I got out and walked back toward the sleek mass of metal and money.  The problem was obvious soon enough—the left rear tire was flat.  Actually, it was nearly shredded.  You get that sometimes; sharp bits of junk fall from the trucks hauling on the freeways.  Sometimes they take a tire, sometimes not.  They took this one for all it was worth, and I calculated it was a lot.

The driver’s window whispered smoothly down and I saw the face of the most gorgeous man that I have ever wanted to kill.  Sitting behind the wheel as calm and indifferent as he tried to seem the day I moved out was the boyfriend I no longer had.

What he was doing near my new apartment, I couldn’t guess, and I never bothered to ask.  It would be pointless.  Any answer would be in the category of none-of-your-business anyway.

He popped the trunk and got out, leaning over to unlatch the spare.  He appeared casual and comfortable while he lifted the tire out of its recess beneath his unspoiled trunk liner.  The layer of filth clinging to his fender made him decide to stand.  I gave him one brief but thorough look that he certainly didn’t miss, although he showed no recognition of it.  He was wearing a suit that showed he still had both relative youth, and yet had more money than ever before.  Money that some other women will share, as I move on to again take care of myself alone.

In fairness, I was not a good girlfriend and probably deserved to lose him.  In the five years we dated I slept with as many men as in my lifetime before him.  Well, maybe a few more than that.  Maybe a lot more.  Funny how a woman seems to lose her looks at the same time as a man grows his bank account.

From the corner of my eye, I saw him standing there studying his phone, either being patient or trying to hide his impatience.  We had nothing but time when we met, younger and poorer and yet having everything we could ever want but not knowing it.  He wanted me to quit, but I wanted to quit only with a guarantee of becoming a wife and mother.  The more I tried to be wild and entertaining, the more he looked elsewhere for a respectable woman for whom he’d leave me.  I grew to resent every party, every wild night every moment I’d spent on him.  But it occurred to me that he’d never actually asked me to be wild; I had been all on my own.

Let him have his freedom, I thought.  He seems happier than I could ever make him.

He finished the tire, put the tools away, and I closed the trunk for him.  “Thank you,” he said.  For the first time ever, I heard him say those words and mean them.  After all I thought I had given him, and after all that time, this was the first time I’d given him what he needed.  A goodbye.

I watched his car get smaller and smaller, as he drove away.