I Left Her Scoring System

Queenie Gibbs had a habit of breaking down anything that couldn't be quantified into data, then scoring and evaluating it. Love was no exception. She didn't want children, so I went and got a vasectomy without being asked. Plus five points. When her mother, Charice Gibbs, was hospitalized, I put my entire life savings toward the medical bills. Plus two points. In our third year together, I finally scored high enough to clear her bar for marriage. I'd always believed that as the youngest top-tier data analyst in the country, she simply carried the rationality of her work into our relationship. It didn't mean she didn't love me. Then, the day before our premarital checkup, a notification popped up on her phone. [Subject B: Last night's physical data has been logged.] I tapped it open and found a chart comparing two men. Subject A was me: stability 97, lifestyle compatibility 95, physical attraction 88. Subject B was Bill Hutley, the project consultant who had just joined her company. He scored lower than me on the first two, but his physical attraction was a 99. Below the chart was a video file that had been left open. It was only a dozen or so seconds long, and the footage shook badly. Queenie was pinned beneath him, panting in a way I had never heard before. At the very bottom was one more line: [Recommend increasing intimacy samples.] That night, I pushed the phone in front of her. "'Increase samples.' What does that mean?" Queenie was silent for two seconds. "Exactly what you think it means." "How many times did you sleep with him?" "Seven." She answered methodically, "The first time could have been a fluke, so I verified it six more times." I laughed, but she frowned at me. "You don't need to be bothered by this. In the current overall rankings, you're still number one. Our wedding isn't getting canceled, either." She even explained earnestly, "Marriage is a lifelong decision. I'm just eliminating the margin of error before I get married." In that moment, she was still calculating her margin of error, and I was already done being her sample. Chapter 1 I didn't smash the phone. That apparently wasn't in Queenie Gibbs's predictions. She watched me, tapping her fingers on the table three times as if she were waiting for an emotional reaction. Crying, yelling, demanding answers, slamming the door. But I just pushed the phone back to her. "Tomorrow's premarital checkup is canceled." Queenie finally frowned. "Why?" I looked at her. "You're asking me why?" She glanced down at the screen, as though she'd only just remembered the chart was still on it. "Darren, you're in an acute stress response right now. Decisions people make in anger have very low reliability." I let out a short laugh. "Queenie, I'm not your experimental data." She was silent for two seconds. "This doesn't change the conclusion about our marriage. Bill is just a short-term stimulus variable. You're still the optimal solution for a long-term partner." Bill Hutley. The first time I heard that name, she'd mentioned that her company had brought on a new project consultant. She said he was impulsive and careless, someone who made every decision on gut instinct. She'd also said, "People like that aren't suited for long-term relationships." So even later, when she started bringing up his name over dinner, saying he didn't drink coffee and didn't like sitting by the air-conditioning vent in meetings, I didn't think much of it. Even the first time she canceled dinner with me for a coworker, saying Bill's proposal had problems and she needed to stay late to fix it, I still believed they were just ordinary coworkers. Only now did I understand. Not being suited for long-term relationships meant being suited for testing physical attraction. I stood up and went to the bedroom for my suitcase. Queenie followed me to the doorway. "Where are you going?" "A hotel." "There's no need for that." She reached out to stop me. "I already told you, you don't have to interpret this as a betrayal. My core objective hasn't changed. You're still the one I'm marrying." I looked at her. She was wearing the pajamas I'd bought her, and her hair was still damp. Half an hour earlier, she'd come out of the shower and asked if we could go to the premarital checkup a little earlier tomorrow, since she had a meeting in the morning. I had even blow-dried her hair for her. Now she stood in front of me and, with that same face, told me she'd slept with someone else seven times just to eliminate the margin of error before our wedding. I took the engagement ring box out of the drawer. Something flickered in her eyes. "What are you doing?" "Giving it back to you." Queenie held the box, and for the first time, she showed a hint of impatience. "Darren, can you not express your hurt in such an inefficient way?" I froze. "Even my pain has to be efficient for you?" She looked at me as if she were working out how to answer without escalating things. In the end, she said, "At the very least, you should hear my solution first." "Go on." "The premarital checkup goes ahead as scheduled, and so does the wedding. I'll suspend contact with Bill for two weeks. If his overall score hasn't surpassed yours after two weeks, we'll get our marriage license as originally planned." I zipped up my suitcase. "And if he does surpass me?" She didn't answer. Her brows only slowly knit together. I dragged the suitcase toward the door. Behind me, she said, "Tomorrow at nine-thirty, I'll still be waiting for you at the screening clinic." I didn't look back. "You can take Bill." Just before the door shut, I heard her say very quietly, "He isn't suited for marriage." I laughed. She still didn't get it. It wasn't about whether he was suited for marriage. It was that she was no longer suited for me. Chapter 2 At nine-twenty the next morning, Queenie called me twelve times. I didn't answer a single one. At nine-thirty, she sent a message. Queenie: [You're late.] At 10:03, she sent another message: [The screening clinic isn't busy today. There's still time if you come now.] At 10:27, she sent another message: [I don't