manage to forget everything you promised?"
Matthew looked at the sea of faces, at Isabella, at me. The man who once arranged my life into neat promises was now small.
"I—" He began.
"No," I said. "Don't."
I read the messages out loud—time, place, words. "Here: 'I'll cook you soup.' Here: 'I'll be there, soon.' Here: 'She's suitable.'"
For a beat, Isabella's expression moved from shock to denial to anger to shame. Her eyes flooded with tears. People around us leaned in like the thing was a sudden play and they were front row.
"How could you?" a co-worker whispered.
"She ruined us," someone muttered in defense of Matthew, but his voice was weak.
Isabella's change was a show. She looked entitled and then frightened. She tried to smile, but it failed halfway. She said, "You don't get to make me the villain."
"My being a villain fits a story better," I said softly. "But I lived there, in the real house, with the real nights. You came and claimed the lighter parts."
She tried to pull rank, to remind everyone of the business she could bring. "I have connections," she said. "I can help your projects."
"That is not why you belong in someone's bed," someone shouted.
The room shifted. Frederick walked with me off the stage while the crowd decided on a verdict. Some clapped. Some recorded. The social net of the company closed in on Isabella—comments online tumbled, the feed filled with the story, and she found herself boxed by other people's opinions. Her sponsor colleagues tilted away.
Later that night, outside the hall, she stood on the steps while a small crowd of staff and clients whispered. She put a hand over her mouth and sobbed. Matthew tried to reach for her, but his hand trembled. People took video, some with pity, some with scorn. A senior partner, who had watched the company like it was a garden, turned away. A few clients got up and left. Isabella held a phone and watched as her contact list filled with cold messages.
This was public and full and complete. Isabella had every stage: smugness, denial, collapse. She tried to argue she had done nothing wrong, then begged to be understood, then finally wept in a way that admitted she had been wrong. People who had once admired her turned away or whispered. Some watched in judgment, some in a strange empathy. The whole sequence lasted long enough that reporters outside caught a hint and typed a headline.
Isabella's punishment was not violent. It was social. It was a striptease of status. People who once smiled at her now kept distance. A sponsor withdrew an offer. A friend unfriended her in front of her. An assistant unfollowed her. She stood on the steps, coat open in the cold, and understood how small she had been when she thought herself large.
Matthew, meanwhile, had a different downfall. In the weeks after, clients grew uneasy. His health flagged. The man who could juggle figures could not juggle his self. He drank to dull the ache. One night he was rushed to hospital with bleeding. He had to face his body and the consequences. He was scolded by doctors, by colleagues, and by his own hollow eyes. The company had to hold a meeting to patch affairs. In a boardroom packed with faces, he saw the disappointment plain and unrecoverable. There was no dramatic arrest, no handcuffs—just the cold fall of trust. Clients pulled back, and he sat, humbled, asking forgiveness he no longer deserved.
I watched both things happen from a distance. I did not rejoice. I only watched like someone who had stepped out of a bad painting and learned how to breathe air.
After the gala, life returned to its small truths. Adan stayed—present and quiet. He did not declare himself loudly. He offered bowls of soup, fixed the dripping tap, and sat across from me when my drafts got hard.
One evening, when the watermelon came—he walked in with a chilled watermelon and a grin—he said, "Don't worry about the house. I'm staying. As long as you want."
"Until I accept you?" I teased, remembering the silly line from months ago.
He smiled and bent down, "Yes. Until you accept me."
The world inside me exploded with a slow, harmless fireworks. It felt like something new and alive. I put the first slice to my lips and tasted clean sugar and cold.
We had small arguments—about chores and about whether he should fix the leaking roof himself. I told him once, "You're too much like a parent sometimes."
He answered, "Someone needs to be steady."
We shared quiet moments—him pinching the skin behind my ear, me watching him read code on his laptop like a lover reading a book. He was present the way a hearth is present: not flashy, but reliable.
At the end of winter, when Florence Costa told me she was selling the old apartment and moving away, I felt a flick of worry. "Will you move?" I asked Adan.
He laughed, ate more watermelon, and said, "I won't move as long as you stay." He took my hand, squeezed it, and then gently kissed it.
My last scene in that winter is small and very mine: I sit at my narrow kitchen table. Outside the window the sky is a pale plate. The burned pot that started this mess is long gone, replaced by a new, clean pan. On the counter, a plate with a slice of watermelon glows like a small sun. Adan stands by the sink, towel over his shoulder, humming a song I do not know the name of. The smell of soup and the sight of steam rising is my proof that small things can be sacred.
I think of everything I've learned: that promises spoken to crowds mean less than daily respect; that love that calls you "suitable for daily life" might never choose you in the small hours; that a person who leaves you to find comfort in another will often be the person who is left by his own choices.
"Stay," Adan says, bending to kiss my forehead.
I smile, and I say, "I will."
The End
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