He Wouldn’t Let Me Touch His Door, But She Wore His Shirt Chapter 04

He Wouldn’t Let Me Touch His Door, But She Wore His Shirt Chapter 04

I thought Julian would give it a rest.

But when I showed up to work on Monday, a coworker quietly waved me over.

“Joanna, look at this…” she murmured, handing me her phone.

Julian had posted an update on his personal social media feed.

[Thanks for everyone’s concern. Joanna and I just had a temporary misunderstanding. She’s been under immense pressure at work lately and her emotions have been unstable, but I’ll take good care of her.]

The attached photo was an old picture of the two of us.

He was unilaterally announcing to our entire social circle that we hadn’t broken up, placing the blame squarely on my mental state.

The comment section filled with replies like [Understandable,] [Girls get stressed out easily,] and [Julian, you’re so patient with her.]

Just like that, I was cast as the unstable, high-maintenance girlfriend.

I dialed his number.

Julian answered quickly, his voice entirely smooth.

“You saw it? Joanna, I only did that to save your face. Have you thought things through? Come back, and I’ll have Alyssa pack her things this week.”

He was using social pressure to force me into submission.

“Julian, delete that post and publicly admit that we are broken up,” I said coldly.

He went silent for a few seconds, letting out a heavy sigh.

“Why do you have to be so stubborn? Fine, I’ll delete it. But you need to meet me in person first. Tonight at our usual spot, let’s have a real talk.”

Our usual spot.

The Italian restaurant where we had our very first date.

I agreed.

By 6:30 PM, I was there.

I sat by the window and ordered two glasses of water.

I waited until 8:00 PM. He never showed up.

There were no texts, and when I tried calling, his phone went straight to voicemail.

The waiter came over for the third time to ask if I wanted to order food.

“Just a little longer,” I said.

By 9:00 PM, my fourth glass of lemon water was gone, leaving nothing but a puddle of melted ice at the bottom.

Outside, the streetlights flickered on, and the foot traffic began to thin.

At 9:30 PM, the call finally connected.

But it wasn’t Julian who answered.

It was Alyssa.

Her voice sounded light and airy. “Joanna, Dr. Sterling is resting right now. He took me to an evening clinic tonight because he said my recent insomnia needs to be managed. He was wiped out when we got back, so he went straight to sleep.”

She paused for a brief second. “Did you need something? I can pass along a message for you.”

I sat frozen, clutching the phone.

The warm restaurant lighting illuminated the empty chair across from me—the chair that had remained vacant for three hours.

My mind flashed back to the first time we came here.

He had arrived thirty minutes early, clutching a bouquet of baby’s breath, so incredibly nervous that he had held the menu upside down.

That was three years ago.

I lowered the phone from my ear.

“Never mind,” I said, and hung up.

Stepping out of the restaurant, the cold night wind rushed down my collar.

When I got home, I opened my laptop and changed my ticket to the earliest flight tomorrow morning.

I typed out a message to my supervisor: [Family emergency, need to take a leave of absence immediately.]

Then, I blocked Julian across every single platform.

I opened my social feed and posted a single update.

[We are broken up. The previous post claiming otherwise was made without my consent. As of today, I have absolutely no relationship with Julian Sterling.]

I attached a screenshot of his earlier post, setting the privacy to public for exactly three seconds.

That was long enough. The people who needed to see it saw it.

Then I deleted the update, grabbed my suitcase, and walked out the door.

At 2:00 AM, the cab driver glanced at me through the rearview mirror.

“Where to, miss?”

“The airport.”

When the plane took off, I switched my phone to airplane mode.

But the moment I landed and turned it back on, the device began vibrating frantically.