My Fiancé Saved Her Painful Days, But Forgot Mine Chapter 09

My Fiancé Saved Her Painful Days, But Forgot Mine Chapter 09

“If you truly wanted to marry me, you would not have spent five years hurting me.”

I did not look at him again.

I turned and went upstairs.

Starting the next day, Mitch changed tactics.

He stopped chasing me outright and started trying to win me back in quieter, more indirect ways.

That weekend, I went to visit my family.

The moment I reached the entrance to the apartment building, I saw Mitch carrying two heavy bags of groceries for my cousin Chloe.

Chloe told him to get lost.

He did not argue.

He just gave her an apologetic smile and carried the groceries all the way to the door.

When Uncle Greg was admitted to Maplewood Community Hospital, Mitch arrived before anyone else, even before Chloe.

For four straight nights, he stayed by Greg’s hospital bed and barely left his side.

Even the nurses started commenting on how devoted he seemed.

On the day Greg was discharged, he leaned back against his pillow and watched Mitch handle every little task around the room.

Then he sighed.

“Sheelly, we’ve all seen what he’s done these past six months.”

“What he did before was wrong.”

“No one’s denying that.”

“But he really seems to understand now, and honestly, it’s getting hard not to feel sorry for him.”

“If there’s still any part of you that cares, maybe give him one chance to make things right.”

Greg had always been the relative who spoiled me most.

He had also been the one attacking Mitch the hardest in the family chat.

Now even he was wavering.

I peeled an apple and set it on the nightstand beside him.

“Uncle Greg, you can’t fix a rotten apple by polishing the skin.”

Greg fell silent.

Chloe turned away and said nothing more.

Mitch, standing in the doorway, flinched.

I walked past him and left the room.

Shortly before the winter holidays, Lynn suddenly sent me a long message.

She had been off the radar for nearly eight months.

I had heard that Mitch had canceled the credit cards he had given her and stopped paying her bills, leaving her to support herself for the first time in years.

I opened the message.

[Shelly, I’m going back to my hometown for good. Before I leave, I need to tell you the truth.]

[I’ve always been jealous of you.]

[Both your parents are alive. Your family and friends love you. You graduated from a top university, and you built a real career for yourself.]

[What did I have? I lost both my parents as a child. The Wilsons were kind to me, but no matter how kind they were, I always knew I was living under someone else’s roof.]

[I hated that feeling.]

[I wanted to see whether I could take the best thing in your life away from you.]

[And I did. Mitch was incredibly easy to manipulate.]

[But I need to be honest about one thing. Mitch never physically cheated on you.]

[We never crossed that line. We did not even hold hands. He was just stupidly attached to the idea of our childhood bond.]

[I won’t contact either of you again.]

[If you still love him, don’t let what I did decide your future.]

I read the entire confession and laughed bitterly.

So they had never slept together.

What difference did that make?

Five years of being hurt.

Five years of being abandoned whenever she called.

I could not forget any of it.

In early February, my company assigned me to a long-term position at one of its overseas branches.

I rolled my suitcase toward the entrance of my building and found Mitch standing there with an insulated food container in both hands.

For a moment, he looked too lost to speak.

“You’re leaving?”

“Please don’t go.”

I shook my head.

He rushed to add, “Then I’ll wait for you. No matter how long it takes.”

My ride-share pulled up to the curb.

I opened the back door.

“Don’t waste your time waiting.”

I got in and shut the door, cutting off his broken sobs.

Then I leaned back against the seat and powered off my phone.

The car pulled away while thick winter snow swirled across the windows.

That painful, ridiculous chapter of my life was finally behind me.