He Took Off His Hearing Aid To Ignore My Screams Chapter 09

He Took Off His Hearing Aid To Ignore My Screams Chapter 09

Three months later, I was promoted to lead editor.

The company gave me a private office. It was modest, but the windows faced south, bathing the room in afternoon sunlight every day.

A young new graduate named Lila worked alongside me, bright and bubbly, always treating me like a big sister.

One day at lunch, she leaned over to me conspiratorially.

“Elara, did you used to be married?”

My fork paused mid-air. “What brought that up?”

“Nothing much—I found a long online post on Reddit, it made me cry.” She held out her phone. “Take a look. Could this be about you and your ex-husband?”

I took the phone from her.

Reddit username: Muffled Ears.

I didn’t tap to open the thread.

“It’s not me.” I handed the phone back.

“Really? So many little details match perfectly…”

I cut her off. “Just eat your lunch.”

She gave a sheepish smile and dropped the subject.

That afternoon, I sat at my desk staring blankly at my computer screen for ages.

Curiosity finally got the better of me, and I clicked open the post.

Vaughn had written about countless things I’d never known.

He wrote that during our first year together, he’d loved me deeply—he just had no idea how to show it.

He’d never learned how to win people over growing up. His parents split when he was young, raised by his grandmother, living with impaired hearing. He’d gotten used to pushing everyone away.

He said he’d pulled out his hearing aids not out of irritation toward me, but fear of fighting.

He was terrified of losing his temper and saying cruel things to hurt me.

He never realized that refusing to communicate hurt a thousand times worse than any argument ever could.

He wrote that the night in the underground parking garage, he truly hadn’t heard me screaming for help.

If he had, he would’ve rushed to my side without a second thought, risking everything to protect me.

Losing our baby was a wound he’d never be able to recover from, he wrote.

Every night he dreamed of a little girl calling him Daddy in a sweet, tiny voice. The second he reached out to hold her, she shattered.

After the divorce, he lived drowning in nonstop regret. Regret for never listening to me, regret for abandoning me when I needed support, regret for closing himself off and silencing my voice entirely.

The final line read: [Elara, if there’s a next life, let me be the one to talk to you.]

Tears dripped down onto the phone screen, smudging the words no matter how hard I wiped them away.

I closed the post, dried my eyes, and got back to my work.

That night at home, I sat on the balcony staring out at the sea of city lights.

This city was enormous, big enough to hold thousands of different life stories.

Some stories ended happily, others messy and chaotic.

Mine was one of the incomplete, broken ones.

But what did it matter if it was broken?

The moon waxes and wanes, and people leave, and sometimes they come back.

I just wouldn’t wait around for anyone anymore.

I stood, walked back inside, and slid the balcony door shut behind me.

A year later, I left the city entirely.

Before I departed, I mailed a postcard to Vaughn.

Only one line written on it: [Have a good life.]

I never knew if he received it.

It didn’t matter either way.

As the train pulled away, the scenery outside the window blurred fast, the city skyline shrinking into the distance.

I leaned against the glass, an old soft song playing through my headphones.

The lyrics echoed: [Some people drift apart with time, and all their memories fade.]

I stared out the train window and offered a faint, quiet smile.

That’s all there was to it—we drifted apart, and there’s no going back.

The world would keep spinning, loud and full of life, but our paths would never cross again.