My Husband Claimed Asexuality And Fathered Her Child Instead Chapter 09

My Husband Claimed Asexuality And Fathered Her Child Instead Chapter 09

His shoulders trembled once.

“I know,” he said. “But I still wanted to ask.”

“Now you have your answer.” I started the car. “Goodbye.”

“Go back to your hotel,” I said.

“Evelyn!”

Before I could pull away, he stepped up to the window and knocked on the glass.

I lowered the window a crack. He reached in and gently touched the hand I had resting on the steering wheel.

It was the first time in seven years that he had ever reached for me first.

“I never learned how to love you,” he said, looking into my eyes.

“But I learned that I don’t want to lose you.”

I pulled my hand away.

“It’s too late.”

“I know,” he said. “But I still wanted to say it.”

He opened the car door, and cold wind rushed in.

Then he placed the necklace box in my lap.

“Take this as compensation,” he said. “Throw it away if you want.”

After that, he closed the door and walked into the heavy snow, his figure quickly blurring in the storm.

I sat in the car for a long time, until snow covered the windows and I could no longer see out.

Only then did I pick up the box and open it.

The diamond was small, but beautifully cut.

I thought of the ring he had given me when we got married.

That diamond had been large and brilliant.

But I rarely wore it because he once said he didn’t like the sound of jewelry clinking against things.

So he had remembered that I liked diamonds.

He had just never said so.

I closed the box, put it into my pocket, then picked up the potted echeveria and opened the car door.

The snow was deep, and my boots sank past my ankles with every step. Holding the plant in my arms, I walked toward the guesthouse one step at a time.

At the entrance, I looked back once.

His footprints had already been covered by fresh snow, as if no one had ever been there.

Edda was knitting in the living room. When she saw the plant in my arms, she smiled.

“You found one?”

“Mm.”

“That’s a good one. Hardy. Lives a long time.”

I nodded and went upstairs.

The room was warm.

I took a shower and lay down.

Outside the window, snow was still falling.

My phone lit up with a text from the Icelandic number.

[Good night.]

I didn’t reply.

When I closed my eyes, I thought of the moment he had touched my hand.

So cold.

So light.

Like a snowflake landing on skin, melting in an instant, yet leaving the feeling behind.

I turned over and buried my face in the pillow.

Seven years, Julian.

Love that arrived too late was worth less than weeds.

After I returned home, I found a small but cozy apartment.

I started looking for work, sending out résumés and going to interviews.

After seven years of marriage, I had almost fallen out of step with the world.

The day my first interview went badly, I sat in a convenience store eating a cup of hot soup.

Steam fogged up my glasses. When I took them off to wipe them, I saw a familiar car outside the window.

Julian’s black sedan.

Serena was sitting in the passenger seat.

Her belly was slightly rounded, and she was looking down with a soft smile.

Julian leaned over to buckle her seat belt for her. His fingers brushed past the ends of her hair, the movement easy and practiced.

I stared blankly at them.

So he did know how to buckle someone in.

So he did know how to lean close to another person.

So it was not that he had no tenderness.

He had simply given all of it to someone else.

I choked on the hot soup and coughed until my face burned red.