I Took His Own Radio Advice And Walked Away From Seven Years Chapter 10

I Took His Own Radio Advice And Walked Away From Seven Years Chapter 10

“You still hate me,” Ethan said.

He stood in front of me, his face pale.

“I don’t hate you. I’d have to care about you to hate you, and I don’t anymore.”

His body went rigid. I looked at the engagement ring in his hand and spoke calmly.

“I didn’t leave because of one canceled wedding, or even the thirty-nine thousand dollars. I didn’t leave just because of Tara, either.”

“I left because every time you had to choose me, you chose someone else.”

On my birthday, I had not wanted an expensive gift. I only wanted him to remember his promise to spend it with me. When I was hospitalized, I did not ask him to walk away from work. I only wanted him beside me when I needed him most. At the anniversary event, I waited for him to stand up for me.

He never even asked what had happened. He decided I was guilty and demanded that I apologize in front of everyone. The thirty-nine thousand dollars was everything I had saved for our wedding. He took it without asking and decided for me how it should be spent.

Ethan always had a reason. The show. His work. The greater good. And I was always the one expected to understand. The one expected to give way.

“I said everything in that anonymous letter. But you didn’t recognize me.”

Ethan’s eyes were red.

“Claire, I’m sorry.”

“On the show, you said the writer should cut her losses and leave the fiancé who abandoned her every time she needed him.”

I looked into his eyes.

“I only followed your advice.”

His mouth opened, but no plea came out. His own advice had finally come back to him.

No one understood better than Ethan why I should never return.

At last, he lowered his head and put the ring back in its box.

“If one day you’re willing to come home…”

“That day will never come.”

I stopped him before he could finish.

“Ethan, I will never look back.”

I returned to the crew without glancing at him again. After leaving Bayport, Ethan quit the relationship advice show. In his final episode, he did not analyze anyone else’s story. He only said that he had once advised a woman to leave an unworthy fiancé. Later, he discovered that he was the fiancé she needed to leave.

When the show ended, he never contacted me again. Three months later, our documentary premiered. Several of our subjects’ stories drew widespread attention, and viewership exceeded the platform’s projections.

At the project review, the executive producer placed a new interview file in front of me.

“You’re taking the lead on the next film.”

I opened the folder and read the first page carefully. The crew gathered around me and began discussing preliminary research and possible dates for our first interview. When the meeting ended, I carried the file out of the office. The cinematographer and sound recordist had already checked the equipment. They stood at the end of the hall and called to me.

“Claire, we’re ready when you are.”

I quickened my pace and went to join them.