His Girlfriend for Six Years, Still an Outsider

Rhys Oxley's grandmother turned eighty, and the whole family gathered on the restaurant patio for a group photo. The photographer asked three times, "Anyone else coming? I'm about to take it." His aunt Loretta looked down the line. "Everyone's here. Go ahead." I stood outside the frame, holding the six coffees they'd specifically asked for. The photographer gestured toward me. "Is that lady joining you?" Rhys smiled. "This one's family only. She doesn't count." Loretta chimed in. "She's not part of our family. Just take the picture of us." In six years of dating Rhys, I'd sent gifts, flowers, and food to the Oxleys twenty-seven times, for weddings, funerals, and birthdays. I'd always paid for and arranged his mother's blood pressure medication refills, and when his grandmother was hospitalized, I was the one who stayed by her bed. Even his cousin's girlfriend of just three months had a place in the photo. Everyone except me. When the shutter clicked, I set the coffees on the steps and walked away. Rhys called as soon as I got into the car. "Where'd you go? Wasn't Aunt Loretta's supposed to have a double shot?" I hung up. He'd noticed a missing shot of espresso, not that I was missing from the photo. ... "His cousin's girlfriend has been around for three months, and she gets to stand beside his aunt. You've taken care of them for six years, and there's not even room for you at the edge? What does Rhys think you are, an on-call maid?" Talia Winslow slammed her palm against the steering wheel in anger. The car was pulled over at the side of the road, and I was still holding my phone. After I'd hung up, Rhys hadn't called again. Five minutes later, he sent a WhatsApp message. [Don't make a big deal out of this. That's just how Aunt Loretta is; let her have her way. I'll book your favorite restaurant tonight.] He hadn't even asked where I'd gone. Talia saw the message and gave a bitter laugh. "So he buys you dinner, and you have to swallow what happened today?" I didn't answer. Six years earlier, when Rhys was pursuing me, he'd crossed half of Seattle in the rain just to bring me the gloves I'd left at the office. Now he apparently thought I was just like those gloves: it didn't matter where he left me, because I'd always end up back in his hands. My phone vibrated again. Loretta had posted the family photo in the Oxleys' WhatsApp group. Seventeen people crowded together, with Rhys right in the middle. Loretta had her arm wrapped affectionately around his cousin's girlfriend, Coralie Merrick, and the replies to the photo were full of praise. [Coralie's gorgeous. She already looks like one of us.] Loretta had personally draped the cashmere shawl over Coralie's shoulders that day. The first time I'd spent Thanksgiving with them, Loretta had shoved a roasting pan full of turkey drippings toward me and told me to scrub it in the kitchen. Rhys had leaned against the doorframe, smiling as he ruffled my hair. "They ask you to help because they see you as family. Guests eat and leave; only family stays to clean up." Back then, I'd believed him. Apparently, the Oxleys had two definitions of family. When there was work to do, I was family. When there was a photo to take, I wasn't. Talia took the phone from me. "Enough. Stop looking." I took it back and opened the pharmacy delivery account I managed for his mother, Moira. On the ninth of every month, the pharmacy charged my credit card on file and delivered her blood pressure medication refill to her house. I'd been doing this for four years, and Moira didn't even know the pharmacy's number; she just called me when she was running low. I clicked to cancel automatic refills and delivery. A notification popped up: [After cancellation, automatic payments and delivery will stop next month.] Before I tapped the button, I paused for a few seconds. Moira had once brought me chicken soup when I had a fever, and she'd also held my hand and told me she hoped to watch me walk toward her son in a wedding dress someday. I'd used those small kindnesses to excuse far too much of what her family had come to expect from me. I tapped Confirm. Moira's number was listed as the patient's contact number. The pharmacy would text her about the cancellation. There were still more than twenty days before her next refill, plenty of time for them to make new arrangements. Then I left the group chat called "The Oxley Sunday Table." Rhys finally called. I watched his name flash on the screen, assuming he'd noticed I'd left the group and would at least ask about the family photo. When I answered, all I heard was irritation. "Mom just got a text from the pharmacy saying they won't deliver next month. Audra, you're upset, fine, but why drag her into it?" My fingers slowly tightened around the phone. "I'll send you the pharmacy's number. You can handle her refills." "When am I supposed to have time to keep track of that?" "Then find someone who does." He went quiet for a moment, as if he'd finally sensed something was wrong. "What exactly do you want today?" Someone at the restaurant called him over to cut the cake, and he lowered his voice: "We'll talk at home tonight. Get the delivery back on first; don't make my mom worry." He hung up. Talia asked where I wanted to go. I sent Rhys the pharmacy's number and unpinned the conversation I'd kept at the top of my chats for six years. "Let's go back." This time, I wasn't going back to wait for him. I was going back to return the key that didn't belong to me.

