He Made My Parents Wait, So I Stopped Waiting Chapter 08
I never expected to see Sebastian again.
And I never expected him to appear like this.
He stood on crutches.
A trench coat hung on his body, but the old sharp, handsome ease was gone.
He was too thin.
So thin his cheekbones jutted out, making that once handsome face look almost dark and severe.
When he saw me, he moved forward on his crutches in excitement.
His eyes shimmered as he spoke in a hoarse voice.
“Winnie…”
“Violet had nothing to do with that engagement party.”
“The nine hundred and ninety-nine red roses were chosen by me, one by one.”
“The invitations were written by my own hand. I stayed up late writing each one.”
“The venue was chosen after I visited place after place. It had the night-sky theme you loved most.”
“I thought you would come back.”
I stood there silently for a moment.
Then I said, “When my parents traveled nearly seven hundred miles to New York to discuss our wedding…”
“I thought you would show up too.”
Sebastian’s face went pale in an instant.
I turned away and stopped looking at him.
“Go back, Sebastian.”
“Compared with New York’s dry, cold winters, I still prefer the soft rain back home.”
Behind me, his crutch struck the ground.
He chased after me anxiously, limping.
“I can stay. Winnie, if you like it here, I’ll stay here for you.”
“Don’t abandon me, okay?”
He caught my sleeve.
I turned and looked at Sebastian’s reddened eyes, and for a moment, I felt dazed.
Back then, he had lain in a hospital bed and begged me the same way.
“Winnie, don’t leave me. Don’t abandon me.”
I softened then.
And because I softened, I trapped myself in a swamp.
I struggled again and again.
I questioned myself again and again.
Was I not good enough?
Was I not generous enough?
But in the year after I left Sebastian, I realized something.
I never had to torture myself with those questions at all.
I pulled my sleeve from his hand with force.
“Sebastian, I won’t step into the same swamp twice.”
In the distance, someone walked over holding roses.
He waved at me with a bright smile.
“Winnie, over here.”
When he noticed Sebastian, his gaze swept unintentionally over Sebastian’s damaged leg.
There was pity in his eyes.
Sebastian looked at me, then at the man.
As if he understood something, he lowered his head and stepped back in embarrassment.
With a dull thud, he fell to the ground.
The man beside me let out a startled sound.
He helped Sebastian up, handed the crutch back to him, and told him to be careful.
Sebastian couldn’t bear it anymore.
He staggered and hurried away.
It seemed only at that moment did he truly realize it.
His leg was ruined.
He was no longer whole.
He could no longer lift the woman he loved and spin her across a lawn.
He could no longer run with her down a sunset street.
Behind him came the man’s confused voice.
“Winnie, who was that? Why did he look at you like that? Should I be jealous?”
Then came a familiar voice.
“No one. He was asking for directions.”
No one.
That was good.
That was very good.
At least because of his disability, she would not be laughed at.
The wind blew past, carrying dampness with it.
In Sebastian’s ears, a voice from long ago seemed to sound again.
“Sebastian is my boyfriend. One day, he’ll be my husband too.”
“We’ll be together forever. We’ll never be apart.”
The wind stopped.
And with it, that voice scattered too.
