My Zeal Always Outpaces His Warmth

1 For the three years we dated, Jimmy proudly wore the badge of an emotionally stunted guy who just didn't get romance. So my best friend, Poppy, stepped in to be his wingwoman.

From massive life plans to the most intimate details of our bedroom life, he consulted his guru Poppy on absolutely everything.

Whenever I voiced my discomfort, Jimmy always had the same excuse. "Nora, stop overreacting.

Poppy knows you better than anyone." "I only ask for her help to keep our relationship solid." Then came the day of my company physical.

The doctors found a suspicious shadow on my lung. I texted a picture of the report to Jimmy. His kneejerk reply popped up instantly. "Damn.

Wild." A second later, the message was unsent, replaced by a flood of overly sweet, sickly romantic paragraphs. I knew exactly what had happened.

The wingwoman had taken over the chat. In the past, I wouldn't have overthought it. But today was different.

Staring at those two lines of text on my glowing screen, a sharp, bitter sting gathered behind my eyes. It was drizzling outside.

By the time I finally pushed the front door open, it was already ten at night. The apartment was thick with stale cigarette smoke.

A fresh bouquet of Stargazer lilies, the flowers I absolutely despised, sat dead center on the coffee table. I peeled off my damp trench coat and looked over at Jimmy.

He was glued to his monitor, furiously clicking his mouse. "Didn't we agree you were going to pick me up?

I waited outside the clinic for over an hour." He furrowed his brows, his eyes never leaving the screen. "I'm in the middle of a raid right now." "Besides, you made it back perfectly fine on your own.

Why did I have to be there?" My hand froze on the strap of my purse. I couldn't even put into words how hollow my chest felt.

When the doctor first showed me that scan, my entire being ached for Jimmy to walk through the door. I wanted him holding my hand, facing this terrifying unknown right beside me.

But now, looking at him sitting right there in our living room. It suddenly felt like his presence didn't matter at all.

I hesitated for a second before dropping the medical folder onto the desk right in front of his keyboard. "There's a shadow on my lung. The shape is highly irregular.

The doctor told me to mentally prepare for the worst." "I don't drink, I exercise, I live a clean life." "The only possible cause they gave me was prolonged, heavy exposure to secondhand smoke." Jimmy finally stopped clicking and looked up.

His face twisted into an annoyed scowl. "So you're blaming me now?" "Nora, stop being so dramatic.

Secondhand smoke isn't nearly as deadly as the internet makes it out to be." "The final biopsy isn't even back yet.

Can we not make every single thing my fault?" The exact same hurtful deflections. The exact same callous apathy. The old me would have cried.

I would have felt profoundly wronged and dragged him into a screaming match right then and there. But tonight, I just stood perfectly still, letting the silence stretch.

The heavy tension was suddenly broken by the bathroom door swinging open. Poppy stepped out into the hallway.

Before she even opened her mouth to speak, Jimmy instantly crushed his cigarette into the ashtray and scrambled to crank the window wide open, looking incredibly guilty.

I have chronic sinusitis. I cannot tolerate the smell of smoke. I spent three years begging Jimmy to quit, and my words meant nothing.

Poppy just gave him a single look, and he folded completely. A dry, selfdeprecating smirk tugged at the corner of my lips.

Poppy nodded in approval, radiating the smug energy of a victor. "Jimmy, you're bullying Nora again." "Did you forget all the ground rules I taught you?

Apologize to her right now." The defensive, aggressive edge Jimmy just aimed at me melted away in a heartbeat. He shrugged, reluctantly shifting his gaze back to me. "Sorry, babe.

Don't be mad." he muttered, his tone flat. "It's all my fault, okay?

I'm apologizing." Seeing Poppy still glaring at him with her arms crossed, Jimmy let out a heavy sigh and picked up his phone to open a delivery app. "Flowers, boba tea, and a mango mousse cake." "The ultimate apology trio.

I'm doing this right, aren't I, Poppy?" Poppy flashed him a thumbsup and walked over, looping her arm through mine with a bright smile. "See, Nora?

Aren't I the best relationship coach ever?" "As long as I'm around, I guarantee you two will have smooth sailing." I don't eat mango. I am highly allergic to flower pollen.

Every single item he just ordered was Poppy's favorite. Too exhausted to even argue, I yanked my arm out of her grip in disgust and started walking toward the bathroom.

Halfway down the hall, my feet stopped dead. My entire body went rigid as I stared blankly at the floor right beneath Poppy's feet. She was standing on a vintage cashmere cardigan.

