His career is doing pretty well, he already has a million subscribers on YouTube, his videos, which from what I read in the captions are edited by Malik, average around two hundred thousand views, he plays at different events, at charity concerts in the city, at festivals, and every month money lands in my account because he keeps the promise he made, that he will support me through all of college.
Every time I see his payments, something twists tight in my chest, because he doesn’t owe me anything. Maybe he already has a new boyfriend? Strangely enough, we are still officially married, I am not planning to file for divorce, and he isn’t doing so either.
I follow news about his life, his socials, posts from fans, comments, searching for mentions that he has a boyfriend, but I can’t find anything.
Cursing quietly, I take a deep breath with a dose from my inhaler. My asthma is as bad as it was before I dated Bay, it chokes me every day, allergies plague me, eczema, everything has returned.
Slowly, I raise my hand and close my fingers around what I wear on a silver chain around my neck, a little soda can tab, the symbol of my relationship with Bay, as ridiculous as it sounds… I remember like yesterday the day he slipped it onto my finger and asked me to marry him.
I tighten my grip on the silver tab.
"Where are you, Bay," I whisper, "do you ever think about me, do you miss me?" I groan as tears burn under my eyelids.
Every day I want him back so badly, I am so heartbreakingly miserable, so desperately lonely, and nothing in my life is finding its place.
I finally swallow a bite of toast, grab my bag, and leave the house, heading toward campus.
Fortunately, the stretch I have to cover today is very short, only a street separates my house from the campus grounds, and it is a fairly busy one.
On the other side there is a wide open lawn I usually cross diagonally, and beyond it a parking lot, then the campus buildings begin.
Because the area is relatively open and cameras are everywhere, I feel somewhat safe on the way to the main building, but it gets much worse when I have to move between the different campus buildings because some of them are scattered deep inside the park where thick bushes and trees block camera views.
During the day I often have to circle between those buildings several times, pushing through the paths that cut through the wooded park.
Other students think the campus is beautiful, that it is so green, but for me it is a curse, I would prefer something shaved down to bare concrete if it meant I could at least feel safe.
Sometimes I feel like I am going to get cancer from all the constant stress I live under. My health problems flare from that stress, always at full intensity, my skin is always itching, I constantly have stomach issues because of my food allergies, my life feels unbearable, zero prospects, zero chances for anything to change.
The decision to attempt suicide again is slowly forming inside me.
Where is all of this leading anyway?
The only area of my life where I succeed is academics, I am the top student of my year, and my professors are already encouraging me to pursue a mathematician’s path and stay to work at the college.
The idea of teaching students doesn’t tempt me much, but I will eventually need a job, and I really am good at math.
Classes go by in a similar blur and I go to lunch with Dereck and his boyfriend.
Sometimes I am tempted to ask him about Bay because I know they still see each other occasionally, and Dereck even plays with Bay at some concerts when Bay needs a second bassist.
There is one time when the question is on the tip of my tongue: whether Bay has someone, whether he has found another omega.
But I never ask because it really isn’t my business; we aren’t officially together, the marriage exists only on paper, I can have a boyfriend, he can have one too, nothing binds us anymore.
Well, something binds me, my love for him, which hasn’t faded, hasn’t diminished; it remains.
And I know it won’t change until the end of my days.
After lunch I have a few more hours of classes.
They pass slowly, and as it grows darker outside, my anxiety climbs, just like every day.
In my last class my gaze keeps drifting to the window, where dusk settles in and the shadows of the park trees grow deeper.
I am in a building in the farthest corner of campus, and I have a woods crossing ahead of me. I decide to join a group of students heading toward the dorms; unfortunately, that is the opposite direction and means I will have to take a long detour, but that is usually what I do.
Unfortunately, this time, when I pack my tablet into my bag and head toward the door to join the group of students leaving class, my professor, Martin, waves me over.
