Chapter 6
I felt a little embarrassed and gestured for Jameson to sit down. He looked at me, slightly unsure, before chuckling softly and gently ruffling my hair. “You’ve been. running around all day. You’re tired. Go to bed early tonight. Nothing’s urgent.”
For some reason, I didn’t pull away from his touch; instead, it made me feel more at
ease.
In his presence, the tension I usually
carried seemed to fade. I no longer felt the need to hold back. I smiled and said, “I‘ 11 call you tomorrow.”
He returned the smile, his eyes warm. “Okay, I’ll wait for your call.”
Then, he took out his phone and handed it to me. I paused for a moment, taken off guard by his gesture, but quickly recovered and entered my number.
He looked at the screen and smiled with
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satisfaction. “Now I can hear from you anytime.”
His smile was so genuine, and before I realized it, I was smiling too–the first real smile in days.
After seeing Jameson off, my heart began to settle, the weight of the evening lifting, Lying in bed, I felt a swirl of emotions. I had thought it would be difficult to leave Liam and the city where I had struggled for five years. But, unexpectedly, it felt so simple, almost too easy.
As I drifted off to sleep, my mind wandered to Liam. He had promised to cancel our wedding to save Evelyn.
Evelyn, smiling, had handed him her hand. Afterward, she led him into the crowd. When he realized I wasn’t there, he froze for a moment, his hand reaching for his phone to call me. Just as he was about to dial, Evelyn winced and caught his
attention.
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“What’s wrong?” he asked, concerned.
She winced and clutched her calf. “I just bumped into something.”
He looked down to see her bleeding calf and immediately took her to the hospital, not uttering a word.
It was only after Evelyn had calmed down that he remembered me. He quickly sent
me a message:
“Wait for me at home. I’ll explain
everything.”
But after the message was sent, there was nothing. No reply. His words hung in the air, unanswered. His heart tightened, uncertainty creeping in.
He tried to reassure himself, thinking that I was just angry–after all, what he said earlier about saving Evelyn had been a bit.
too much. He decided that when he returned, he would apologize properly.
And he had an idea. After all, didn‘ t I
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want to get married soon? Maybe he could. surprise me by moving the wedding up by half a month. That way, he could show me. how much he cared, and I’d surely be touched by his gesture.
With that thought in mind, he immediately made a call to arrange everything. After all, I loved him so much; there was no way I’d want to be apart from him. Besides, hadn’t I been jealous of Evelyn for all these years? He’d always known how to
calm me down.
But then, everything changed when he received the message that evening. The words “I want to break up” hit him like a punch to the gut. At first, he couldn’t process it. A breakup? With me?
His hand moved almost reflexively to call me, but the phone was always busy. He couldn’t get through. Panic surged through him as he immediately ran home, barely hearing Evelyn’s voice calling after him.
When he burst through the door, the
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silence hit him first. The house, once filled with remnants of our shared life, felt alien. There was no trace of me. My things–my clothes, my belongings–were gone. It was as if I had vanished without a trace.
Then his eyes fell on the photo. The one of us, once carefully placed on the shelf, had been replaced with one of him and Evelyn. His heart sank as reality hit him like a wave. Only then did he realize how wrong he had been. His inaction had allowed Evelyn to hurt me without consequence.
He understood now: I wasn‘ t joking.
That night, Liam searched desperately for me. He called all the places I frequented, trying every mutual friend we had. But the responses were the same: no one had seen me, and no one knew where I was.
