Forty-Nine Paper Cranes

This was the forty-ninth time Sean had abandoned me for Joy. He was a psychiatrist, and Joy was his severely depressed patient. Because of Joy, he had repeatedly left me stranded at theme parks, coffee shops, and just about everywhere else. This time, it was our engagement party. I grabbed his hand, desperate to make him stay. "The ceremony starts in ten minutes," I pleaded. "Just walk down the aisle with me. Does she really need you right this second? Can't she wait ten minutes?" Sean looked at me, a flicker of irritation flashing across his eyes. "Is an engagement party more important than Joy's life?" Later, I handed him forty-nine origami paper cranes. After unfolding them one by one and reading the words written inside, he broke down, weeping his heart out. His words stabbed into my chest like a thorn. Joy. I was willing to bet that her name had crossed Sean's lips more often than my own. "Are you really leaving?" I heard my voice tremble. Even though I knew deep down he would run to Joy, I still wanted to test my worth. I wanted to see if I carried any weight in his heart—enough to keep him at our engagement party, an event we had spent half a year planning. Sure enough, a second later, Sean slipped his hand from my grasp. He looked at me with an apologetic expression. "I'm sorry, Chloe. Wait for me to come back. I promise I'll make it up to you with another party." With that, he turned on his heel and walked away without the slightest hesitation. Several friends and relatives saw him hurry off and immediately swarmed around me, asking what had happened. I watched Sean's back fade into the distance. With their questions echoing in my ears, I forced back the tears brimming in my eyes and announced to the crowd, "I'm so sorry, everyone. Today's engagement ceremony is canceled. Sean... he..." The words caught in my throat. Under everyone's gossiping gazes, I salvaged the last shred of my dignity. "One of Sean's critical patients had an episode. She's in desperate need of emergency psychiatric counseling, so Sean had to go take care of her." A heavy silence fell over the room for a few seconds. Then, hushed whispers broke out around me. "What kind of patient could possibly be more important than his own engagement party?" "I heard he's ditched her for this patient more than once." "Doesn't sound like a normal doctor-patient relationship to me..." Surrounded by their murmurs, I turned my head away, and a searing teardrop rolled down my cheek. Sean and I had been together for seven years, deeply in love the entire time. I used to believe we would smoothly get married, have children, and spend the rest of our lives together. But everything changed after Sean finished his residency and took on his very first patient, Joy. Joy suffered from severe clinical depression. Her condition was critical; before meeting Sean, she had already attempted suicide twice. After six months of therapy with Sean, her condition improved, but she also developed an extreme, unhealthy attachment to him. Whenever anyone tried to keep her from seeing Sean, she would self-harm and throw violent fits. But because she was the first patient he had ever taken on, Sean was stubbornly determined to cure her. He catered to her every whim and responded to her dependence without fail. I had fought with Sean over this. But every time he pulled out photos of Joy covered in self-inflicted wounds, all the fight drained out of me. "She's sick, Chloe. Why are you getting jealous of a patient?" "I told you, she has an illness. Can you stop causing drama?" "She's in this state. If I don't stay by her side, wouldn't that go against my medical ethics and the Hippocratic Oath?" That single excuse—his medical duty—choked back every word I wanted to say. That was the first time we ever had a cold war. In the end, I was the one who broke down and apologized to Sean. And starting from that day, I began folding paper cranes. My name is Chloe, but my friends call me Seven. Seven times seven equals forty-nine. From that day on, I started folding origami cranes. On each slip of paper, I wrote down the date, the location, and the incident. Every time Sean abandoned me for Joy, I wrote a note, folded it into a crane, and dropped it into a jar. Seven times seven is forty-nine. Once I reached forty-nine, I would make up my mind to never love Sean again. And this time, leaving me alone at our engagement ceremony was the forty-ninth time.After sending the guests away, I went back to my mom's house. Sean and I had met each other's parents long ago, and we had already been living together. My mom and I rode in the car together on the way back. The air in the car was suffocatingly heavy. It wasn't until we walked through the front door that my mom finally spoke. "Chloe, I know how much you love Sean. But I think... you should just