The First Sound I Heard In Three Years Was His Lie Chapter 02
The car had barely gone thirty feet before they realized I was not inside.
The window rolled down, and Graham leaned out and shouted, “Mara Ellison, are you stupid? Why didn’t you get in?”
He assumed I could not hear him. Frowning, he waved impatiently for me to come over.
After we checked into the hotel, I sat on the edge of the bed, staring down at my phone.
Graham must have noticed I was upset. He crouched in front of me, his expression softening slightly.
“Tessa wants me to help her practice tomorrow’s speech, so I’m going to stay with her for a while.”
“There’s a famous restaurant nearby. I already made a reservation, and I’ll take you there when we’re finished.”
“Just the two of us. We’ll celebrate Valentine’s Day together.”
A flicker of hope stirred inside me.
He still cared about me.
I set my phone down, but before I could tell him that I could hear again, he picked up his own phone and recorded a voice message.
Graham: [Tessa, don’t worry. I’m coming right now.]
Graham: [I had to sweet-talk Mara first. What if she causes more trouble for us and gets in the way of your awards ceremony tomorrow?]
My throat tightened, and I forced the words back down.
He never saw the disappointment on my face. Still reassuring Tessa over the phone, he hurried out of the room.
By eight that night, my stomach ached from hunger.
I messaged Graham to ask how much longer he would be.
He did not respond until an hour later.
Graham: [Tessa’s speech still needs work. We’re revising it.]
I glanced at the time in the upper-right corner of my screen.
Me: [But it’s already nine.]
Graham: [Wait a little longer.]
My vision blurred as my blood sugar crashed, and I could not stop shaking.
Me: [Graham, my blood sugar is crashing. I need to eat.]
Another half hour passed before he replied.
Graham: [We came here for Tessa’s awards ceremony, not to take you sightseeing. Stop making everything about you.]
I gave a bitter smile.
Apparently, even needing to eat made me difficult.
Five minutes later, a new post appeared on Instagram.
Tessa had uploaded a photo of a table covered with cakes and pastries in every flavor. Graham’s back was visible beside it.
Her caption read:
[I said I was hungry, and he ran out of the hotel to buy me cake. He didn’t know which flavor I wanted, so he bought one of each.]
I liked the post.
Five minutes later, Graham returned with a dark expression and threw a bag of desserts down in front of me.
“Was that really necessary?”
I looked up at him without moving.
Anger and impatience were written all over his face.
“Mara Ellison, Tessa has been rehearsing her speech all evening. She’s exhausted. What’s wrong with buying her a few desserts to cheer her up?”
“Now she’s afraid you’re angry, so she won’t eat anything. Are you happy?”
“Tessa and I grew up together. If there had ever been anything between us, do you really think you would have had a chance?”
Watching him sign so rapidly, tears burned behind my eyes.
He did not care that I had waited all evening. He did not care that I was dizzy and weak from hunger.
All that mattered to him was that Tessa had stopped eating because I had liked her post.
I slowly signed back, “Graham, I’ve been waiting for you all night. I haven’t eaten anything.”
His gaze fell on my bloodless lips, and he froze for a moment.
Tessa suddenly appeared in the doorway.
“Graham, the speech still isn’t quite right. Can you take another look?”
He immediately turned and followed her out.
Once again, I was alone.
He did not return, even after midnight.
I stared at the reminder on my phone for the civil ceremony we had scheduled seven days later.
Then I opened the county clerk’s civil-marriage portal and canceled our appointment without hesitation.
