Eight Years Of Silence Ended When I Saw Him Talk To Her Chapter 10
He did not leave.
He stayed for another month.
Every day, he waited downstairs.
Sometimes I would see him from the window.
He would be looking down at his phone or looking up at my window.
Once, when I went downstairs to take out the trash, he rushed over.
He was holding a box.
“Claire, this is the necklace you said you wanted before.”
“I bought it. Will you take it?”
I looked at the box.
It was the necklace I had glanced at a little too long in a store window on my birthday two years ago.
Back then, he had said it was too expensive and that he would buy it for me once he had more
money.
But I had waited five years, and it never came.
Now that we had broken up, he had finally remembered to buy it.
“I don’t want it.”
“Just take it. If you don’t want it, throw it away.”
I pushed the box back to him.
“Evan, do you still not understand?”
“What I wanted was never the necklace.”
“I wanted you to care about me.”
“But you never did.”
His tears fell.
“I care about you. I’ve always cared about you.”
I watched him cry, my heart perfectly calm.
“Evan, do you know the difference between Sophie and me?”
He shook his head.
“When she cried, your heart hurt for her.”
“When I cried, you thought I was annoying.”
“That’s the difference.”
“The person you loved was never me. It was yourself.”
“You thought I could never leave you, not because I mattered, but because you were arrogant.”
His lips parted, but he could not say
“I’m leaving.”
“Don’t come here again.”
word.
After that, he really did not come again.
People at the company said he had gone back to the States.
On the day he left, he sat at the airport for a long time, as if he were waiting for something.
Maybe he was waiting for a familiar figure.
Maybe he was waiting for a single sentence asking him to stay.
But nothing came.
In the end, he boarded the plane alone and went back.
As for me, my life slowly settled onto the right track.
Every day, my life moved between work and home.
Occasionally, I went out with coworkers for coffee or took walks in the park.
I started making new friends.
I started getting used to living alone.
For a very, very long time, I did not think of Evan.
Those painful, miserable, unbearable days seemed as if they belonged to a lifetime ago.
Now, I could cook for myself.
I could change a lightbulb by myself.
I could go to the movies alone.
I could travel alone.
I learned how to love myself with more care than I had ever given anyone else.
A year later, I was promoted.
The company gave me a new apartment by the river.
Every morning, when I opened the window, I could see the mountains in the distance.
I adopted a cat and named it Dumpling.
Every day when I came home from work, it would sit by the door waiting for me.
It rubbed against my ankles and meowed.
Life was simple, but I liked it very much.
There was no torturous love wearing me down, and I no longer spiraled into self-doubt over every
little thing.
All my energy went into becoming a better version of myself.
One day, a coworker asked me, “Do you still want to go back to the States?”
I thought about it and shook my head.
“It’s nice here.”
“Then are you going to live alone from now on?”
“What’s wrong with being alone?”
My coworker smiled and said I had a point.
I stood by the window and looked at the sunset in the distance.
Suddenly, I remembered that many years ago, I had once stood like this too, waiting for someone to
come home.
I did not need to anymore.
Because this was my home now, the world I had built and held up all on my own.
Later, I heard that after Evan returned to the States, he transferred Sophie away.
On the day Sophie left, she smashed up his office.
He fell seriously ill and spent a month in the hospital.
No one went to see him.
He sold the company and went to Alaska alone.
He made one Instagram post with a photo of Denali.
The caption was only a few words.
[I missed my chance.]
When I heard about it, I felt nothing.
It was as if I were listening to a story about a stranger.
Because I knew that once you missed your chance with some people, you missed them for life.
Not every apology earns forgiveness.
Not everyone who waits deserves a second look.
I am doing very well here.
I do not need anyone else to validate that.
