He Forgot The Pad That Saved My Dignity And I Used It To End Us Chapter 05

He Forgot The Pad That Saved My Dignity And I Used It To End Us Chapter 05

The day Grandpa was laid to rest, the sky hung 

low and gray, and a cold drizzle fell over the town. 

A black hearse carried his oak casket slowly into 

the cemetery at the edge of town, where towering oak trees stood watch over the graves. Several 

older men from the church volunteered as 

pallbearers. Without a word, they helped lower the 

casket into the freshly dug grave. 

Mrs. Brenda Higgs, our neighbor, stood beside me 

the entire time, holding a black umbrella over my 

head. Her eyes were swollen from crying. 

“He was a good man, Selena,” she whispered 

through trembling lips. “A real gentleman. The 

Lord will take care of him.” 

Following local custom, I stepped forward and 

gently tossed a single white rose onto the casket. 

By the time the last shovelful of dirt covered 

everything, my legs had gone completely numb 

from the cold. 

As I walked down the winding path leading out of 

the cemetery, I finally turned my phone back on. 

The screen immediately lit up with seventeen 

unread text messages from Killian. 

I didn’t even bother opening them. 

With a few taps, I deleted every single one and 

emptied them from the trash. 

Then I opened my photo gallery. 

Hundreds of pictures. 

Pictures of us. 

Memories of us. 

Expressionless, I scrolled through every photo one 

last time before selecting them all and 

permanently deleting them. 

Next came my contacts. 

Call history. 

Message archives. 

Social media chats. 

One by one, with painstaking patience, I erased 

every trace of him from my life. 

Then I remembered my Notes app. 

Inside were things I’d memorized for years. 

His birthday. 

His food allergies. 

The measurements for the custom–tailored suits 

he preferred. 

I opened the file and hit delete. 

By the time I finished, my phone looked as clean 

as a brand–new display model straight out of an 

Apple Store. 

There wasn’t a single sign left that Killian had ever 

existed in my world. 

When I returned to the empty farmhouse, I began 

sorting through Grandpa’s belongings. 

I carefully folded his faded flannel shirts, the 

collars worn thin after years of use, and packed 

them into cardboard boxes. 

Then I reached the very bottom of the closet. 

My hand froze. 

Hidden in the corner was a neatly stacked pile of 

old cotton cloth pads. 

They’d been washed so many times the fabric had 

turned pale, and the edges were frayed with age. 

Grandpa had made them for me when I was 

fourteen. 

My mother had died young, and Grandpa was a 

rough–handed farmer who knew more about soil 

and hunting than raising a teenage girl. 

When I got my first period, I was terrified. 

I’d hidden under my blankets and cried. 

He’d panicked just as badly. 

Embarrassed and red–faced, he’d gone knocking on Mrs. Higgs’s door in the middle of the night. 

She’d shown him how to cut old cotton shirts into squares, fold them properly, and stitch the edges so they wouldn’t unravel. 

His hands were covered in calluses from years of farm work. 

He was used to holding rifles and tools, not sewing needles. 

The stitches on those cloth pads were crooked 

and uneven. 

Some of them looked downright awful. 

But every single one had been scrubbed spotless with the cheapest bar soap he could afford. 

Before Killian bought me that box of tampons, I’d used those handmade cloth pads for six years. 

The next morning, I met with a local real estate agent and listed the farmhouse for sale. 

The older agent adjusted his reading glasses while flipping through his paperwork. 

“Miss, the economy’s rough right now,” he said 

with a sigh. “And this place hasn’t been 

maintained in years. Some of the wood’s already 

starting to rot. You won’t get much for it.” 

“That’s fine.” 

I stood in the sunlit living room and spoke with the 

calm detachment of someone who had nothing 

left to lose. 

“Whatever it sells for. As long as it sells. I’ll sign 

today.” 

In the end, the house that had held my entire childhood sold for twenty thousand eight hundred dollars. 

I took the thirty–two hundred dollars Grandpa had hidden inside an old metal cash box, added the 

small amount left in my bank account, and headed 

straight for the train station. 

At the ticket window, I bought a one–way ticket to 

a city where nobody knew my name. 

My new apartment was on the sixth floor of a 

cheap building with no elevator. 

I dragged my suitcase up flight after flight of 

stairs. 

By the time I reached the top, one of the wheels had finally broken off after repeatedly slamming into corners and steps. 

The apartment was tiny. 

One bedroom. 

One living room. 

Most of the furniture consisted of old pieces left 

behind by previous tenants. 

But the windows faced south. 

At three o’clock in the afternoon, sunlight 

streamed directly onto the desk, filling the room 

with warmth. 

I stood there for a long time, staring at the light. 

For the first time in my life, I had a place of my 

own. 

I was only renting it. 

But it was mine. 

After getting settled, I walked to a nearby Target to buy necessities. 

When I reached the feminine care aisle, my steps slowed. 

There, lined neatly on the shelf, was a familiar 

green box. 

Tampax Regular. 

The exact same kind Killian had handed me during 

my freshman year of college. 

I reached out and picked up a box. 

For a long time, I simply stood there holding it. 

Suddenly, I could see him again. 

The untouchable golden boy of campus. 

Sweaty from running across campus. 

Breathing hard. 

His tan face and ears flushed crimson with 

embarrassment. 

Unable to meet my eyes as he shoved the box into my hands. 

“You should… uh… go change that in the 

restroom.” 

Back then, at nineteen years old, it had been the first time I believed someone besides Grandpa 

truly cared whether I was okay. 

Whether I was comfortable. 

Whether I still had my dignity. 

Later, I realized his concern wasn’t nearly as 

special as I’d imagined. 

It was cheap. 

Scattered. 

Crowded among countless other people he cared 

about. 

I let out a quiet, self–mocking laugh. 

Then I put the green box back exactly where I’d 

found it. 

Instead, I reached for a bright blue package from a completely different brand. 

At checkout, the cashier scanned my items and 

looked up. 

“Paper or plastic?” 

“Paper, please.” 

Carrying the heavy brown paper bag, I stepped out 

of the store. 

The midday sun poured down unobstructed from above, bright enough to make me squint. 

The past few days had been quieter than anything I’d ever experienced. 

No endless phone calls. 

No messages dripping with arrogance, pity, or 

self–satisfaction. 

My life had finally become clean. 

As clean as a blank sheet of paper bathed in 

sunlight.