Five Years Outside Their Photos, So I Finally Walked Out Forever Chapter 08

Five Years Outside Their Photos, So I Finally Walked Out Forever Chapter 08

In the end, Ethan didn’t leave.

The next morning, when I went downstairs, he was already waiting in the hotel lobby.

“I rented a car.”

“You’re going to Sandstone Caverns today, right? I’ll go with you.”

I was tired.

“Ethan, I told you. We broke up.”

He stood in my way, his voice hoarse.

“You don’t have to forgive me, but you can’t deny me a chance to make it up to you.”

He followed me anyway.

Only then did he realize my bookings were all for one: one seat on the ride, a restaurant

reservation for one, one audio guide, and one tent under the desert stars.

On our trip to Paris, I was always the fifth person they had no room for.

Here in Mesa Vista, there was no place for him from the start.

At lunch, the restaurant was full.

The server checked the reservation and looked uneasy,

“Ms. Bennett, your reservation is for one. This gentleman…”

Before I could speak, Ethan said quietly,

“I’ll wait.”

He stood outside for forty minutes that day.

Through the glass, he watched me smile as I chatted with the young woman sharing my table.

Someone at the next table asked me to take a picture. I smiled and agreed to that, too.

At the desert concert that night, I even sang around a bonfire with a group of people I just met.

Ethan stood some distance away, suddenly remembering how I always sat quietly to one side

when the four of them got together.

More than once, he even accused me of bringing everyone down.

“We’re out having fun. Lighten up. Stop looking so miserable.”

He always thought I didn’t like crowds.

On the way back to the hotel, Ethan finally couldn’t keep quiet.

“You… weren’t like this before.”

I looked at him and said each word distinctly.

“Before, I was scared of ruining everyone’s fun. Scared you’d think I didn’t fit in.”

“Now I don’t have to be.”

The color slowly drained from Ethan’s face.

That night, Brooke followed him to Mesa Vista.

She stood in the hotel lobby with red eyes.

“Claire, I came to apologize.”

“I really never meant any harm by any of it.”

Jake and Ryan followed behind her.

“Claire, Brooke came thousands of miles to see you. Enough already.”

“She’s been crying for days. You could at least meet her halfway.”

Tears spilled down Brooke’s cheeks. She instinctively reached for Ethan’s sleeve.

“Ethan, say something for me,”

This time, Ethan stepped back.

“Don’t touch me.””

“It bothered Claire before, and I didn’t take it seriously.”

“From now on, we need to respect those boundaries.”

Brooke froze.

Jake’s expression immediately changed.

“Seriously, Ethan?”

“You’re so caught up in this relationship you won’t even let Brooke near you?”

Ryan frowned, too.

“We’ve known each other for over a decade. You know what kind of person she is.”

Before, Ethan would have said they were “just friends.”

This time, he stayed silent.

He finally realized their version of “just friends” always depended on Claire giving in.

Then I suddenly spoke.

“Don’t bother.”

“Hug each other. Lean on each other. Whatever you want.”

“Brooke can stay at your place or call you in the middle of the night. The four of you can keep traveling together.”

“I don’t mind any of it.”

Ethan turned sharply toward me. For the first time, his voice betrayed clear panic.

“Claire, what are you saying?”

I looked at him.

“Just what I said.”

“I asked for boundaries before because you were my boyfriend.”

“You aren’t anymore.”

“So whatever you are to each other, what does that have to do with me?”

Ethan’s face changed abruptly.

He would rather face my anger, my jealousy, even my old demands that he delete someone’s

contact information,

than hear me say it no longer mattered.

Brooke seemed to seize on something. She said quietly,

“Ethan, since Claire feels that way, we can just go back to how things were…”

“We can’t go back.”

Ethan suddenly cut her off.

Brooke stiffened.

Jake’s expression darkened, too.

“Ethan, you’re going to turn on us after more than a decade of friendship for someone who already dumped you?”

Ethan stared at him.

“This isn’t for her.”

“I only just realized those jokes you used to make weren’t funny at all.”

Ryan looked upset, too.

“So we’re all the bad guys now?”

“You used to think she was being dramatic, too.”

After a long silence, Ethan spoke hoarsely.

“Yeah.”

“That makes me the biggest asshole of all.”

At that moment, nobody spoke.

Their friendship went back more than a decade.

For the first time, they were truly at odds over me.

But I no longer cared.