Our Anniversary Trip Was Their Repeat Trip Chapter 04

Our Anniversary Trip Was Their Repeat Trip Chapter 04

I ate dinner alone and checked into the hotel.

I was sleeping fitfully when pain woke me. Still half-conscious, I reached for the person beside me.

“Ethan, my stomach hurts.”

My hand found only empty space. There was no warmth beside me. He still hadn’t come back.

I curled into a ball.

I called Ethan. The phone rang again and again before the call ended automatically. No one answered.

The fog in my pain-numbed mind finally began to clear.

Ethan called me back.

“What’s wrong?”

I barely had the strength to speak. “Ethan, I don’t feel well.”

There was a brief silence.

“Olivia got drunk. She gets difficult when she drinks too much.”

“I can’t leave right now. I’ll have someone from the hotel come check on you.”

The call ended.

I saw Ethan again at the hospital, and by then it was the next day.

The doctor said I had acute gastroenteritis and was severely dehydrated. I would need treatment for two or three days.

Ethan listened carefully, his fingers brushing lightly against the hand with my IV.

For a moment, it felt like the time I had been sick while he was away on business and had taken an overnight flight home.

He looked at me with the same concern he had shown then.

Then he spoke in a calm voice.

“You won’t be able to travel for the next few days.”

“Stay here for now. Olivia and I will finish the rest of the drive with the others, then come back for you.”

My mouth opened and closed. It took a long moment before I found my voice.

“I’m sick in a place far from home.”

“You’re asking me to stay here alone?”

Ethan looked helpless.

“How was I supposed to know you’d suddenly get sick?”

“I already promised Olivia I’d go with them. I can’t spend the whole trip sitting in a hospital with you, can I?”

“Claire, be reasonable, okay?”

I stared at him.

During our two years together, Ethan occasionally mentioned Olivia and said his ex had been spoiled and had drained him emotionally.

But even three years after their breakup, he was still willing to indulge her and unable to let her go.

All he left me with was a demand that I be reasonable.

He bent down. I turned away, so his kiss landed against my cheek instead.

I still asked,

“Ethan, ever since we started this trip by whale-watching in Monterey, you’ve said you’d already been everywhere and seen everything, so you didn’t want to come with me.”

“So why doesn’t doing it again feel pointless to you now?”

Ethan didn’t answer. He straightened.

“Someone will take care of you these next few days.”

“Olivia’s waiting for me. I have to go.”

The hospital door opened and closed. Only after his footsteps faded did quiet sobs escape the room.

My phone vibrated.

It was another reply to a post I had made a long time ago.

“My boyfriend has an old sweetheart he dated for years. They had a dramatic first love and shared their whole youth, and he’s already lived through all of that with her.”

“With me, it feels like he only likes me. How do I get past that gap between us?”

I had never told Ethan about these private doubts.

But even after all this time, people kept liking, saving, and commenting on the post.

The latest comment was meant to comfort me.

“Create memories that belong to the two of you. Do the things he did with his ex again, and let new memories cover the old ones.”

I smiled and lowered my head to reply.

“I tried. It doesn’t cover anything. Even when we take the same road, he still remembers the person who came before me.”

“I’m going to break up with him.”

Ethan and the others stopped in plenty of places along the way. When they reached Los Angeles, they even met up with more old friends.

He didn’t come back until the tenth day.

He walked with steady steps, but he froze for a moment when he opened the hotel-room door.

No one was inside. The room was empty.

The hotel staff told him that, at his request, the room had been extended every night, but it had been empty for days.

Ethan walked in.

The only thing left on the table was the ring, with a note beneath it.

“I’m giving this back. We’re over.”