The one I kept safely folded in the back of my closet, the one I cherished too much to even wear. I shoved her aside and dropped to my knees, frantically scooping up the fabric.

Jimmy immediately rushed forward to catch Poppy by the waist. He barked at me without a second of hesitation. "Nora, what the hell is wrong with you tonight?

Just because you're in a bad mood doesn't mean you get to take it out on other people!" Poppy quickly wedged herself between us, looking down at me with wide, teary eyes. "Nora, please don't be mad." "Jimmy was just worried I'd catch a cold walking out of the shower barefoot, so he grabbed this sweater for me to step on." "If you're upset, I'll buy you a brand new one tomorrow." That cardigan was the very last thing my grandmother left me before she passed away.

I had told Jimmy the story behind it countless times. But he never retained a single word. Instead, he memorized that Poppy preferred her shower water at exactly a hundred degrees.

He remembered that she hated wearing slippers on hardwood floors.

Because of that, he felt entirely justified pulling my dead grandmother's keepsake out of my closet to use as a makeshift bath mat.

It felt like someone had shoved a fistful of cotton down my throat. I couldn't breathe.

I carried the sweater to the bathroom sink, desperately running the tap over the dirty footprints. But this cardigan was just like our relationship.

No matter how hard I scrubbed, the stain wasn't going to come out. My knuckles turned stark white under the freezing water. The ache in my chest was blinding.

Right as a tear threatened to spill over my lashes, Jimmy's arms wrapped tightly around me from behind. He rested his chin heavily on my shoulder.

His voice dropped into a register of tenderness I had never heard from him before. "I am so sorry, Nora.

I swear to god I didn't mean to do that." "I know you're terrified about the medical results right now, and I never should have snapped at you." "I promise you, I'm taking the next few days off to stay right by your side." "Remember what we promised each other when we first started dating?

Whatever happens, we face it together." Finding someone you truly love is so incredibly hard. Flashes of our three years together flickered through my mind.

The ice around my heart began to crack, just a little. I took a shaky breath, turning my head to respond, but Jimmy suddenly let go of me.

He stepped back, pulling up the notes app on his phone. "Wait, what was the next line again?" "Poppy, the script you wrote me is way too long, I can't memorize all this." A familiar peal of laughter echoed from the hallway. "Oh my god, Jimmy, you are such an idiot." "Just tell her you love her and she's your whole world!

Any girl would melt hearing that." Poppy leaned casually against the doorframe, looking at Jimmy with playful mockery. "You big dummy, what would you ever do without me?" Jimmy turned back toward her, a smirk playing on his lips.

He flicked his wet fingers, splashing water right onto Poppy's cheek. "Good thing I've got you then, isn't it?" "As long as you're sticking around, I've got nothing to worry about." The two of them instantly devolved into a playful wrestling match.

Poppy scooped up a handful of water to splash him back. Her long acrylic nail caught the soaking wet cashmere in the sink. There was a sickening rip.

A massive tear ripped straight down the center of the sweater. The laughter stopped instantly.

Poppy stepped forward to look at the damage, but Jimmy grabbed her wrist before she could reach the sink. "Did you crack your nail? Does it hurt?

Let me see, do we need to take you to urgent care?" Poppy glanced at me, shaking her head with an exaggerated sigh. "I'm not that fragile. You better go coddle your girlfriend.

Not every girl is as forgiving as I am." Jimmy refused to listen.

He inspected her acrylic nail over and over again, practically dragging her out the door to get it looked at just in case she had damaged her real nail bed underneath.

The front door slammed shut. I looked down at my pale, trembling hands submerged in the basin. Just last month, I slammed my hand into a filing cabinet at the office.

My nail ripped in half, and it bled for nearly an hour. I sent Jimmy a picture, begging him to come meet me at the clinic because I was feeling faint from the pain.

All he texted back was a skull emoji. "Told you having those long claws would get in the way of working.

Bet you learned your lesson now." When Poppy found out, she chewed him out for being so insensitive.

He swore up and down that the next time something like that happened, he would shower his partner with care and attention. He didn't break his promise.

He just gave all that care and attention to someone else. The old cut on my finger had reopened from scrubbing the sweater. A thin ribbon of red bloomed into the soapy water.

I quietly patched up my finger with a bandage. I dug out my sewing kit and sat on the edge of the bed, trying to stitch my grandmother's sweater back together.

Halfway through, my phone chimed on the nightstand. I thought it would be Jimmy checking in.

