Eight Years Of Silence Ended When I Saw Him Talk To Her Chapter 08
I did not stop.
He caught up and grabbed my arm.
“Listen to me.”
“Let go.”
My voice was cold.
But he still refused to let go, as if the moment he released me, I would disappear completely.
“I came to take you back.
“Back where?”
“Home.”
I laughed and turned to look at him.
“Evan, that’s your home. It isn’t mine.”
“It’s our home.”
“There is no us anymore.”
I pulled my hand free and took a step back.
The light in his eyes dimmed, and his body trembled slightly.
“Claire, I know I was wrong.”
“I came here because I wanted to apologize to you.”
“Come back with me. Let’s start over, okay?”
I looked into his eyes.
It seemed as if he had not slept well in a long time. His eyes were bloodshot, and deep exhaustion clung to his whole body.
I sighed, then said softly, “Evan, do you know why I came here?”
He said nothing.
“Because you aren’t here.”
“Any place without you is home to me.”
He stood downstairs outside my apartment building and refused to leave.
It was already past midnight.
I stood by the window and glanced down.
He was still standing there, his shadow stretched long beneath the streetlight.
I drew the curtains shut.
When I went out the next morning, he was still downstairs.
He was leaning against the wall, his eyes red. He probably had not slept.
“Why haven’t you left?”
“I’m waiting for you.”
“For what?”
“For you to forgive me.
I looked at him once, said nothing more, and turned away.
When I came back from work, he was still there.
For several days in a row, he came every day.
He stood downstairs, sometimes for the entire day.
Lignored him, but he still would not leave.
One day, it rained heavily.
When I came home from work, I saw him standing in the rain.
He was soaked through, and he was holding a bag in his hand.
“Why didn’t you get out of the rain?”
“I was afraid you wouldn’t see me when you came back.”
He handed me the bag.
“You once said you liked the bread from this bakery.”
“It took me a long time to find it.”
I looked at the bag.
I really had loved that bakery before.
I had once asked him to buy bread from there for me.
He said it was too far and refused to go.
Now he had flown for hours from America to come here.
On a foreign street, he had found that bakery.
I took the bag but did not open it.
“Evan, go back.”
“If you won’t come back with me, I’m not leaving.”
“Then keep standing there.”
I turned and went upstairs.
The next day, there was a bouquet of hydrangeas outside my apartment door.
They had once been my favorite flowers.
On the third day, it was a thermos.
He knew I did not like drinking cold water.
On the fourth day, it was a scarf.
I got cold easily in winter and never had anything around my neck.
On the fifth day, it was a pack of throat lozenges.
I had a sensitive throat and always started coughing whenever the seasons changed.
Every single thing was something I had once told him about.
Back then, he had brushed them all off.
Now he remembered everything.
When my coworkers found out, they all came to ask me about it.
“Your boyfriend chased you all the way here from America? That’s so romantic.”
“You should make up with him. He really does look like he loves you.”
I only smiled and said nothing.
One day, he was waiting for me downstairs.
The moment he saw me come out, he hurried after me.
“Claire, please come back with me.”
“I told you I’m not going back.”
“Then what do I have to do for you to forgive me?”
I stopped and looked at him.
“Evan, do you?”
you think standing here for a few days and buying a few things will make me forgive
“Do you think I’ll be moved just because you flew from America to France?”
“Do you know how I got through the hardest moments of my life?”
He said nothing.
“When I was alone in the hospital getting an IV, you were with Sophie.”
“When I was crouched alone in the airport crying, you were spending your birthday with Sophie.”
“Even when my mother was critically ill and dying, you wouldn’t come see her even once. Instead, you went hiking with Sophie.”
“Do you know how many times I called you, and you never picked up?”
“You don’t.”
“You don’t know anything.”
My eyes reddened, but I did not let the tears fall.
“Now you know.”
“Then what?”
“Do
you think that just because you came here, I’ll go back with you?”
“Evan, it’s too late.”
