He Left Me Behind, So I Married Someone Else Chapter 12

He Left Me Behind, So I Married Someone Else Chapter 12

Nora lowered her gaze to their shadows stretching across the pavement.

Her eyes stung slightly.

“When you told me back then that you’d consider me once I was more mature…”

His voice was soft.

“I knew you probably never meant it seriously.”

Nora opened her mouth, but no words came out.

Because he was right.

She hadn’t meant it.

“But I believed you.”

He smiled faintly.

“So I changed myself.”

The alley stretched endlessly ahead.

The streetlights passed over them one after another.

“Come on.”

He turned and started walking.

“If we stay here any longer, we’re going to freeze.”

Nora followed beside him.

“Ethan.”

“Hmm?”

“About what happened back then…”

She lowered her voice.

“I’m sorry.”

She never imagined that rejecting him once during a stupid game would lead to him coming back and letting her reject him eighteen more times.

He shook his head.

“Sorry for what?”

“For rejecting you eighteen times.”

He laughed softly.

“That wasn’t your fault.”

“I was the one who kept showing up.”

“Wasn’t that my own choice?”

“You didn’t marry Nora today just because of that free winter wonderland ticket, right?”

“You’d already made up your mind to leave the past behind…”

“Nora, I was happy to be the person who helped you move forward.”

Nora laughed quietly as she walked beside him.

“Who ever said you were just a stepping stone?”

He turned his head to look at her.

But Nora lowered her eyes again, watching their shadows move beneath them.

How should she explain it?

Back then, she had been just one of the many girls who secretly admired him.

That boy on the basketball court…

The one in the black hoodie, crouching on the ground with those bright eyes, looking like a sleepy puppy-

How could she have never been moved by him?

She had.

Of course she had.

But she had always believed love should be built on something real.

Something steady.

Something that could last.

Not just a fleeting attraction.

She thought someone like Adrian-

Someone she had spent years getting to know.

Someone she had built a relationship with.

Someone she had chosen.

That was the safer choice.

Someone she could build a future with.

Someone who wouldn’t let her fall.

But she had been wrong.

Sometimes, even a love that started with attraction wasn’t such a bad thing.

At least it could still make you happy.

“Ethan.”

She looked up at him.

“That year…”

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

She paused.

“I was just…”

She took a breath.

“Afraid to admit it.”

The wind swept through the alley, lifting strands of her hair.

He stood there, looking at her for a long time.

Then he smiled.

Just like he had back in college.

The same bright, hopeful smile.

“What about now?”

Nora looked at him.

At the person who had been rejected eighteen times…

Yet still smiled and said, “I changed myself.”

“Now…”

She met his eyes.

“I’m not afraid anymore.”

He didn’t say anything.

He simply reached out his hand.

Nora lowered her gaze to it.

His fingers were long, his knuckles sharp and defined.

After a moment…

She placed her hand in his.

Love or not, she was done trying to define it.

Because no matter who she chose…

The ending seemed destined to hurt.