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Chapter 10: The change
The first weeks after the airport felt like borrowed time. Jacob asked her to be his girlfriend that following day.
Jacob was attentive, giving her a lot of attention - good morning texts, late-night calls, small reassurances threaded into every conversation. He apologized in ways that felt sincere, promised transparency, promised that there would be no more surprises. Ifa wanted to believe him. After everything they had went through.
Every trip back to San Diego was followed by constant email check-ins and lots of Skype time. Every travel he had to make for his work, he would try squeeze a transit over in Singapore so they can meet.
But slowly, almost imperceptibly, something shifted.
At first it was the pauses. Jacob took longer to respond, his replies shorter, stripped of the warmth that once made her smile at her phone. Their calls, once effortless and winding, began to feel scheduled, like obligations squeezed between meetings. When she asked about his day, he gave summaries instead of stories.
“I’m just busy,” he said whenever she noticed. “Work’s insane right now.”
Ifa nodded, even when doubt tugged at her chest. She told herself distance was normal. Afterall, he traveled constantly, living in time zones that never quite aligned with hers. Love, she reasoned, could stretch.
Then came the cancellations.
“I won’t be able to Skype tonight,” he texted one evening. “Something came up.”
“What kind of something?” she asked.
“A work dinner,” he replied. “Clients.”
She watched the typing bubble disappear before she could ask more.
When they did speak, Jacob no longer asked about her future plans. He stopped using the word we. The tenderness in his voice dulled, replaced by a careful neutrality that felt worse than anger. It was as if he were slowly packing up parts of himself, leaving the relationship piece by piece without ever saying goodbye.
One night, unable to sleep, Ifa scrolled through old messages, clinging to proof that she hadn’t imagined what they’d shared. That’s when she noticed something she’d missed before - a tagged photo on Jacob’s colleague’s social media. It was from a conference in Bangkok.
Jacob stood in the center, smiling politely, arm loosely around a woman Ifa had never seen before. She was beautiful in a quiet way, her head tilted slightly toward him, as though she belonged there.
The caption read: “To new beginnings 🥂”
Ifa’s pulse quickened.
She told herself not to jump to conclusions. But curiosity, once sparked, is hard to extinguish. She clicked the woman’s profile. Public. Too public.
Her name was Lina.
Scrolling felt like falling. Photos of temples, sunsets, street markets—then Jacob again, this time more recent. His smile was different. Softer. Intimate. In one photo, Lina’s hand rested on his chest.
The caption beneath it made Ifa’s vision blur.
“Grateful for the unexpected love that found me this year.”
Her hands shook as she kept scrolling, dread settling deep in her bones. Then she saw it—the engagement ring, gleaming against Lina’s fingers.
“Counting down to forever. 2008.”
Ifa stared at the date. Next year.
Her chest felt hollow, like something vital had been removed without anesthesia. She checked the timestamp again, hoping she’d misread it. She hadn’t.
Jacob was getting married.
Not someday. Not hypothetically.
Next year.
To a woman he’d met on a business trip in Thailand.
The cruelty of it wasn’t just the betrayal—it was the timing. While he’d been reassuring Ifa, apologizing, rebuilding trust, he had been laying the foundation of another life.
She called him immediately.
He didn’t answer.
She called again. Voicemail.
Her message was calm only because shock had numbed her. “I know about Lina. Call me.”
An hour passed. Then two.
Finally, her phone rang.
“Ifa,” Jacob said, voice tense. Not relieved. Not loving. Tense.
“How long?” she asked, skipping everything else.
A pause. “A few months.”
A few months. Right after the airport. Right after he made her his girlfriend.
“And the wedding?” Her voice cracked despite her effort.
“Next year,” he said quietly.
“You met her on a business trip,” Ifa said, more statement than question.
“Yes.”
She laughed then—a sharp, broken sound. “So what was I, Jacob? A habit you hadn’t broken yet?”
“That’s not fair,” he snapped, irritation flaring for the first time. “Things were complicated.”
“They were only complicated because you made them that way.”
Silence pressed between them.
“I didn’t plan for this,” he said finally. “It just… happened.”
“It always does,” Ifa replied. “To the person who’s already keeping secrets.”
He exhaled sharply. “Lina makes sense for my life. She’s here. She understands my world.”
“And I didn’t?” Ifa asked softly.
“You wanted more than I could give,” he said, distancing himself with every word. “She doesn’t ask me to be someone else.”
The words landed like a final betrayal. Not just that he’d chosen someone else—but that he’d rewritten their story to justify it.
“So you were just going to fade out?” Ifa asked. “Let me disappear without the truth?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“You don’t get credit for avoiding guilt,” she said. “Only for honesty.”
He had none left to offer.
When the call ended, Ifa sat in the quiet, grief washing over her in waves. Not just for Jacob, but for the version of herself who had believed love, again, after a betrayal he knew of.
This time, there was no misunderstanding. No twist to save her.
Just the cold clarity that some people don’t leave all at once.
They leave slowly—until one day, you realize you were never standing on solid ground at all. Was this what people call fate?
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