He Broke Me Quietly, So I Left Quietly Chapter 09

He Broke Me Quietly, So I Left Quietly Chapter 09

Medics rushed over with stretchers.

“Dr. Carter, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

I knelt down to check the two children’s wounds.

The local Red Cross coordinator ran over and glanced at Liam’s body.

“Dr. Carter, about Mr. Bennett—”

“Hand his remains over to the embassy. They’ll contact his family.”

I cut him off and turned toward the makeshift operating table.

But that night, after I finished the last surgery, I didn’t collapse into bed like I usually did. I sat outside the tent, leaning against a stack of sandbags, and stared up at the stars.

Uncontrollable memories from long ago began to flood my mind.

The first time Liam walked me home. The first time he held my hand.

The time I was hospitalized for an allergic reaction, and he waited outside the emergency room all night. Later, when I was discharged, he carried me home on his back all those blocks.

He said, “Elara, if I lost you, I’d have no one left for the rest of my life.”

I used to think that was forever.

But then I realized Mia had always been there by his side.

His affection was split between two people, and his patience grew thinner as time passed.

The man who once ran two blocks for me eventually forgot what I was allergic to.

I closed my eyes. My mind drifted back to that video call from myself five years in the future.

The woman on the screen had empty, hopeless eyes, utterly broken inside.

She said, “Leave him. Please, no matter what, leave him.”

I’ve often wondered what would have happened to me if I hadn’t left. If I had stayed on that original path.

The answer wasn’t hard to guess.

I would have kept enduring.

I would have endured his repeated favoritism toward Mia. I would have watched her slowly take over my life. I would have become more and more hysterical, more and more repulsive.

And he would have found me more and more unreasonable. He would have grown more and more tired of me.

In the end, even the last bit of his patience would run out. He would have thought I was crazy.

And then, he would have sent me to a psychiatric facility.

But because I left five years ago, he was never able to move on.

What he did tonight was real. He threw himself in front of me to block the attack without the slightest hesitation.

But I don’t know if that was love, or just obsession.

Or maybe, for Liam, there was never any difference between the two.

I pulled a flattened piece of candy from my pocket, unwrapped it, and put it in my mouth.

It was bitter.

Resources were stretched thin out here, and we made do with what little we had.

I looked up at the stars and let out a quiet sigh.

“Liam,” I said to myself.

“I don’t hate you anymore. And I don’t love you anymore.”

“But it’s not my place to forgive you for her.”

Her. The me from five years in the future.

By the time she made that call, she must have been completely desperate.

Wind blew through the camp, kicking up dust. I stood up and brushed the dirt off my pants. There were still wounded people in the tent who needed care.

On the battlefield, I had no room for sorrow.