Chapter 2
620words
That year, his "beautiful girlfriend" had not yet appeared. A month in advance, I began dropping hints about my birthday. Finally, one afternoon, annoyed by my persistence, he responded without looking up from an important message he was replying to: "I got it."
That simple "I got it" made my heart skip a beat, and for the entire following week, I felt like I was walking on clouds.
I carefully selected a small Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village that he had once casually mentioned, where they served his favorite Black Truffle Pasta. I reserved the best table, arranged a small bouquet in advance, and even wore my favorite vintage dress that I rarely had the chance to wear, just to match the restaurant's atmosphere. That dress was bought with my first scholarship money.
On the night of my birthday, all my friends arrived, but the seat of honor remained empty, quietly waiting for its owner.
"He'll be here soon," I explained to my friends repeatedly, nervously twisting the napkin under the table while I couldn't help looking toward the entrance. "There might be traffic."
My phone screen lit up and dimmed, then dimmed and lit up again. The messages I sent were like stones sinking into the sea, without any response.
We waited from dusk until late night. The restaurant guests had changed several rounds, and the laughter from the neighboring table made the silence at our table particularly jarring. The candles on the birthday cake, initially bright, gradually dripped wax tears, and finally extinguished in the melted cream. My friends, understanding my awkwardness, tried hard to find topics of conversation, but I couldn't take in a single word.
That empty seat, like a massive black hole, sucked away all my joy and expectations. It silently mocked my naivety, my presumption.
Finally, after all my friends had made excuses and left, I sat alone at that cold table, letting the waiter take away the untouched Black Truffle Pasta. I clutched the bill in my hand, the numbers seeming to mock this carefully planned one-person show.
As I was preparing to leave, I found myself opening Instagram.
And then, I saw it.
It wasn't on his page, but in one of his friend's Stories. It was a video with loud music and shaky camera work, set on a brightly lit yacht with the Statue of Liberty silhouetted in the background. Julian stood right in the center of the crowd, holding a glass of champagne, laughing heartily, saying something to a pretty girl beside him. The way he slightly lowered his head to listen to her was so attentive, so charming.
I clicked on that girl's profile, and her latest post read: "Best night ever!"
I zoomed in on that video clip, and from the background decorations and friends' tags, I realized it wasn't any special party thrown for him, just another ordinary weekend gathering for their social circle.
He hadn't even forgotten an important date.
He had simply, completely, forgotten my birthday. Forgotten me.
At that moment, I sat in that warm little restaurant, yet felt as if I'd been abandoned on a winter street, all the blood in my body frozen. The phone slipped from my trembling hands, the screen hitting the ground, cracking with a spider web-like pattern, just like my heart. Amid the warm lights and laughter around me, I sat alone, in the midst of ruins.
