Love I Can No Longer Touch Chapter 04
Ashley froze, and her lips trembled slightly. It seemed as if she’d suffered an immense shock and lost her voice.
It took her a long moment of effort before she finally managed to utter, “What happened to your arm?”
She abruptly grabbed my wrist, only realizing the horrifying extent of my injury after her fingers made contact. She could only release her grip awkwardly, leaving her hand hovering in a loose, empty circle around my wrist
“Why didn’t you tell me that something this serious had happened? Do you even still consider me your wife?”
I laughed out of sheer exasperation.
Ashley grew even more bewildered at the sound of my laughter.
She furrowed her brow. Before she could begin interrogating me, I preemptively spoke, voicing the very words she was about to say.
“How can you not even take care of your own body? You ruined the hand I spent a fortune to protect. Shaun, you would rather harm your own body just to win some jealous squabble. Don’t you think that’s incredibly childish?”
Ashley’s words died in her throat. Her mouth kept opening and closing, as if she was about to say something even more shocking to me. However, unexpectedly, she pursed her lips tightly and said nothing.
I looked at her in confusion and saw that her eyes were filled with a wounded kind of remorse.
Oh, right. This was the first time she had ever heard those words from my perspective. Perhaps she finally understood just how absurd the logic behind the things she usually said to me truly was.
After all, one never felt the sting of words until they were directed at oneself.
Ashley probably still thought the care she gave me was the same as before. In truth, the sweet nothings and the breath that once soothed my aching fingers had long turned into invisible, razor-sharp blades.
She just never noticed it herself, until I laid this bloody truth bare before her eyes.
What surprised me, though, was that I’d never actually expected her to be moved by my provocation. I’d simply grown tired of endlessly and futilely trying to defend myself under the weight of her interrogations.
Never did I imagine she’d hesitate. Her lips parted as she trembled and said to me, “I’m sorry.”
That apology made Jordan lose control of his expression in an instant. He, who was usually aloof and composed, immediately grabbed Ashley’s arm.
Ashley’s indifference only made him more frantic, yet she continued to direct her laughable concern toward me.
“But you should have told me. I’m your wife-you know what? Forget it.” She drew a deep breath. “I’ll find the best doctors for you.”
I cut her off. “I didn’t tell you? Ashley, why do you think I was in the hospital?”
I used my other hand to remove Ashley’s hand from my wrist. Then, I took a step back to draw a clear boundary between us.
Ashley caught my meaning, and the gaze she cast toward me was like that of a wounded animal. It was just like back when we first got together, and her mother, Carmen Gifford, forced her to break up with me.
I didn’t want her to have a huge falling out with her family, so I backed off voluntarily. At the same time, I just felt
I wasn’t worth the trouble.
That was the same look Ashley gave me back then-all pitiful like some abandoned puppy. Now, seeing her like this just made me want to laugh.
Ashley wasn’t oblivious. She understood every unspoken implication hidden beneath my silence. It was just that before this moment, she’d chosen to play deaf and turn a blind eye.
As long as her heart wasn’t with me, anything I did was nothing more than a futile effort.
“When I was calling you in the rain, in whose arms were you lying?”