Rhys didn't come home until ten that night. I'd already put the spare key to his mother's house on the dining table. He took off his coat and glanced at the empty kitchen first. "Where's dinner?" I slid the key toward him. "I'm giving this back." He frowned. "Over one photo? You had to make Grandma's birthday end like this?" Voice messages kept popping up on his phone. Loretta was complaining in the group that I'd left without even saying goodbye and that it was incredibly rude. Moira wanted to know how to refill her medication, and other relatives said my leaving the group had upset his grandmother. Rhys held down the voice-message button, his tone patient. "Loretta, don't be upset; I'll talk to her. I'll have Audra get the medication deliveries going again. Everyone get some rest." Only then did he look up at me, as if he expected me to know my place and take that pile of problems off his hands. Three years earlier, Rhys had taken me to his mother's house in Shoreline and said she'd been locking her keys inside lately, so someone needed to be able to stop by anytime. He'd put the spare key in my palm with a smile. "You don't have to knock when you come here anymore." I'd thought he was giving me a home; later, I realized he'd only handed me a responsibility. That key was only really mine when they needed someone to clean out the garage, feed the cat, deliver something, or bring in the packages on Moira's porch. I pushed the key closer to his hand. "Let's break up." Rhys stared at me for a few seconds, then gave a cold laugh. "Audra, all this just to make me propose right now?" My throat tightened, but I kept looking at him. "I'm not asking for a ring. I want to end this relationship." "Six years, and you're just ending it like that?" He took out his phone and transferred me $5,000. "Buy that bag you were looking at. Call Loretta tomorrow and apologize. Then we're done with this." The transfer on the screen made my eyes sting. It wasn't that he never gave an inch. He was willing to spend money, take me to dinner, and even offer what he considered an expensive peace offering when I made enough of a fuss. But every offer came with the condition that I back down. I sent the money back. Rhys's face darkened. "Audra Penrose, you'd even use my mom's medication as leverage? All those years you were so nice to them, was it just to get me to marry you?" For a moment, his words left me unable to move. In six years, I hadn't missed a single family wedding or funeral; I'd gone with Moira to four annual checkups and contacted schools for Loretta's son. In his eyes, none of that was love; it was a deal I'd been setting up all along. He seemed to realize he'd gone too far and instinctively stepped toward me. I stepped back. His hand stopped in midair, then dropped after a moment. "You're too worked up right now. I don't want to fight with you." He turned toward the guest room. "Sleep on it; we'll talk in the morning." "I won't be here in the morning." He didn't stop walking. "Where are you going to go? Talia's couch? You'll be back after a few days." After the door closed, I called my parents. They'd set aside money for a down payment years earlier and said they'd give it to me when I got married and bought a home. Rhys knew about that money, so for six years he'd assumed that as soon as he agreed to propose, the home, the down payment, and I would all fit neatly into his plans for the future. After hearing me out, my father said only, "That money is for you, Audra. You don't have to marry someone first to get it." The next morning, I took my driver's license and mortgage paperwork to the sales office at Alder Bay Condominiums. With my savings and the down payment my parents had given me, I signed a purchase contract for a $520,000 condo and paid the earnest money deposit. The real estate agent handed me the buyer information form. "Ms. Penrose, you're the only buyer and the only person to be listed on the deed, correct?" I held the pen and paused. "Yes, just me." After signing my name for the last time, I photographed the cover of the contract and posted it on Instagram. [Deposit paid. I bought myself a home.] I'd first looked at that condo at Alder Bay six months earlier. I'd wanted it to be our home after we got married; I'd checked the layout and the price and prepared the mortgage paperwork, just waiting for Rhys to say yes. But he'd insisted buying a place was too much trouble and that we'd move into his mother's house instead, so the plan had been shelved. Ten minutes later, Rhys sent a message. [Buying a place won't make me give in to your ultimatum and propose. We'll talk when you've calmed down.] I didn't reply. He still thought there was a place for him in my new home.