It was a text from Sarah, the HR manager at my company. "Hey Nora, so sorry to bother you this late." "The whole office heard about your medical news." "God, you and your boyfriend were just talking about getting engaged.

You must be an absolute wreck right now." "The regional director said you should take as much paid leave as you need.

We can put the London transfer and all your current projects on hold for now." I honestly thought I had gone numb to it all.

But the second a stranger offered me an ounce of genuine sympathy, the dam completely broke. I was so terrified of the disease growing inside me.

I was so crushed by Jimmy's chilling indifference. After hesitating for a long time, my breaking heart won out, and I sent him a message asking where he was.

Jimmy immediately answered with a FaceTime call. But when the screen connected, it was Poppy's face staring back at me.

She held up a massive cluster of cracked crab legs, grinning over her shoulder at Jimmy, who was meticulously picking the meat out of the shells for her. "I told you to text her where we were going, but you never listen." "See?

Now the missus is calling to check up on you." She spun the camera back to herself, looking right at me. "Don't stress, Nora.

I'm keeping a close eye on him for you." "We were going to invite you to the seafood spot, but we figured you probably didn't have an appetite with everything going on." "Don't worry though, I know exactly what you like.

We'll bring you back some leftovers." I didn't say a single word. I just stared at the screen, watching Jimmy methodically crack open another shell.

In our three years together, he had never once peeled seafood for me. Whenever I asked, he would roll his eyes. "Can you not be so high maintenance?

I'm a guy, I don't do that delicate crap." Yet right now, the pile of perfectly extracted crab meat on Poppy's plate looked like a small mountain.

A suffocating wave of exhaustion washed over me. I hung up the phone and crawled under the duvet, desperately wanting sleep to erase this miserable reality.

But the pressure of real life hung over my neck like a guillotine. I tossed and turned, completely unable to close my eyes.

Jimmy finally unlocked the front door around two in the morning. He walked into the bedroom, pressed a cold hand against my forehead, and let out a soft sigh. "Still feeling sick?

Stop spiraling and get up, I brought you some food." "The lab results aren't even finalized yet.

I bet it's just like last time, some random bug that means absolutely nothing." When we first started dating, I did fake being sick once to test him.

He had a filthy mouth and zero sense of romance. I genuinely couldn't tell if he actually liked me or was just passing the time.

So I exaggerated a headache into a severe fever to see what he would do. I remember it was pouring rain that night, and the downtown traffic was entirely gridlocked.

Jimmy was so terrified something bad was happening to me that he abandoned his car, threw me over his shoulders, and sprinted six blocks in a torrential downpour to get me to the emergency room.

When the doctor told him it was just a mild cold, he yelled at me right there in the lobby. He said some genuinely nasty things.

But sitting in that plastic hospital chair, my heart was soaring. Because in that moment of raw panic, I knew he loved me.

After that night, no matter how harsh or obnoxious Jimmy could be. I never once thought about giving up on him or walking away from us. Until Poppy entered the picture.

His wingwoman carefully, methodically trained him into the textbook definition of a perfect boyfriend. But this perfect boyfriend no longer belonged to me.

I felt something cold brush against the back of my neck. Jimmy's fingers gently swept a stray piece of hair behind my ear. But I truly couldn't tell anymore.

Was this a trick Poppy had coached him on? Or was it a rare, fleeting moment of genuine affection? I kept my back turned to him in the dark. Neither of us spoke another word.

I didn't sleep a single second. When the sun came up, Jimmy left early for the office.

He left a breakfast plate on the counter, perfectly following Poppy's nutritional instructions. It was a runny poached egg and a kale salad. Two things that made my stomach turn.

I didn't touch it. I threw on a hoodie and walked down to the neighborhood park to get some air. Nothing about the streets had changed.

But the person who used to hold my hand while we walked here was entirely gone. My legs finally gave out from exhaustion, and I carried my heavy heart back up to our apartment.

I pushed the door open and froze. The hallway was completely barricaded with boxes.

Poppy was standing in the living room, pointing aggressively as delivery workers dragged furniture around.

Jimmy was right beside her, happily packing my belongings into cardboard boxes. He was rambling off a checklist. "We need to swap the blinds for total blackout curtains.

Poppy is a light sleeper and hates the morning sun." "The pillows have to go too. Poppy only sleeps on memory foam." "And the couch is way too depressing.

Poppy likes warm neutrals, let's get a creamcolored one." I watched the two of them systematically erase every trace of my existence from the apartment.

I stepped into the room, my voice trembling with disbelief. "Jimmy, I'm not even dead yet.