let it go." My mom sighed, the disappointment thick in her voice. I had always been fiercely independent. Growing up, I had never done anything to let my mother down—except falling in love with Sean. My mom believed in letting me make my own choices and rarely meddled in my life. So over the past few years, even though she saw everything clearly, she had never said a single bad word about Sean in front of me. "Mom..." I looked at her, my nose stinging as tears spilled over once more. My mom pulled me into a tight hug, gently patting my back. "All these years, I never interfered in your relationship. I thought that once you got hurt enough, you'd turn around. I never expected you to hold on for this long." "Sweetheart, take your mom's advice. If it's not working, just let him go." After lying in my mother's arms for a while, I went up to my old bedroom. I checked my phone. Two hours had passed, and Sean hadn't sent a single text. People aren't made of stone; seven years of love isn't something you can just throw away in an instant. Just then, an Instagram notification popped up on my screen. It was a new post from Joy. I tapped on it, and a picture from the hospital filled the screen. In the photo, Sean was holding Joy's slender wrist, which was wrapped in a thin layer of gauze. Her caption read: "It's so wonderful to have an attending doctor like this. In my darkest, most painful moments, no matter where he is, he rushes to my side immediately. His presence is the only warmth left for me in this world." I let out a bitter scoff. Zooming in on the photo, I noticed Sean's ring finger was completely bare. On our fifth anniversary, I had custom-designed a pair of promise rings for us. We had been madly in love back then. Sean had taken my hand, slipped the ring onto my finger, kissed my fingertips, and sworn: "I will never betray you, Chloe. Until the day we exchange wedding bands, this ring will never leave my finger." And now? Just to go see Joy, he had slipped it off without a second thought. I couldn't help but wonder: was I the only one who ever took our vows seriously? Maybe because I was back in the familiar comfort of my childhood home, wrapped in a sense of safety, my tears flowed endlessly. Looking back on our seven years together, what had any of it really meant? After crying for who knows how long, I pulled myself up from the floor, sat down at my desk, and pulled out a sticky note just like I always did. I wrote down the date and the location, and then added: "Today was our engagement party. Joy called, and Sean left me at the ceremony for her." This was the forty-seventh note, and it would be the last. Looking at the jar full of origami cranes, an urge suddenly struck me to post on Instagram too. I snapped a picture of the jar and uploaded it. The caption: "Seven times seven is forty-nine. It's finally time for us to end." I had mentioned this to Sean once. I told him I had a big jar filled with paper cranes, and I warned him that if he filled it with enough disappointment, I would leave him for good. Sean had been busy reviewing medical charts back then. He had merely nodded in distraction. Feeling foolish, I hadn't said another word about it. From the first crane three years ago to the forty-seventh today, Sean had abandoned me forty-seven times in just three short years. There was no denying I loved Sean. And surely he had feelings for me too, or I wouldn't have stayed long enough to endure forty-seven humiliations. I had foolishly thought that getting engaged would fix everything. I never imagined he would hand me such a cruel surprise on the day of our engagement. While lost in thought, Sean's name flashed across my phone screen. My heart skipped a beat. I assumed he had seen my Instagram post. He was probably calling to apologize, just like he always did. This time, I told myself, I couldn't forgive him so easily. I had to teach him a lesson. I let the phone ring for a few seconds before finally answering. "Chloe," Sean's voice came through the receiver, "those paper cranes... can you give them to me?""Why do you want the paper cranes?" I kept my voice flat and distant, desperate to hide the fact that I had been crying. But his next words plunged into my chest like a dagger. "Joy just saw your post. She said she wants them." At that moment, the world felt like it collapsed beneath me. My mind went completely blank. I had imagined a thousand different apologies he might offer, but never in my wildest dreams did I think he would ask for my paper cranes just to placate his spoiled patient. Turns out, when you reach the peak of absurdity, you really do just laugh. I let out a cold chuckle. "Are her hands broken? If she wants paper cranes, she can fold them herself." With that, I hung up on him. My chest heaved violently, as if a lump of lead were trapped in my throat, choking