I Moved 1,500 Miles Away, Now You Can Favor Her Openly Chapter 10

Ethan stood there, worn out from travel, with dark circles under his eyes and stubble covering his jaw. He looked haggard and desperate, and he couldn’t hide it.

The moment he saw me, his eyes lit up, and tears of joy welled up in them.

“Hannah!”

His voice shook, so hoarse it barely sounded like him. He hurried toward me and opened his arms to hug me.

I calmly stepped back out of his reach.

It was a natural move, with no lingering feelings and no resistance, the way I would step around a total stranger.

Ethan’s arms froze in midair, and the joy on his face shattered bit by bit.

Seeing the distance in my eyes, he finally broke down in tears.

Ethan was shaking so hard he could barely get the words out. “Hannah, I’m sorry. I was wrong. I was so wrong.”

“I saw everything online, and that’s when I found out what you went through at home all those years. I thought being good to you would make up for everything. I was so selfish and so stupid.”

He fumbled the velvet box out of his pocket, opened it with trembling hands, and held it out to me.

“Look, it’s the newest cochlear implant from Aldermark. The doctor told me it’ll bring back a lot of your hearing. I sold my car, and I brought enough money.”

“Hannah, give me a chance to make it up to you, okay? I’ll stay here and take care of you for the rest of my life. I swear I’ll never look at Chloe again. I swear…”

He was crying like a child who had lost his whole world, groveling as low as a person could go.

If the Hannah from two weeks earlier, blamed by her whole family and cornered by online mobs, had seen that, she might have felt vindicated, or she might have softened.

But now, looking at that expensive implant in his hand, I felt nothing stir inside me at all.

“Ethan.”

I cut him off flatly, my voice steady and clear.

His head jerked up, and he looked at me full of hope, as if he were waiting for a judge to show mercy.

I pointed to the cheap, basic hearing aid in my ear and smiled.

“You bought it too late.”

“When I was eight, I wanted you to shield me from all that cruel laughter. At fifteen, I wanted you to notice my old hearing aid squealing. Even fifteen days ago, I wanted you to know what was in that glass of lemonade.”

“But you never did.”

I looked at his paper-white face. There was no resentment in my voice, only the flat calm of someone stating facts.

“Your love and your tears now aren’t because you feel sorry for me.”

“It’s because your act got exposed, and you can’t play the generous savior looking down on me with a clear conscience anymore.”

“You can’t stand being an accomplice, so you came all this way to find me and beg for forgiveness, only so your conscience can feel a little better.”

Ethan looked as if he had been struck by lightning. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Every word I had said cut straight through to the hypocritical thoughts he kept hidden, and he knew it.

He shook his head in despair, tears blurring his vision. “Hannah, it’s not like that. I really do love you. I was only trying to…”

“Enough.”

My smile faded, and I looked at him coolly.

“Ethan, go back and tell the Reeds this. The Hannah who nearly drowned in that pool and the Hannah who went into shock from that poisoned cake died fifteen days ago.”

“I’m still Hannah, but I don’t belong to any of you anymore.”

“Don’t ever come near me again.”

With that, I didn’t spare him another glance. I stepped around his rigid body and walked toward the campus exit without looking back.

“Hannah, over here!”

Not far away, a few of my roommates were waving at me, their faces bright with the kind of smile only the young had.

“Coming.”

I called back loudly and picked up my pace.

Behind me, Ethan clutched that expensive velvet box. His legs gave out, and he collapsed outside the campus gate.

He sobbed out loud, his cries full of endless regret and despair, and people passing by turned to stare.

None of it had anything to do with me anymore.

I walked into the bustling crowd, into the gentle evening breeze.

For the first time, I could hear the world around me—and I was finally free to live on my own terms.