When I went back to the rental apartment for the last of my things, I heard Rhys downstairs. He was smoking with a few friends beside the flower bed near the entrance. One of them laughed. "Rhys, Audra's even bought a place at Alder Bay. She's gone this far, and you still haven't pulled out a ring?" Rhys flicked the ash off his cigarette. "What place could she buy? You think she could afford Alder Bay on her salary?" "She put the contract on Instagram." "It's just a deposit. She wants me to make the first move." I stood around the corner, still holding a cardboard box. The awning above the entrance reminded me of our second year together. It had been pouring that night; I'd worked until the early hours and couldn't get a ride. Rhys had stood in the floodwater waiting for me for two hours, his pant legs soaked, then carried me on his back across the flooded intersection. I'd asked if he was tired. He'd said, "It's worth it if I get to pick you up." The way he'd treated me back then had been real. He drew confidence from those moments now, certain I wouldn't leave no matter what he said. That was real, too. Another friend brought up Coralie. "Your cousin's girlfriend said that before she'll say yes, he needs to get her a $20,000 ring and then talk to her about owning a home together. Audra's never asked you for any of that." Rhys's voice was flat. "They're making serious plans for marriage." It felt as if the air were suddenly pressing down on my chest. Someone asked, "Then what have these six years with Audra been?" He paused. "It's been six years, and now she's insisting on a ring and a place just so she can post pictures and make people jealous. Leave her alone for a while. When those monthly mortgage bills come, she'll come back to me." The men laughed. One of them threw an arm around Rhys's shoulders and took his phone, which still had a diamond ring page open on the screen. "You've already picked out the ring. What are you pretending for?" Rhys took his phone back. "I'll give it to her when she's ready to talk to me properly. It's been six years; I'm not planning to shortchange her." The ring wasn't a promise; it was a reward he planned to casually hand me once I backed down. I'd meant to remind him that the rent was going up next month and organize the landlord's and maintenance workers' contact information for him. After doing those small things for six years, it had become second nature. But apparently, he thought even my leaving was just another fuss I was making. I turned and went to my insurance agent's office. After checking my information, the employee asked if I was sure I wanted to change my beneficiary. Rhys was the primary beneficiary on my life insurance policy. When I'd written his name down four years earlier, I'd thought we would eventually be family in the eyes of the law. "I'm sure." The employee explained, "We'll submit this to the insurance company. Once the change takes effect, the previous beneficiary will no longer be eligible for the benefits under this policy." "Okay." As the receipt for my change request printed, my real estate agent called. The condo at Alder Bay was finished and ready to move into. I'd increased my down payment and gotten a new mortgage preapproval. The agent said we might be able to move closing up by a week once the inspection, title search, and bank approval were complete. I folded the receipt and left the office. Then I changed the emergency contacts in my phone's medical ID and at work, one after the other. Rhys's messages kept coming. [Come back tonight and sign the lease renewal.] [Don't pretend you haven't seen this.] I opened our chat, my finger hovering over the keyboard. Every time we'd given each other the silent treatment, I'd been the one to break the silence. I'd been afraid that letting it go on would damage our relationship, afraid he'd really stop wanting me. So even though I was the one being shut out, I was always the one who ended up apologizing. This time, I didn't reply. Instead, I opened the floor plan for Alder Bay. For the first time in six years, I actually looked forward to a future without Rhys.