like it when people break their appointments.] I looked at the screen and replied with one word. [Canceled.] She replied almost instantly. [Reason.] I didn't reply again. The manager of the wedding company called me this afternoon to schedule a meeting for later today. ... "Mr. Macy, Ms. Gibbs asked us to confirm which one is the groom." I stopped in my tracks. "What do you mean?" "The program schedule she sent over lists two candidates for the groom. We need the final names. The flowers, the seating chart, and the emcee's script all have to be finalized." "She didn't tell you?" The manager looked uncomfortable and handed me a document. It was the program schedule, revised by Queenie herself. Where it had originally said "Groom: Darren Macy," she'd crossed it out and handwritten a line beside it. [Pending final evaluation.] Below that were two names. A: Darren Macy. B: Bill Hutley. I stared at the paper and suddenly felt my stomach churn. I'd spent eight months planning this wedding. She'd mentioned offhand that she liked white lisianthus, so I went to three different florists to order them. She didn't like bright red, so I switched the invitations, the tablecloths, and the party favors to dusty blue. Her mother, Charice Gibbs, had trouble getting around, so I put the head table closest to the elevator and even had ramps laid over the steps in advance. I had also rewritten my vows seventeen times. Every version had the same name in it. Now, she'd casually crossed my name out and swapped it for a list of candidates. I laughed. "Just cancel it." The manager didn't dare say a word. I picked up a pen and signed the contract termination page. The moment I finished, the office door swung open. Queenie stood in the doorway. She wore a white blouse with her sleeves rolled up to her forearms, and her face was much colder than it had been last night. "Who said you could cancel? I don't agree to this." She walked over and pressed her hand flat on the contract. "I haven't backed out. I just haven't decided who the groom is yet." I looked at her hand on the paper. They were beautiful hands. Back when she worked overtime until the early hours, I used to warm them for her and rub lotion into them. She said physical comfort was effective at lowering stress. At the time, I'd thought it was one of her rare moments of letting herself be sweet with me. Only now did I realize she just needed me to provide value. "I told you, Bill is only a backup." "So I'm a backup too." "Do you have to put it so harshly?" She stared at me. "Darren, do you think doing this will force me to give up Bill?" She pressed her lips together. "I can wipe his intimacy samples back to zero." "Even the ones where you slept with him?" That seemed to stump her. After a few seconds, she took a tablet out of her bag. "Look at this before you decide." On the screen was a new spreadsheet. She had lowered Bill's stability score and raised my emotional volatility risk. The last line read: [Darren's stress tolerance has recently declined. Monitor whether he is suited for joint decision-making after marriage.] I looked at those words and went quiet. So after she cheated on me, even being hurt cost me points. She looked at the screen. "If you keep trying to cancel the wedding, your short-term stability will drop to 83. At that point, even if you want to get married, I won't marry you." Her words were harsh, but her eyes stayed fixed on me, as if she were waiting for me to get scared. I just slid the program schedule back across to the manager. "Whoever she picks, you don't need to let me know." Chapter 3 On the third day, Queenie went to my parents' house. When I got there, she was sitting in the living room with a printed proposal laid out in front of her. My mom, Linda Macy, had red-rimmed eyes. My dad, Arthur Macy, sat there with his face dark with anger. "Queenie." She looked up at me. "Good timing. I was just explaining to your parents why the wedding is being postponed." I walked over and picked up the papers on the table. The first page read: [Groom's Overall Marriage Assessment: Fail.] The second page was a risk analysis of both families. The third page contained the follow-up records from my dad's checkup after the heart stent he'd had put in last year. [The groom's father carries a risk of rehospitalization within the next five years. Family medical expenses are unpredictable.] My dad slammed his hand on the table. "So my illness is your excuse to look down on my son?" Queenie frowned slightly, as if she didn't understand why he was so worked up. "Arthur, I've known about your family's situation for a long time. Your illness, the fact that Linda has no income, Darren's current job and his ability to handle pressure. I've factored all of it in. "I was willing to take on every one of those burdens." She looked at me, and a note of reproach finally crept into her voice. "So I don't understand why you're still making a scene. "I was willing to accept a husband from an ordinary family whose father is a medical risk. That's the greatest sincerity I could have shown this marriage. "And you want to call off the wedding because I put Bill on the shortlist?" My dad was so furious his face went pale. "What do you take my son for?" "I don't take him for anything," Queenie said flatly. "I just want Darren to understand that his tantrum has nothing to stand on." My mom hurried to grab my arm. "Darren, sweetheart, stop arguing. Queenie just wants to make things clear." I looked at my mom. She was a woman who cared so much about saving face, and yet even her voice had gone small. A sudden, sharp ache went through me. Queenie and I had been together for three years. She'd eaten dinner at my parents' house more times than I could count. Every time, my dad would serve her the best piece of the fish. My mom knew she didn't like scallions, so she never put any in the food. Even knowing she didn't want children and that I'd gotten a vasectomy because of it, my parents never once showed her any resentment. They truly saw her as their future daughter-in-law. My dad clutched his chest, his breathing