Moonlight After Goodbye Chapter 08

Moonlight After Goodbye Chapter 08

I turned my back on him without another glance and headed back toward our apartment.

When I pushed open the front door, I found my parents pressed side-by-side at the living room window, peeking out through a tiny slit they’d pulled in the curtain.

Dad muttered irritably under his breath.

“Some nerve showing up here out of the blue. He’s been standing downstairs for twenty minutes putting on some sad, pitiful show. For your information, even when I was courting your mother back in my younger days, I never looked that pathetic.”

Mom jumped right in to tease him.

“Your first shot asking me out got you sent home right away. Then you hung around my shop trying to corner me, so I slipped out the back door to dodge you.”

“Why’d you have to bring that up in front of our daughter?”

“You started reminiscing first!”

I slipped out of my slippers, stepped into the middle of the living room, and cleared my throat to get their attention.

“I’m planning to do a six-month internship with Auntie.”

“Seattle?”

“Mhm.”

“Six whole months?”

“Yep. I want to learn some real industry experience.”

I set my keys down on the shoe rack.

“Auntie runs an interior design studio, which lines up perfectly with my college major. I’ve spent a week laying around, so it’s time I got busy with something real.”

Mom stayed quiet for a moment, tapping away at her phone.

A few seconds later, my phone pinged with a money transfer from Mom.

She’d sent me a chunk of cash with a note that just said: [Spend it on yourself. No penny-pinching.]

“Mom!” I exclaimed. “It’s just an internship—you don’t need to send me this much cash.”

“It’s an internship and a chance for you to clear your head,” her voice drifted out from the kitchen amid the creak of the refrigerator door opening and closing. “Cost of living out there is high, don’t pinch pennies constantly. Treat yourself to good meals whenever you want.”

“Alright, got it,” I replied, then headed to my bedroom to start packing my belongings.

My phone suddenly rang, displaying a local phone number. I answered without thinking much of it.

“Hello?”

No voice came through on the other end, only soft, shallow breathing.

I sighed quietly.

“Laura?”

There was a short pause on the line.

“Celeste…” Laura’s voice trembled thick with tears.

“What can I do for you?”

I’d genuinely considered her my closest friend for four years, bending over backward to look out for her every step of the way. After everything that had happened between us, I truly had no idea what to say to her now.

“I’m so sorry, Celeste,” she blurted out, breaking down into sobs immediately.

I held the phone silently, saying nothing.

“I got far too used to you taking care of me,” she wept. “So used to it that I got used to taking you for granted and letting you get hurt for me.”

I leaned against the window frame, twisting the blind cord loosely around my finger, remaining silent.

“Celeste, are you still there?”

“I’m here.”

“I’ve had a long, honest talk with Declan, and I’ve cut all contact with him completely. I knew we’d messed up the second you left town.”

When he first told me you were gone, I thought he was joking at first.
You’d never walked away from us before. Every single fight you two had ended with him talking you back into a good mood.”

“Then he pulled out his phone and showed me he’d been blocked by you. He told me, ‘Laura, we’ve made an incredibly stupid mistake.'”

Her crying grew louder and more ragged.

“I finally realized later, Celeste. His care for me was never love—he just liked feeling needed. And I leaned into that. All I wanted was someone to look after me the way you always did, and I let myself get too greedy.”

Her broken, hiccuping sobs echoed louder through the phone line.

I ended the call.

I had no desire to forgive her.