My Fiance Married His Childhood Sweetheart Before Our Engagement Party Chapter 10

My Fiance Married His Childhood Sweetheart Before Our Engagement Party Chapter 10

Olivia drove me to the airport the next day.

Morning traffic was awful.

She sat in the back seat with my chipped suitcase hugged in her arms because she was afraid it would roll around in the trunk.

At the departure hall, she walked me all the way to security.

I looked back at her.

She wore sunglasses.

Probably because she did not want me to see her cry.

Right before security, I glanced toward the arrivals hall out of the corner of my eye.

In the crowd stood a man in a gray coat.

Tall and thin.

Standing very straight.

In his hand was a sheet of white printer paper.

On it were two words.

[Evelyn Hart.]

It was Adrian.

He was looking for me.

But he was standing at arrivals.

Not departures.

He thought I had left in anger and would calm down after a couple of days.

He thought I would book a flight back.

So he was not waiting for me at departures.

He was waiting for me at arrivals.

For three years, he had always believed I would come back.

That even if I was upset, I could not stay away for long.

That leaving was just a gesture.

That eventually, I would return to the place where I washed his dishes, ironed his shirts, and paid his bills.

I lowered the brim of my cap, withdrew my gaze, and handed my boarding pass to security.

The scanner beeped.

The gate opened.

I walked through.

When the plane landed in Silicon Valley, it was 8:40 p.m.

Outside the window, lights spread across the ground.

They shone differently from New York.

When I turned on my new phone, it was clean.

No missed calls.

Olivia sent a message.

[He waited at the airport for six hours. From morning to dark. He watched every arrival gate. All day. He didn’t find you.]

Then another.

[He posted a photo. Empty arrivals hall, awful white lighting. Caption was one word: Waiting.]

The final message was a voice note.

I hesitated, then tapped it.

Her voice sounded muffled, like she was covering her mouth.

“Eve, he cried at the airport. A friend of James passed by and took a picture. He was crouched beside the flowerbed outside arrivals, covering his face.”

I placed the phone on my lap and turned toward the window.

The rideshare moved along the overpass.

Streetlights passed one after another.

Orange light flickered across the glass like pages of an old book.

It was not that I felt sorry for him.

It was that the version of me who had said yes to everything for three years, who never argued, who had been mocked and still lowered her head with a smile, finally deserved to be pitied.

She had waited long enough.

It was time to go.