He Took Off His Hearing Aid To Ignore My Screams Chapter 07

He Took Off His Hearing Aid To Ignore My Screams Chapter 07

I never expected Vaughn to wait outside my building all night long.

When I pulled back the curtains the next morning, he was still there, unmoving as a stone. Dew soaked every inch of his clothes, and his lips were blue from the cold.

I didn’t see when he left.

I figured he’d finally given up.

That afternoon, I headed out to buy groceries and spotted an insulated bag resting on the front steps.

I unzipped it to find steaming oatmeal, a sticky note tucked underneath.

It read: [Eat something. Your body hasn’t fully healed yet.]

I stared at the handwriting for a long while.

Vaughn’s handwriting wasn’t the messy, illegible scribble people joke doctors always have. It was sharp, neat, nearly as crisp as printed text.

Our first year married, I’d asked him to leave a sweet little note for me on the fridge every single day.

He’d complained it was tedious and refused.

Yet he’d stayed up countless nights drafting handwritten surgical plans for Sorrel without a single word of complaint.

Now he was willing to write me notes, but I no longer cared to read them.

I dumped the oatmeal straight into the trash without a flicker of emotion.

I’d spent years stuck in that afterthought spot, always second to Sorrel.

I never wanted to go back there again.

The days that followed, Vaughn was a completely different man.

He showed up downstairs every single day, rain or shine.

Sometimes he brought breakfast, sometimes medicine, sometimes a bouquet of flowers.

He’d just stand there, staring up at my window from several floors below.

I never opened the door, never met with him, never replied to his messages.

He texted me from new phone numbers nonstop, and I blocked every single one without reading a word.

Eventually he stopped texting and switched to letters.

He slipped them one by one through the crack under my door.

I never opened a single envelope, stacking all of them on the entryway shoe cabinet.

One evening when I came home, all the letters were gone.

An elderly neighbor poked her head out and apologized.

“Honey, I saw piles of paper cluttering your doorway, so I tossed them out. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine. They weren’t important anyway.”

On the seventh day, Sorrel showed up at my door.

She wore an off-white dress with flawless makeup, standing at the entrance of my shabby rental with a soft, gentle smile.

“Elara, can I talk to you?”

I leaned against the doorframe, watching her lazily.

Once, I’d hated her fiercely.

I hated how she appeared whenever I needed Vaughn most.

I hated how she took all his time as if it belonged to her.

I hated that she knew he was married yet never kept her distance.

But now, the hatred was gone.

For one thing, I no longer cared about Vaughn at all.

For another, holding onto hate drained every ounce of energy, and I had none left to spare.

“What do you want to talk about?”

She bit her lower lip.

“Vaughn’s been in terrible shape lately. He’s made multiple medical errors at the hospital, and his director suspended him pending review.”

I froze.

Vaughn was famously obsessive about his work. Over three years of marriage, I’d never once heard of him making a mistake.

Now he’d nearly caused critical harm to a patient?

Sorrel’s gaze locked onto mine, swirling with complicated emotion.

“Elara, do you really want to end things with him?”

A faint, secret smirk tugged at her lips as she spoke. She smoothed it away fast, but I caught it all the same.

“Yes.” I answered flatly.

Sorrel seemed caught off guard by my calm demeanor, pausing before speaking softly.

“Elara, I know you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Then why are you doing this…”

I cut her off mid-sentence.

“Sorrel, do you realize you were never the real problem between us?”

She stared at me wide-eyed, stunned.

“Even without you, there would be another woman to take your place. His issue is he simply doesn’t know how to love anyone. He treated me coldly not because you’re better, but because I never mattered to him.”

“You can stay by his side all you want. Wait until he mutes your messages, until he calls you dramatic when you’re sick, until he yanks out his hearing aids while you’re talking to him.”

“Then you’ll understand—Vaughn is never worth loving.”

Sorrel’s face drained of all color in an instant.

She parted her lips to say something, but no words came out. She spun around and ran off.

I shut the door, leaning against the wood, all the tension finally melting from my body.