Left in the Flooded Kindergarten for His Childhood Sweetheart Chapter 09

Left in the Flooded Kindergarten for His Childhood Sweetheart Chapter 09

That afternoon, I picked my parents and Anna up from the hotel to move into my new condo.

It was a modest three-bedroom apartment I’d bought before marriage and kept vacant as a quiet safety net. With no time for renovations, we’d only managed a deep clean and moved in essential furniture.

My parents jumped straight into unpacking and tidying the second we stepped through the door. Mom wiped down every windowsill while Dad fixed loose cabinet hinges in the kitchen.

Anna sat on a little stool, carefully peeling star-shaped glow-in-the-dark stickers to line the walls of her new bedroom.

She tilted her head up to ask me, “Mommy, is this our home now? Just us?”

“That’s right.”

“Can Grammy and Grandpa have the big master bedroom too?”

My throat felt thick and tight. “Of course they can, sweet girl.”

A genuine bright smile finally spread across her face.

Meanwhile, back at our old apartment, Tristan was swamped by mounting chaos.

The property management issued repeated notices to vacate the premises, and my attorney’s formal eviction letter landed in his email inbox that morning.

Kylie showed up with Paige clinging to her side, sobbing that she couldn’t afford hotel rooms anymore, and her ex kept harassing her—begging Tristan to step in and help her once more.

Tristan used to cave instantly to her tears; every time Kylie cried, he’d convince himself he was her sole safe harbor in the world.

For the first time ever, he hesitated and wouldn’t let her cross the threshold right away.

Kylie clearly picked up on his cold shift. She stared at him in disbelief. “Tristan… are you abandoning me now?”

Tristan rubbed his exhausted temples, worn thin. “My own life’s a total mess right now.”

Tears spilled down Kylie’s cheeks in an instant. “But you’re all I’ve got left. You promised you’d always help me, no matter what happened.”

Tristan fell silent. He had said those exact words once.

It was right after Kylie’s divorce, when she’d moved back to New York with Paige and posted an Instagram photo of herself alone on a hospital hallway late at night.

He’d texted her: [Reach out to me for anything you need.]

And she’d taken that promise to its absolute limit, calling him for every trivial crisis life threw at her.

Paige running a fever? Call Tristan.

Burst pipes flooding her apartment? Call Tristan.

Her ex showing up to fight? Call Tristan.

Moving furniture? Call Tristan.

Even buying a toddler bed for Paige? Call Tristan.

He’d once found a warped sense of pride in being needed like that, until Nova and Anna walked out for good. Only then did he realize all those moments of “being relied on” had slowly chipped away at his marriage, his home, his family.

The realization hit far too late to fix anything.

“Kylie,” his voice cracked with exhaustion. “I had a wife and a daughter.”

Kylie’s expression froze solid. “Oh, now you suddenly remember them?”

A sharp, bitter laugh escaped her, no trace of her usual fragile softness left—only cutting sarcasm. “Don’t dump all this mess on my shoulders, Tristan. Every single time I called you, you dropped everything and came running. Didn’t you?”

“I asked you to pick me up, and you showed. I needed you to keep Paige company, and you showed. I said I had nowhere to sleep, and you let me move right into your family’s home. Did I drag you there?”

His face went ashen.

She pressed on without mercy. “When you soaked up every ounce of me leaning on you, why didn’t you stop to think about your wife and little girl? You hid behind me to hurt Nova over and over, and now that she’s left you for good, you turn around and blame me for destroying your marriage? You’re such a hypocrite.”

Her words landed like a hard slap across his face.

He opened his mouth to argue, yet not a single rebuttal formed on his tongue—because every harsh thing she’d said was the raw, undeniable truth.