I learned to dream in a new language for him.
Three years ago, I packed my life into two suitcases and boarded a one-way flight. I left my parents weeping at the gate. I resigned from the career I had spent a decade building. I arrived in a country where the vowels felt strange in my mouth and the winters chilled me to the bone.
I did it all because we were “meant to be.” Or so he said.
I moved across the world for him, leaving my family, my language, and my career.
I spent the next three years building a life in the margins of his. I navigated complex visa laws, took odd jobs, and made his friends my friends because I had none of my own. I was the exotic addition to his life, the brave woman who had crossed an ocean for love.
Then came the letter.
It was a Tuesday. I opened the envelope from the immigration office, my hands shaking.
“Denied,” I read, my voice cracking. “It says… there was a paperwork error. A missing date.”
I looked up at him, panic rising in my chest. “It’s a mistake. We can appeal. We can hire a lawyer. It might take months, but we can fix this.”
I waited for him to grab his phone. I waited for him to say, “We will fight this.” I waited for the outrage.
Instead, he took a sip of his coffee. He looked at the letter, then at me, with a terrifyingly calm expression.
“‘Maybe it’s a sign,’” he shrugged.
The room went silent.
“A sign?” I whispered. “A sign of what? That the government made a typo?”
“No,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “That maybe… this has run its course. ‘Long-distance is too hard,’” he added, pre-emptively shutting down any suggestion of waiting or visiting.
I stared at him. I had burned every bridge I had to be here. I had uprooted my entire existence. And he was letting a clerical error decide our fate because fighting for me was too much administrative effort.
He didn’t fight for me.
He didn’t call a lawyer. He didn’t propose marriage to secure my status. He didn’t even look sad. He looked… relieved.
The next few hours were a blur of efficiency. He packed my suitcase. He drove me to the terminal with the radio playing, humming along to a pop song while my world disintegrated in the passenger seat.
He pulled up to the curb at “Departures.” He unloaded my bags, gave me a quick, dry hug, and got back in the car.
He drove me to the airport like I was a vacation that had ended.
I stood there, watching his taillights fade into traffic. I realized then that to me, this was a life-altering tragedy. But to him, I was just a visitor. I was a three-year holiday from his routine, and now that the “visa” was up, he was simply checking out and going back to his real life, leaving me to fly back across the ocean to the ruins of the one I had destroyed for him.
