The Moon and the Sun
It took me five years of marriage to realize
that Jake never proposed to me because he’d
already proposed to someone else overseas.
He was late to our wedding because he was
still hoping she’d change her mind.
Later, he told me he loved me, but by then I was already walking away.
A person who belongs to the moon doesn’t
deserve the sun.
1
After our son, Leo, fell asleep, I went into
Jake’s office and sat at his desk.
<
I stayed there a long time, until my neck was
stiff and the clock hit two in the morning.
After a lot of hesitation, I typed in a series of
numbers and easily unlocked his computer,
and the encrypted folder labeled “My Star.”
It was full of pictures of Chloe Jake’s ex.
I couldn’t even cry out loud, afraid of waking
the baby I’d just put to bed.
Silently, I scrolled to the bottom, a spectator
watching my husband’s love affair with his
“star” through four years of college, the
endless breakups and makeups.
At three AM, I was aimlessly scrolling on my
phone, torn between keeping quiet for Leo’s
sake and waiting for morning to pretend
<
nothing happened, or smashing the laptop on
Jake’s face and screaming at him, asking him
why he did this to me.
My thumb hovered over an email, a picture
sent two hours ago from an unknown number.
In the photo, Chloe, the woman Jake had
always pined for, leaned on his shoulder.
Meanwhile, he was texting me:
“Late night at the office, hon. You and Leo
get some sleep, don’t wait up.”
The same casual tone as always. I stared at it
until that number sent another email:
“Jake and I have been seeing each other for a
long time. There’s an encrypted file on his
computer, the password’s my birthday: 0319.
<
If you’re willing to let us be together after you
see it, divorce Jake. If not, I’ll still fight for my
–
happiness I met him first, after all.”
Today is 3/19, also Leo’s first birthday.
Before the party, Jake got a call, said it was a
work emergency, and left me at the
restaurant alone, holding our baby while
greeting friends.
Chloe claims she met Jake first. But I’d
known him for years before her.
My aunt was best friends with Jake’s mom.
When I was little and my parents were busy
with work, I often stayed at my aunt’s place.
One weekend, my aunt said, “Sunny, if you
can get Jake to talk to you while we’re at his
く
house, I’ll buy you that Power Ranger
backpack you want!”
Jake was three years older than me. When he
was already talking, I was still pining after a
Power Ranger backpack.
Back then, Jake was quiet and withdrawn,
always sitting alone in the corner reading, not
talking to anyone. If someone came near him,
he would snap his book shut and put up walls
to protect himself.
I promised my aunt I’d get him to talk.
So, I sat next to him and asked, “Can I read
the same book as you?”
His fingers paused slightly, and although he didn’t say anything, a few minutes later he
<
I glanced over my shoulder, and my aunt and
Jake’s mom were peeking through the door,
giving me a thumbs up.
I pointed at a word and asked Jake how to
pronounce it.
He quickly looked at it and blurted out, “Cat.”
I grinned, triumphant.
Suddenly, he turned to me and said, “Didn’t
you go to preschool?”
I made a face at him.
He angrily snatched the book back.
That night, I got my brand–new Power Ranger
backpack.
く
And Jake, after disappearing for hours one
day and coming home, spoke to his mom for
the first time since he returned. “I never want
to see that annoying kid again.”
His mom cried tears of joy.
My aunt asked if I was upset.
I said, “If you get me a Power Ranger pencil
box, I won’t be.”
Years later, in my junior year, my aunt and
Jake’s mom went on vacation. They forgot to
pick me up, and instead called Jake to get a
girl named Sunny at the south gate of A
University.
He leaned against his car, smoking, his gaze
intense and brooding. Despite his age, he
<
And, of course, the other girls were practically
tripping over themselves to look at him.
“You’re Sunny?”
I nodded.
He looked me up and down, frowned, opened
the trunk and threw my luggage in.
Sometimes, attraction is just like that,
irrational. As he opened the door, fastened
my seatbelt, went to get me motion sickness
medicine when I said I was feeling ill, I
completely forgot that he’d said he never
wanted to see me again.
I chased after him for a year. He never
rejected me, but never openly returned my
affections, either.
<
Until the following March, he got drunk and
when I picked him up, he mumbled my name
as he held me. “Sunny… Sunny… Sun…
33
When he sobered up, he looked me in the eye
and said with an earnest expression, “Sunny,
let’s be together.”
Today, I know that that evening in the bar, the
name he kept whispering was Chloe.
He was only with me because Chloe, far away
in another country, got married.
In the folder’s journal, he wrote:
“She’s the moon in the sky. Lonely, fragile,
but bright.”
“I want… from this day on, she will be my
<
“But maybe, I have lost my moon forever.”
