He Took Off His Hearing Aid To Ignore My Screams Chapter 05

He Took Off His Hearing Aid To Ignore My Screams Chapter 05

Vaughn burst out of the hospital doors, still wearing his unbuttoned surgeon’s coat.

He dialed my number over and over, one call after another.

Every attempt hit a robotic cold response.

“The subscriber you dialed is not available.”

He stood frozen for minutes before the truth hit him.

It wasn’t a busy line. I’d blocked him.

Calls, texts, every social media profile—all of it blocked.

A June wind whipped over him, frigid cold burrowing deep into his bones.

His phone still displayed the live news feed, my pale, empty face staring back at him.

Vaughn squeezed his eyes shut, replaying my shaky words over and over in his head.

“I was assaulted, and I lost our baby. I can’t keep living like this with you.”

“He’d taken his hearing aid off. He couldn’t hear me.”

Every syllable cut into him like a blade.

His fingers drifted toward his hearing aid, ready to rip it off like he always did, but he pulled back as if burned by fire.

He didn’t dare remove it anymore. Not after everything.

Vaughn rushed back to our old home, but I was long gone. The space sat hollow and empty.

He searched every room, but I’d erased every trace I’d ever lived there.

No toothbrush, no slippers, no small trinkets left behind.

The only things he found were the signed divorce papers and my hospital bills detailing the D&C procedure.

When he fully grasped that I’d left him for good, the polished, composed surgeon sank to the floor and sobbed uncontrollably.

…

Half a month passed before Vaughn tracked down my apartment.

He showed up at dusk, the exact moment I returned home from a follow-up doctor’s appointment.

My body hadn’t healed well.

The doctor had told me the D&C damaged my uterus, and conceiving another child would be extremely difficult.

I clutched the medical report in my hand as I walked out of the clinic.

A mother stood at the curb holding a small toddler girl waiting for a ride. The child wore tiny braids, quiet and sweet.

I watched them for ages, until they boarded a bus, and only then realized tears had streaked down my cheeks.

When I reached the ground floor of my apartment building, Vaughn was waiting for me.

He looked completely worn down.

Only days had passed, but dark stubble coated his jaw, his eye sockets sunken deep, his shirt crumpled with two buttons undone at the collar.

He looked ten years older.

The second he spotted me, his eyes flooded with red.

He reached out to pull me into his arms, then hesitated, scared to touch me.

“Elara.”

I stood three full steps away from him, watching silently, neither moving closer nor stepping back.

“What are you doing here?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed wildly. “I… I know everything now. I’m so sorry.”

I didn’t reply.

“That night in the parking structure, I truly couldn’t hear you.”

He took one shaky step forward, his voice trembling.

“I didn’t do it on purpose, Elara. I swear I didn’t.”

I glanced at the hearing aid fixed behind his ear, and a bitter smile tugged at my lips.

“You couldn’t hear me?”

I repeated the words flat, empty, like greeting a total stranger.

“You took your hearing aid off. Of course you couldn’t hear anything.”

His entire body stiffened rigid.

“Three years, Vaughn. Every single time I tried to talk to you about us, you pulled that hearing aid off.”

“It was never that you couldn’t hear me. It was that you never wanted to listen.”

“You thought I was annoying, that I manufactured drama, that I overreacted. You believed giving me a wife’s title was enough, that I should be grateful without asking for any of your love.”

“I was never truly part of your world.”

Tears rolled steadily down his cheeks, one slow drop at a time.

It was the first time I’d ever seen Vaughn cry.

For three years of marriage, he’d always remained detached,
unshakable as stone. I’d thought a man like him couldn’t shed tears at
all.

Now he stood before me, tears crashing onto the pavement beneath
his feet.