There were nine pictures of him. In there, he had taken off his shirt and with his back facing the camera, he knelt on one knee and fixed the clogged sewer pipe. He even held a toilet brush and lowered his head to earnestly clean the toilet for Miranda Miller. The man had changed the single dormitory room into a couple apartments and bought his luggage to move in there.
The student was so happy and put in a "yeah" emoji and added a text that said, "A man's greatest charm is his ability to solve problems, what should I do? I'm going to love my teacher, Mr. Peterson for the rest of my life.”
Underneath, Charlie even took the time to write a comment and it said, "Then love me forever. I’ll love you forever too. As long as I’m around, you’ll never have to lift a finger to do anything.”
Her friends filled the comments with heart emojis and blessings.
I smiled. If only the man in the picture was not my boyfriend, I might have congratulated them too.
What a shame.
Charlie was not just my boyfriend, but he was also a well-known favorite teacher of the college. Miranda was part of the first batch of art major students that he taught after he became the dean of the college.
How far would Charlie pamper Miranda? Well, take this trip for example.
When Miranda was sent to an off-campus location for her sophomore-year fieldwork by the college, he worried she could not adjust to the accommodations of that place. So, he bought the most expensive, last-minute ticket to fly over there to remodel and clean her dorm.
Before that, he was already fretting about her meals and sleep schedule. He was so distraught that he postponed accompanying me to my prenatal check-up.
The irony was that when he was bending over backward for her, I was lying in a hospital because I miscarried our baby after tripping over an electric scooter on the way to have prenatal checkups alone.
Despite being the father of my child, Charlie ignored all the messages I had sent to him and he even refused to answer my phone calls.
I stayed in the hospital for three days. During that time, not once had he ever contacted me. Only when I was on the way home, he finally called me.
"Where are you? Why aren’t you home? Pick up some chili peppers on your way back and be hurry about it," he said.
I parted my dry lips to respond, "Are you coming back?"
All I got was the sound of the call being ended.