I Froze for 4 Hours Outside While He Threw a Party with Her Chapter 01

I Froze for 4 Hours Outside While He Threw a Party with Her Chapter 01

After I realized Julian Shepherd didn’t love me as much as he used to, I started acting out even more than before.

I always found ways to pick fights with him.

Two words in, he’d act like I wasn’t there.

Staring at his indifferent profile, I slammed the door and walked out.

But I didn’t dare go far.

I told myself: if Julian came after me within ten seconds, I’d forgive him.

Then it became ten minutes. If Julian came looking for me, I’d go home with him.

I spent four hours in the freezing Chicago cold.

No one opened the door. Not a single text. Not a single call.

I went back home on my own.

The apartment was loud—Julian and his friends had thrown a party.

A pretty woman leaned against him, smiling as she fed him a drink.

The words I’d been ready to throw at Julian popped like the tiny bubbles in that swirling wine glass.

He saw my face, red from the cold, and spoke casually.

“Done acting out?”

I answered him quietly. “Yeah. I’m done.”

***

Julian had obvious exhaustion in his eyes.

He pulled out a cigarette right in front of me and lit it.

“Then from now on, don’t pick fights with me over every little thing.”

Julian and I had argued four times in three days.

“I stood in line for half an hour after work to buy you that cake. You said I got the wrong flavor, refused to eat it, and fought with me.”

“Last night at a dinner, I missed your call. That night you locked the bedroom door and wouldn’t let me in.”

“Today at lunch, I asked what you wanted to eat. You wouldn’t say. I ordered, and then you gave me the cold shoulder and said you weren’t eating.”

“And then I said friends were coming over, and you lost your temper, threatening to run away from home.”

He pressed his palm against my face, still carrying the chill.

“Stella, you might not be tired of this. But I am.”

“Next time you want to leave, remember to bring an extra layer.”

“When you’ve calmed down enough and have nowhere else to go, if you still want to come back, just come back on your own.”

A few hours ago, I would have cried. I would have thrown a fit. I would have argued hysterically with everything Julian said.

Now I just swallowed the ache in my heart and forced a smile.

“Okay.”

Someone watched my retreating figure and asked him,

“You’re really not going to go comfort her?”

“Before, if Stella even frowned, you’d practically get on your knees for her.”

Julian checked his watch, indifferent.

“Before, I’d chase after her, grovel, and it would take a day or two to fix things.”

“Now, I ignore her and let her think it through. It only takes four hours.”

He smiled, easy and charming. “Thinking about it that way, the old approach really wasn’t cost-effective. Kind of regret it.”

Regret. I turned those two words over in my mind.

In those four hours, I had counted countless ten-second intervals.

Afraid that Julian just couldn’t find me, I even walked back once.

I held my phone up over my head, searching for a signal under the puzzled stares of passersby. A curious kid asked me what I was doing.

“Is the signal just really bad, or is my phone broken? How come I’m not getting any messages?”

The kid got excited hearing this. He jumped up high. “Let me take a look for you!”

On the screen was my chat page with Julian.

“Wow, lady, you sent this guy so many messages.”

“He barely replies to you. Are you waiting for his messages?”

He fiddled with it left and right, like a little grown-up.

“Lady, your phone isn’t broken.”

“It’s just that no one is sending you messages.”

“You’re kind of silly.”

My phone lit up. I hurriedly grabbed it to look.

It was a push notification from some app.

My phone wasn’t broken. Julian really hadn’t tried to find me.

The chat history stopped at last night.

Every message I had sent, Julian had ignored.

I had gone from initially asking him what time he’d be home, to agonizing over whether he’d seen the messages or not, and then to feeling wronged.

“Are you that busy? When you’re done, remember to send me a reply.”

Finally, the calls I made were hung up on three times.

I started questioning him like a madwoman.

“You saw them. Why won’t you reply to me?”

“Did I say something wrong? Why have you been ignoring me?”

But all my emotions—the breakdowns, the sadness—met with no response whatsoever.

Just like the hours I spent away from home today. I was still waiting for him.

He had already found plenty of other people to keep him company.

What I said, whether I was there or not—none of it made any difference to Julian.