My Boyfriend Hated My Best Friend Until I Came Home Chapter 03

My Boyfriend Hated My Best Friend Until I Came Home Chapter 03

When Finnick arrived, he saw Lilia almost kneeling at my feet, sobbing hysterically.

His expression darkened, and he strode over immediately.

He pulled her up to shield her behind him without a word, his face tight with rage as he looked at me, almost grinding

his teeth.

“Seraphina, I told you to take everything out on me. Don’t make things hard for her.”

“Name every cent she has taken from you over the years, and I’ll settle the full amount in one lump sum.”

I stared at him and let out a string of cold laughs.

“How generous of you, Mr. Hale, throwing your money around like that. But the debt you two owe me? You’ll never pay it

off, not in this lifetime.”

Finnick’s expression shifted, and he opened his mouth to retort, until Lilia suddenly yelled out,

‘Enough!”

Her body trembled slightly, but she lifted her head to look at me.

“Seraphina, this is what you owe me. I don’t care if you resent me or hate me, I won’t give up. From now on, our debt is

wiped clean.”

She took off her work apron, laced her fingers through Finnick’s, and the two walked away without looking back.

I sat in the window–facing booth. Outside, two schoolgirls in uniform walked past, sharing a single ice cream, chattering

and laughing without a care in the world, bright and noisy.

I felt a faint coolness on my cheek, and when I lifted my hand to touch it, I realized I was streaming tears without even

noticing.

Lilia and I had known each other since we were three years old, and we were inseparable from elementary school all the

way through college.

Ever since I was old enough to understand the world around me, my parents had been fighting endlessly. They never got divorced because they couldn’t reach an agreement–neither of them wanted to be stuck with me, their unwanted

burden.

Every time they smashed the house to pieces, Lilia would silently push the door open and stay to help me clean up the mess, then yank me away without argument and press me down at her family’s dining table.

The year we graduated, Lilia sold her gold bracelet to scrape together my tuition fees. She licked her ice cream nonchalantly,

“Oh, my grades are terrible, but yours are so good. It’d be such a waste if you didn’t go to school.”

“Don’t cry, Seraphina. I’ve always known you’re special. When you make it big later, just remember to buy me ten gold bracelets, that’s all”

Throughout my girlhood. Lilia was my first hero, the most important person in my entire world.

When I got home, there was no trace of them left.

I stared at the empty house in a daze for a moment.

When I bought this apartment, I had specifically kept a room for Lilia.

Finnick had been a little unhappy about it back then, but I just smiled and said it was my promise.

At her wedding. I was her only bridesmaid. After I caught the bouquet, I promised her that as long as I was here, she would always have a home to come back to.

But now, the person who had no home was me.

There were still things Finnick hadn’t taken away inside the house: the certificates we won from competitions back in college, the travel photos we took on trips, the couple’s toothbrushes sitting in the bathroom, the throw blanket on the sofa that hadn’t been put away yet, and the half–finished book on the coffee table.

The moment I closed my eyes, I could almost picture how the two of them had rolled around together on this very sofa.

I clamped a hand over my mouth and rushed into the bathroom to retch, as if I wanted to vomit out my entire insides.

I looked up at my reflection in the mirror, so haggard I barely recognized myself.

Finnick had been my upperclassman in college, my teammate in the entrepreneurship competition.

On the day he confessed, the perpetually stoic man was uncharacteristically flustered, his cheeks tinged pink.

“Seraphina, you’re the smartest, strongest girl I’ve ever met. Give me à chance to take care of you.”

After graduation, I gained experience at a major corporation, then quickly seized a market opportunity to start my own

business.

Finnick offered me endless support through it all. He was my trusted partner fighting alongside me, my closest, most

beloved lover.

Because of him, I worked tirelessly to heal from my childhood trauma, working up the courage to even consider building

a family of my own.

I had truly intended to spend the rest of my life with him.

I stared at the face in the mirror and clenched my fist silently.

They had once been my reason for living, the goal I fought for with everything I had.

But they had dealt me the deadliest blow.

Why the hell did they get to do this to me?

So I took out my phone and dialed that number I hadn’t contacted in a long time.