Our Anniversary Trip Was Their Repeat Trip Chapter 05

Our Anniversary Trip Was Their Repeat Trip Chapter 05

Ethan didn’t know that I had left.

Our conversation had ended with the two messages he sent me.

One said, “Are you feeling any better?”

The other said, “What’s wrong? Are you mad at me?”

I answered neither.

He assumed we would talk when he got back.

Now he read those two messages several times but didn’t try to contact me again.

After all, anyone who could leave without even telling him would only be wasting his time if he

called or texted again.

His assistant came back with an answer.

“Mr. Caldwell, Ms. Bennett has already flown back to New York.”

Ethan hummed, as if he had expected that answer.

He told his assistant to book the soonest flight back, then tilted his head back and pressed a hand

over his eyes, trying to suppress the irritation rising inside him.

After I returned to New York, I hired a moving company.

The movers were professional. In half a day, they had sorted and packed everything I wanted to

take.

One wall of the arched hallway held a felt board covered with pictures of Ethan and me from the past

two years.

The mover organizing the boxes pointed at it and asked,

“Do you still want these photos?”

The one in the center was from the first time I had introduced Ethan to my friend.

After they met, Ethan and I had held hands and started walking home. My friend had taken the

picture from behind us.

It was an ordinary night on an ordinary street.

The only unusual thing was that Ethan had suddenly said,

“Claire, I think I’d be happy if I could spend my whole life holding your hand like this.”

I looked away from the picture.

“No.”

My friend came to see me after hearing that I was heartbroken.

She deliberately tried to make me laugh.

“What, does this country have some kind of magical breakup rule too?”

“If someone isn’t meant for you, they come back from California and you break up?”

I smiled. “Maybe it does.”

When she saw that I truly didn’t look devastated, she let out a breath of relief and carefully asked,

“So why did you break up with him?”

“You loved him so much.”

I paused.

“Maybe because he wouldn’t go whale-watching with me, and I never got to see a whale breach.”

“I rebooked it.”

I turned around, stunned, and heard Ethan’s voice behind me.

His assistant had said he had just landed and come straight to find me.

His phone showed the boat reservation he had made.

“I booked it again. I was going to come back for you so we could do it one more time.”

“I checked the waves and the weather. This time, we’ll definitely see them.”

“But you left on your own.”

I made a vague sound. It didn’t matter to me anymore.

“Then I guess it just wasn’t meant to happen.”

I nodded to my friend and started to leave.

Ethan caught my wrist. His dark eyes were impossible to read.

“Claire, we need to talk.”

His voice dropped.

“You know I have plenty of ways to make you agree.”

I had seen what Ethan was like at work. He was much the same now, pressing forward step by step

and refusing to stop until he got what he wanted.

We stared at each other in silence for a moment. Then I asked,

“What do you want to talk about?”

Ethan said,

“Why you left early by yourself. And what you meant when you said we were over.”

I couldn’t understand it. A man who could read the most obscure words in a report shouldn’t have

needed me to define “over.”

“It means we’re broken up.”

Ethan’s lips curved slightly, but there was no smile behind it.

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t stay at the hospital with you? Or because you didn’t get to see a whale breach?”

“Leaving you alone at the hospital was thoughtless. I admit that.”

“And I just explained the second part.”

I had said it in front of my friend because I hadn’t known where to begin.

Ethan taking it literally only made me tired.

“Why did you want to take me back?”

Ethan stared at me for a moment before saying,

“On our last night in Los Angeles, Olivia came to me and asked if I wanted to get back together.”/