Hiding Me in the Name of Love

The moment the flight confirmation appeared, Jared Jackman started a video call with me.

On the screen, he was standing in front of the hotel's floor-to-ceiling window.

With a smile, he asked, "Tasha, why are you still awake?"

If I hadn't just seen those 600-plus posts on his social media, I probably would have melted when he called me that.

I didn't say anything right away.

Jared coaxed me the way he always did. "Did you miss me? Be good. My project is almost done, so I'll be back in three days at most. I'll bring you a gift when I get back."

I asked him, "Are you alone at the hotel?"

There wasn't the slightest change in his expression. If anything, his smile looked even more natural.

"Of course. I'm alone. Didn't I promise you I wouldn't go anywhere while I'm on business trips?"

As soon as he finished speaking, a woman's laughter came from the other end of the call.

The smile on Jared's face faltered for a split second.

The next second, he angled the camera away. Pretending to sound annoyed, he said, "My coworker is having a meeting next door. She's so noisy. I'll call you back later."

As I stared at the dark screen, my fingers went numb from the cold.

He never let me be part of his world, saying he was afraid someone else would fall for me.

So I never went to gatherings with his friends, and I never attended any of his company's annual parties.

Even when one of his closest friends got married, he only said, "Babe, you're too beautiful. I don't want them seeing you."

My eyes started to sting. I couldn't stop myself from using my alternate account to open his feed and look closely at that one photo.

Jared was wearing a white shirt, his hair messy from the sea breeze. He lowered his head to kiss the woman, smiling like someone who had finally gotten what he wanted.

Yet, after seven years together, he still refused to post even one photo of us.

He had said, "Babe, I just don't want anyone bothering us. Love is between two people. There's no need to show it to outsiders.

"I'm possessive. I don't want others to know just how amazing you are."

I believed him back then.

Only now did I understand. It wasn't that he didn't like making his love public; he just didn't want to show me off.

Someone commented under the post, "Jared, you're a solid one. You made it public from the moment you got together. It's been three years already, right?"

Jared replied, "I couldn't stand the thought of her being with me without anyone knowing who she is to me."

I stared at that sentence for a long time.

In our seven years together, he never made our relationship official. We lived together, had a cat, and shared all of life's joys and hardships.

But there was no sign of me on his social media. His friends didn't even know about me.

The love he showed everyone belonged to someone else.

I was just someone he kept hidden away, out of sight, and only there when he needed me.

My phone buzzed again. It was a message from him.

"Babe, the signal was bad just now," he wrote. "Go to sleep early. Don't overthink things. I love you the most."

I didn't reply.

I opened the closet and pushed his shirts aside one by one. At the very back was the white dress I bought last year. It was the one I wore on his birthday while waiting for him to come home for dinner.

He didn't come home that night. He told me he had to work overtime at the last minute.

But that same day, his posts showed him at a concert at the opera house with that woman. The caption read, "I remember everything she likes."

I took the dress and threw it in the trash.

Then I packed my documents, bank cards, laptop, and a few changes of clothes.

After seven years, there was so little I could take with me.

And whatever I couldn't take, I no longer needed.