I Moved 1,500 Miles Away, Now You Can Favor Her Openly Chapter 09

Hundreds of miles away at college, I had no idea about any of it.

I wore my new hearing aid and listened to the birds chirping outside my window.

After I finished enrolling, I applied for a school scholarship based on my strong high school grades, and I found a part-time job at the library.

The student affairs advisor was a gentle woman in her forties. She had heard about what happened online, so she called me into her office and patted my shoulder.

“Hannah, this is a new life for you. Study hard. Your future belongs to you.”

I nodded hard and gave her a bright smile.

She was right. It was a brand-new life.

I had finally broken free of that swamp for good.

Back home, the drama kept getting worse.

Ashford University quickly opened a student conduct investigation.

After verifying some of the evidence, the school revoked Chloe’s admission, citing serious misconduct before enrollment that had caused harm to others.

The day Chloe got the notice from the school, she completely lost her mind at home.

She smashed every vase in the living room and beat dents into the expensive piano that had been bought with my surgery money.

“How dare they take back my admission! Why? I’m a Reed. What gives them the right to treat me like this?”

Gregory got so worked up that he had a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital.

The scandal sent his company’s stock into a nosedive, and the business was facing bankruptcy and restructuring.

Diane cried day and night, running back and forth between the hospital and home, and her carefully kept hair turned mostly gray almost overnight.

Mason lost his job too. People online had dug up where he worked, and angry calls poured in every day, so his boss fired him to make the whole thing go away.

The family that had once been so polished and so proud of being “perfect” fell apart in two weeks.

Late at night, Mason would stare at that disconnected number on his phone again and again and cry his eyes out.

He finally understood the despair I used to feel.

It was the dead silence of calling out over and over with no one ever answering.

Mason whispered to no one, “Hannah, I was wrong. I know that now.” But Hannah, who used to read his lips and patiently hear out every complaint he had, was never coming back.

Ethan never went back to the Reed house.

Like a man possessed, he searched every school for the deaf and every community center in our hometown, trying to find out where I had gone.

He assumed I had taken that five thousand and was hiding in some dark corner, licking my wounds alone.

It wasn’t until two weeks later, when he had someone ask around for him, that he finally learned I had gone to Hollis University, 1,500 miles away.

In that moment, Ethan’s eyes went red.

He bought a plane ticket to that city that same night.

On the plane, he clutched a velvet box.

Inside was the newest cochlear implant from Aldermark, which he had bought by selling the sports car he loved.

It was his apology, ten years late, and the last hope he could cling to.

He was going to find me in that new city and put the implant into my hands himself.

He was going to stand in the sunlight and swear to me that his life belonged to me from then on, and that he would spend the rest of it making up for what he had done.

But he had forgotten something.

Love that came too late was cheaper than dirt, and an apology that came too late was nothing but a pile of scrap metal.

In October, the new city was still hot.

I was wrapping up a two-hour shift at the library, putting the sorted books back on the shelves.

My phone buzzed. It was the girls from my dorm, messaging me in our group chat.

Mia: [Hannah, we found an amazing barbecue place by the student center. Get over here. We’re all waiting on you!]

I smiled and texted back that I was on my way. Then I changed out of my work clothes, slung my canvas bag over my shoulder, and walked out of the library.

Out on the tree-lined path, sunlight filtered through the leaves and dappled my shoulders.

My new hearing aid did its job. It couldn’t give me back all of my hearing, but I could hear the wind rustling through the trees perfectly well.

My life was quiet, but it was full of energy.

I was almost at the campus exit when a tall figure blocked my way.