suddenly ragged. The next second, he slid off his chair. "Dad!" By the time the ambulance arrived, he had lost consciousness. The doctor stopped me outside the emergency room. "The patient is in critical condition and needs an emergency cardiac catheterization right away. We need an eleven-thousand-dollar deposit first." I turned my wallet inside out and found only a few dozen dollars. For years, Queenie had managed my salary, my bonuses, and my savings. She even held on to my bank cards. I opened my banking app to check my balance. The first thing that popped up was a transfer record. Yesterday, Queenie had transferred ninety-five thousand dollars to Bill. The memo read: [New car and moving expenses.] I called her. When the call connected, Bill's voice came through first. "Queenie, the doctor said you shouldn't stay up late. Have your soup first." Queenie seemed to cover the phone. A few seconds passed before she asked me, "What is it?" "Transfer the money. My dad needs surgery." She was silent for a moment. "Which money?" "My money." "That's for our wedding. It can't just be touched." "When you transferred ninety-five thousand dollars to Bill yesterday, why didn't you say it couldn't be touched?" The line went quiet. "That was his project relocation allowance." "A new car and moving count as a project?" "Darren, don't lump two separate issues together." "My dad's life is at risk! If it weren't for you, he wouldn't be in the hospital!" "Your father's health was already high-risk to begin with. Darren, you can't push the blame onto me." I couldn't stand to hear another word and hung up on her. I called my uncle, my coworkers, and old friends one after another, begging everyone I could think of for a loan. Right before the payment deadline, I finally scraped together the eleven-thousand-dollar deposit. When the nurse wheeled the hospital bed out, she frowned and warned me, "The patient just had surgery. Emotional distress is the worst thing for him. Don't let him go through a shock like this again." I looked at my father lying pale on the bed, and my fingers slowly curled into fists. Chapter 4 Two days later, Queenie called me over to the apartment we'd bought for our married life. She said, "Let's talk one last time." I hadn't wanted to go. But the two throw pillows my grandmother had sewn by hand and left to me were still in that apartment. When the door opened, every light in the place was on. Two place settings had been laid out on the dining table. There was an extra pair of men's slippers in the entryway. Bill's jacket hung on the coat rack, and two toothbrushes sat side by side on the bathroom counter. Grandma's two handmade pillows had been shoved into a corner of the couch, with Bill's laptop resting on top of them. Queenie stood at the kitchen doorway with her sleeves rolled up to her forearms. There was a small red burn on the back of her hand. She hated cooking. She'd once said the return on investment of dealing with the grease, the prep, and the cleanup was too low. During our three years together, I had slowly learned to make tomato beef stew and garlic butter shrimp. I even remembered that she didn't eat scallions and wouldn't touch cilantro. There was even a sticky note on the fridge. [Bill, stop ordering takeout.] All the patience I had once begged for and never gotten, she was now giving to another man. She looked up at me, her expression as natural as if nothing had happened. "Sit down." I didn't move. "You called me here so I could see Bill has already moved in?" The bedroom door suddenly opened. Bill walked out wearing my old loungewear. Queenie and I had bought that set together when we first moved in. She'd said the color was soft, perfect for wearing around the house. Now it was on another man, the sleeves rolled up just right. Bill carried a glass of warm water over to Queenie. "Queenie, the doctor said pregnant women shouldn't drink anything cold." He set the glass in front of her and, with practiced ease, pulled out her chair. Queenie didn't refuse. She just glanced up at me, as if she were observing my reaction. Bill took a test report out of a folder and deliberately set it on the table. "Queenie's eight weeks along. The baby is developing well." My eyes landed on the paper. Queenie was pregnant. I instinctively took a step back. The day of my vasectomy, I'd lain in the hospital bed in so much pain that my whole body ran cold. She held my hand and told me she never wanted children. "The two of us are enough." Her voice had been so soft back then, and I'd held on to those words for three whole years. Bill watched my face, the corners of his mouth slowly curling up. Queenie finally frowned. "Bill, step outside for a minute." She pushed the prenatal report toward me, her tone calm again. "If you're willing to come back, you can raise the baby." I thought I'd misheard. "The baby can take your last name," she said evenly. "You're stable and responsible, and you'd make a good father. Bill is only providing the physical samples. It makes more sense to leave the long-term life to you." She said it so naturally. As if my being good to her was simply what I was supposed to do, and every time I gave in meant I would never really leave. "Queenie, you called me here so I'd obediently play the cuckold and raise the baby you had with another man?" She frowned. "Why do you always have to put things so harshly? I'm willing to give you a chance to stay." "You don't want me to stay." I pried her fingers off me one by one. "You just believe I won't leave." I bent down and picked up the two pillows from the corner of the couch. "I'm taking these." "You're leaving?" For the first time, her voice was tight. I held the pillows close. "Queenie, I'm done playing your scoring game." I dragged my suitcase toward the door. It wasn't until the elevator doors were about to close that she finally chased after me to the doorway. "Darren." She stood outside the door watching my back as I refused to turn around, her face slowly draining of color. She had probably finally realized that I truly didn't want to be her sample anymore.