He Spoiled Me for Three Years… Because I Look Like the Woman He Couldn’t Have Chapter 10
More than a decade later, I drove past a
condemned redevelopment zone in the city.
A crowd had gathered by the side of the road,
apparently watching some kind of commotion.
I glanced over without thinking, then froze.
In the middle of the crowd were two filthy, ragged
people who smelled as if they had been living on
the street for years.
They were beating each other bloody over a piece of moldy bread.
Through the matted hair and layers of grime, I
recognized Callum.
The woman clawing at his face was Elowen,
recently released from prison, aged and haggard
beyond recognition
“It’s mine! Give it back!” Elowen screamed, clawing
at Callum’s face with her nails.
Callum shoved her away and clutched the
blackened piece of bread tightly to his chest.
His eyes were cloudy and dull. There was no trace
left of the man he had once been.
It was obvious that his mind had completely
broken.
After being shoved to the ground, Elowen burst
into loud, ugly sobs, cursing him as she cried.
“Callum, you useless bastard! Useless! I must
have been blind to ever choose you!”
“This is all your fault. You ruined me. You ruined
my entire life!”
People around them pointed and laughed.
“Look at those two lunatics. They’re fighting
again.”
“I heard he used to own some huge Wall Street firm. Went bankrupt and lost his mind.”
“Serves him right. People like that never fall this hard unless they deserve it.”
I sat in the car and watched the scene through the
window.
There was not a single ripple in my heart.
No satisfaction. No pity. Nothing at all.
They were like two strangers who had nothing to
do with me.
Maybe my gaze stayed on them too long.
In the middle of the chaos, Callum suddenly lifted
his head and looked toward me.
His eyes passed through the crowd, through the
car window, and landed on my face.
A faint light seemed to flicker in those cloudy
eyes.
“Sienna…”
He murmured my name, dropped the bread in his
arms, and staggered toward my car.
“Sienna! Is that you? Sienna!”
Elowen saw me too.
For a moment, she froze. Then jealousy and
hatred exploded across her face.
She scrambled up from the ground and rushed
after him.
“Sienna Vale, you bitch! Give everything back to
me!”
I did not move.
Expressionless, I watched them come closer.
Just before they could reach the front of my car, I
slowly rolled up the window.
The glass shut out their twisted faces and their
screams.
Then I pressed the gas, and the car glided
smoothly away.
In the rearview mirror, their figures grew smaller
and smaller until they became two blurred black
dots and disappeared into obscurity.
I made my home in a white beach house on the
coast.
Outside the floor–to–ceiling windows was an
endless stretch of blue.
I still loved the ocean.
The ocean had never been wrong.
People had.
I took up wood carving again.
In my study, I had a dedicated workbench covered
with carving knives and pieces of wood.
But I no longer carved faces.
I carved waves, birds, wind.
I carved things that were free, things that
belonged to no one.
Things that belonged to me.
Adrian called from time to time.
“Ms. Vale, about the South District redevelopment project, I think…”
At some point, he had stopped calling me Sienna and started calling me Ms. Vale.
Our conversations were always about work.
He was an excellent partner, intelligent and
measured.
We built each other up, and we respected each
other.
That was all.
After two failed relationships, I no longer had any
illusions about marriage or love.
Security was not something another person gave
you.
It was something you earned for yourself.
When I had a strong enough heart and enough
wealth of my own, I no longer needed to depend
on anyone.
That afternoon, the sun was warm.
I made a pot of herbal tea and sat in the rocking
chair on the deck, slowly turning the pages of a
book.
The ocean breeze carried the faint scent of salt
and lifted my hair.
I lowered the book and narrowed my eyes, looking
out toward the place where the sea met the sky.
A gull spread its wings and glided past, crying
once into the wind.
My child.
If he had been able to come into this world…
Thinking of him still sent a small, quiet ache
through my heart.
My phone vibrated on the table.
I picked it up and glanced at the screen.
It was a text from an unknown number.
Unknown: [Sienna, I was wrong. Please forgive
me.]
I did not have to guess who it was.
Some sympathetic passerby had probably lent
him a phone for a few minutes.
Expressionless, I deleted the message and
blocked the number.
There would never again be a Callum in my life.
Nor would there ever be another Callum or Brock.
I stood up and stretched.
The sunset spread across the ocean, turning the
entire surface a warm, molten gold.
I thought, Maybe I should learn how to surf.
My life was still long.
And this time, I would live for myself.
Unapologetically.
Unbound.
Fully, beautifully alive.
