Vivian wanted him in Valkenheim, so he abandoned everything he once believed in.
And now, he was using a figurine to remind me.
You can finally go to Cambridge.
He didn't know that the figurine wasn't a gift to me. It was a knife.
I didn't respond. I just kept packing in silence.
The trash can was already overflowing.
Our wedding portrait. A sample of our wedding invitation. The plane tickets from our honeymoon.
"You're throwing all of this away?"
He sounded confused.
I'd treated every one of those things like treasure once.
I kept my voice flat, my hands never stopping.
"There's too much stuff. Something has to go. You can't keep everything."
His brow creased slightly, as if he'd caught something beneath my words.
But he didn't move. He didn't fish anything out of the trash, either.
I pointed to a box in the corner. It was full of his and Vivian's things.
Old photographs of the two of them. A scarf she'd given him. Letters she'd written him.
"What about those? Tossing them too?"
He panicked instantly, rushing over and clutching the box to his chest.
"These can't be thrown away!"
Realizing how that looked, he let out an awkward laugh.