Love Is Not a Number Chapter 07
On New Year’s Day, Kimberly went to sit by the flowerbed outside Levi’s family’s complex until evening. She went back the second day. And the third.
She never went up to knock. She just sat there, glancing down at her phone, then up at the bukling’s front entrance.
On the afternoon of the third day, she saw Levi come out of the building with his parents. A car was parked out front, and he was loading luggage into the trunk.
Kimberly stood up and started forward, her steps unsteady. Then she heard the System’s voice. “Today is the last day to leave every Demand Index turned off. If no index is reactivated, the bond will be permanently severed.”
She stopped a dozen or so feet from the car. Levi was just reaching for the door handle when he turned his head and glanced her way for a moment, his eyes flat, like he was looking at a stranger.
“Reactivate Levi’s Demand Index.”
“Once reactivated, this subject can never be unbound again. Does the host confirm?”
“Confirmed.”
A number flashed above his head.
Zero.
She stood frozen to the spot. The car pulled away past her, the window sliding up. Levi’s face disappeared little by little behind the glass, his features blurring, but that number stayed perfectly clear.
She stood there until dark, until she couldn’t feel her feet anymore.
She came back and sat for two more days, not entirely sure what she was waiting for.
Maybe she thought he’d come back. Maybe she thought he’d soften. Maybe she just didn’t know where else to go.
Eventually her mother called, asking why she still hadn’t come to visit this far into the New Year, and she finally went back to the city where she worked.
The day she got home, her mother sat in the living room and slid a fruit bowl toward her. “You and Levi have been together for years now. Didn’t you say you were going to visit his parents? Did you meet his parents? Shouldn’t the two families be introduced by now?”
Kimberly sat there holding an orange, picking at the peel without managing to get it open.
She didn’t stay the night at her parents’ place. She left right after dinner, driving around aimlessly, and passed a jewelry store with its display windows still lit.
She pulled in and bought a men’s diamond ring. The clerk smiled and told her plenty of women proposed these days too. She didn’t answer.
Back at her apartment, she pushed the door open. On the entryway floor, the two paper bags she’d hurled down were still lying right where they’d landed.
Almost a month now, and no one had touched them. She looked at them for a moment, then bent down and picked them up.
Kimberly walked through the apartment. In the closet, the suit she’d bought him was still there, but his everyday clothes were gone. In the kitchen, the kettle he always used was still there, but his favorite mug was gone.
Nothing much was missing. But somehow it felt like nothing had been left behind either.
She went back to the living room, and the memories washed over her in waves. On that half of the couch, he used to sit cross-
legged, waving her over. Against that wall, he’d leaned back listening to music and handed her one earbud.
By the bed, she’d once putted him into her arms while he sat there, shorter than her, tilting his head up to look at her. She remembered how bright his eyes had been when he heard her say, “I’ll support you from now.”
She sank back onto the couch, the velvet box clutched in her hand.
The apartment was silent. Her shoulders began to shake. She buried her face in her arms, forehead pressed to her knees.
No sound came out.
She sent a string of messages.
[Levi, I’m sorry.]
[Can I see you, just once?]
(Please come back.]
[I forgot, I know. I said I’d support you. You can hit me, yell at me, whatever you want, just come back and see me, please?]
Every one of them was unanswered. She hadn’t been blocked. He just didn’t reply.
Later, she told herself, once she was back at work, she’d be able to see him at the office eventually. That day she arrived two hours early and sat in her office. Every time footsteps sounded in the hallway, she looked up.
A little after ten, the HR manager knocked and came in. “Ms. Nicholl, Levi’s resignation form needs your signature to be filed.”
Her face went white. “When did this happen?”
“He submitted it thirty days ago. Today’s just the final paperwork.”/
Kimberly took it from him, the words on the page barely legible to her.
“He’s gone?”
“The paperwork just finished processing. He must have left just now.”