Are you really in such a goddamn rush to let Poppy replace me?" Jimmy instinctively stepped in front of Poppy, shielding her.

His face darkened. "What the hell kind of crazy talk is that? People were right, sick patients are impossible to deal with." "You were the one crying about how unromantic I was.

That's the only reason I asked Poppy to come over and help me redesign the place for you." "I try to do something nice, and you're acting like an ungrateful psycho." Poppy peeked out from behind his shoulder and stuck her tongue out at me.

She casually wrapped her arms around Jimmy's bicep. "Nora, don't be paranoid. I'm just here to take care of you, not ruin your relationship." "Oh, wait, why is your neck all red?

Don't tell me you guys were..." She turned and swatted Jimmy playfully on the chest, tugging at the collar of his dress shirt. "Nora is literally sick, and you still couldn't keep your hands off her last night?" "Once I move in here, I'm keeping a very close eye on you two.

No funny business." Jimmy chuckled, leaning his face intimately close to Poppy's. "You're gonna police my sex life now?" "What happens if I get the urge?

Are you going to step up and handle it for her?" Watching them flirt inches from my face snapped the final thread of my sanity.

I grabbed the glass vase off the table and hurled it directly at the wall behind them. It shattered with a violent crash.

Jimmy jumped back, releasing his grip on Poppy. "Nora, are you psychotic?!" "That is Poppy's favorite vase!

She carried that all the way back from a vintage boutique in Milan last month!" A hollow, venomous laugh ripped its way out of my throat.

My entire body was shaking with fury. "Oh, you have an incredible memory when it comes to Poppy, don't you, Jimmy?" "You remember she bought that vase in Milan.

You remember she hates sunlight. You remember she needs memory foam and neutral aesthetics." "But do you remember that I have chronic sinusitis?

Do you remember that the pollen in those goddamn flowers put me in the hospital last year?" "Do you remember that I am a patient who might have lung cancer and could drop dead at any minute?!" Jimmy froze completely.

He couldn't answer a single question. His mouth opened and closed, entirely stripped of his usual arrogance. He looked like he wanted to apologize.

But right at that exact second, Poppy stepped out from behind him. She closed the distance between us, grabbing my wrists before I could step back. "Nora, please don't yell at him.

We are literally just trying to help you." I tried to violently rip my hands out of her grip. Her fingernails dug painfully into my skin.

She leaned in close, dropping her voice to a vicious, venomous whisper only I could hear. "You're so pissed off, aren't you, Nora?

You feel so victimized." "Well, did you ever stop to think about how miserable I've been playing the ugly sidekick all these years?" "We come from the exact same background.

Why the hell do you get the sixfigure job and the perfect boyfriend?" "Since you insist on being better than me at everything, I am going to burn every single thing you love to the ground today." Before I could even process the words, she yanked my arm forward and threw her own body violently backward toward the floor.

She let out a bloodcurdling scream. "Nora, I swear I didn't tell Jimmy about you faking your illness!" "Please, just believe me this one time, stop hurting me!" A split second before she hit the hardwood, Jimmy lunged forward and caught her in his arms.

He stared at her terrified face for two seconds before turning to me with eyes full of absolute hatred. "You're faking it again?!" "I let it go the first time, and now you think you can forge a medical document to pull this manipulative bullshit on me?!" "No wonder your grandmother died so young, you probably drove her to an early grave with this toxic behavior." "You like playing sick?

You like assaulting people?

Fine, keep playing your sick little games alone!" "Whenever you finally decide to grow the hell up and stop acting like a lunatic, maybe I'll bring Poppy back here!" He grabbed Poppy by the hand and dragged her out the door.

The heavy oak slammed shut behind them, rattling the picture frames on the walls. I stood completely alone in the center of the living room, looking around at the ruins of my life.

Everything had changed. Every person, every object, it was all utterly foreign. The framed photos on the mantle had been replaced by Poppy's selfies.

Poppy's silk pajamas were draped over my side of the bed. Even the study, the bathroom. Poppy's fingerprints were permanently burned into every square inch of this apartment.

My belongings were nowhere to be found. In this home, in this relationship. There hadn't been any room for me in a very, very long time.

Tears slipped down my cheeks, entirely silent. I took one long, shuddering breath, pulled out my phone, and slowly typed out a message. "Sarah, I'm taking the transfer.

I'll go to London." I slowly turned in a circle, taking one final, agonizing look at the walls I had called home for three years.

I picked up my suitcase, walked out the door, and never looked back.