I Could Read Minds But Never His Sincere Love Chapter 03

I Could Read Minds But Never His Sincere Love Chapter 03

“Can you be reasonable for once, Hazel? You’ve never once understood me.”

My jaw locked. The anger came up fast.

“When have you ever let me?”

“You walked out of that restaurant for no reason and didn’t come home until the middle of the night. Everyone was worried sick. Did you think about that at all?”

Something in the way he said it cracked me open. My voice came out small.

“Were you worried?”

He answered with a sigh. That was all.

It was always this. Silence drowning me again.

It dragged on long enough to grind me down to nothing. Then he spoke.

“You shouldn’t have given me flowers right in front of Clara. You don’t put that stuff on display for other people. It’s not a good look.”

Not a good look. Not a good look for whom, exactly? For the people watching, or for Clara, in case she got the wrong idea about who I was to him?

That was the most Miles had ever said to me in one breath. Not one word of it held care or love, just blame. And Clara.

“Miles. Look me in the eye and tell me you mean that.”

My voice shook. I held his gaze, and the tears came, and with them the same old disappointment.

I threw everything I had into listening, the way I always did. Not a whisper came back.

My body turned on me fast. I grabbed at my chest and dry-heaved, over and over. Miles just watched. He didn’t move an inch.

“Stop overthinking it. We’re getting married, aren’t we?”

He leaned down and kissed my cheek like he was doing me a favor. Then his voice came through.

[God. That was disgusting.]

I couldn’t move. He turned around like nothing had happened, walked out, and stopped to say goodbye to my parents on his way out.

The door banged shut. The room went quiet.

A crushing weight settled on my chest. Nothing in me had any strength left except the tears, and they kept coming.

The next morning I scraped half a jar of jam onto a slice of toast and stated flatly:

“I’m selling Redwood.”

My parents froze with their forks halfway to their mouths. Neither of them said a word, but their thoughts were deafening.

[What’s gotten into her? She sold that piano she loved and worked herself half to death at every job she could get, all to open that place.]

[She’s just upset, isn’t she? She never stays mad at Miles past one night. Why is this one dragging on?]

“Stop thinking so loud. I can hear you.”

I finished the toast and set my knife down, keeping my voice level.

“I’m not mad. I’m not being impulsive. I want to sell it.”

“I’m going to Westbridge for law school. Tell me you’re okay with that.”

They looked at each other for a split second. Then they both nodded.

“Of course we are. Should you and Miles move the wedding up a little, then?”

I shook my head.

“I told you, we’re breaking up. There’s no wedding. I’m going over to the Sterlings’ this afternoon to apologize in person.”

The Sterlings’ place.

I showed up with my arms full of gifts and apologized until there was nothing left to say. Miles’s parents took one look at me and swallowed their words.

I was barely out their door when my phone buzzed.

[Hazel, come eat with us! Miles and I are at the place by your center.]

Miles.

He’d never once let me link our names together like that in public.

At the restaurant, I didn’t sit next to him like I usually did.

Clara laughed. “Okay, she’s actually mad this time. Miles, go ahead. Fix it.”