the air out of me. It hurt so much. There wasn't a single scratch on my body, so why did it feel like I was being torn apart? I wanted to scream, to smash something, to let it all out. But knowing my mother was just outside, I swallowed it down. Her health was fragile; I couldn't bear to make her worry. Early the next morning, I went back to the apartment I shared with Sean. The place was dead quiet when I walked in. Nothing had been moved. That was when it hit me—Sean hadn't come home last night. Our noble, dedicated psychiatrist had spent the entire night alone in a hospital room with his female patient. A bitter laugh escaped my lips as I recalled the photo Joy had posted. Beneath that thin strip of gauze was nothing more than a superficial scratch. It was her favorite trick. As long as she broke the skin even a tiny bit, Sean would instantly go into a state of high alert. For a fleeting second, an impulsive thought crossed my mind: what if I cut myself too? I genuinely wanted to see who Sean would choose if Joy and I were both bleeding. But I quickly shook the thought away. Harming myself over a man wasn't worth it. I needed to settle things with Sean today once and for all. But just as I pulled out my phone to dial his number, the front door clicked open. I instinctively turned around. Sean was still wearing the suit from yesterday's ruined engagement party. He stood in the doorway looking exhausted, and right behind him was a girl, shrinking back like a timid, fragile little flower. My jaw dropped. The sheer audacity left me speechless. Sean had actually brought Joy into our home. "Sean, what is the meaning of this?" Reining in my emotions, I pointed directly at Joy behind him. At my gesture, Joy seemed even more terrified. She clutched the hem of Sean's jacket tightly, whimpering in a soft, pathetic voice, "Dr. Sean... does she hate me?" Sean knitted his brows, clearly displeased with my hostility. "This is Joy. You know that. I talk about her all the time." I gave a dry laugh. "Of course I know who she is. I'm asking why the hell you brought her into our house." "It's like this—Joy's condition has deteriorated. She can't be left alone right now. So I'm bringing her home so I can look after her. As my girlfriend, you should be supporting my work." Hearing those words, I was genuinely floored. The lingering heartache inside me turned into blazing fury in an instant. This final insult burned away the very last ember of affection I had kept for him. I stared at Sean. "So, running to her beck and call whenever she snaps her fingers isn't enough anymore? Now you expect me to play live-in maid for her too?" Seeing my reaction, Sean's scowl deepened. He shielded the fragile girl behind him and snapped impatiently, "Nobody asked you to take care of her! Why do you have such a terrible temper? Don't you know Joy is sick? If you scream at her like this and trigger a relapse, can you take responsibility for that?!" "Dr. Sean... Dr. Sean, please don't fight because of me..." Joy peeked out from behind him, batting her big, innocent-looking eyes. Faced with her helpless gaze, Sean's protective instincts flared to an all-time high. He opened his mouth to say more, but before the words could leave his lips, I slapped him hard across the face. "Smack!" "No, I can't take responsibility," I sneered. "But you can, can't you, Dr. Sean? You're so noble, so selfless, so endlessly devoted! You can abandon your own fiancée at your engagement party and leave her to be laughed at by everyone, all to save this precious patient of yours!" As the words tumbled out, tears escaped my eyes against my will. I had always been proud and strong. Seeing me cry, Sean froze in shock. He reached out to wipe my tears, but before his fingers could touch me, Joy suddenly shrieked and clutched her head. "No! Stop! Don't!" Joy gripped her hair, her screams growing shriller by the second as she cowered into the corner of the wall. "Ahhh! Stop it!" Sean shot me a look dripping with blame. I took a step back with a bitter smile. Sean dropped to his knees and wrapped both arms around Joy. Her petite frame sank into his embrace. His large hand gently, rhythmically stroked her back, murmuring soothing words. The scene burned into my eyes like acid. I turned around, marched into the bedroom, and began shoving my clothes and essentials into a suitcase. By the time I finished packing, Joy had calmed down. She was curled up on the couch under a fleece blanket, radiating fragility. No wonder Sean was wrapped around her finger. Even I felt a twinge of pity looking at her act. I wheeled my suitcase into the living room. Sean stared at me in surprise. Lowering his voice as if terrified of waking Joy, he asked, "Chloe, where are you going?" I looked back at him, a mocking smirk playing on my lips. "Can't you tell? I'm breaking up with you."