The Hairclip He Gave Me Was a Free Gift from Her Jewelry Spree Chapter 14

The Hairclip He Gave Me Was a Free Gift from Her Jewelry Spree Chapter 14

I wasn’t stupid. I had noticed how Ethan felt about me.

He was a very good person.

But in the Hale family, this would do no good for either of us.

“My feelings for you as a brother have never reached the point where I would fight the whole family for

them.”

“As for you, you drank too much tonight. I won’t take drunk words seriously.”

“Your secret will always be a secret.”

Ethan didn’t answer. He just kept walking.

Across the bridge, through the streets, through the alleys.

I didn’t know how far he went.

Until he walked into a dead end and could go no further.

The dim streetlight stretched our shadows long as we stood side by side.

He turned to look at me.

“I understand.”

“Sister.”

All this time, he had called me by my full name.

This was the first time he called me sister.

I smiled at him.

That night, I asked him for a favor.

I put all the gifts Sebastian had sent me recently into a box.

These were given to me with the goal of winning me back, so I couldn’t keep them.

I asked Ethan to return them to Sebastian.

Ethan agreed.

A few days later, he called me.

“Sebastian says he wants to transfer you some money, as atonement for who he was back then.”

“Will you take it?”

This time, I didn’t refuse.

After that, I never saw Sebastian again.

He vanished from my world.

But his money didn’t vanish.

Every year on his birthday, it appeared in my account right on time.

I always thought the story between Sebastian and me was a secret I never wanted to mention.

Just like when I had shared the apartment with my roommate, we had agreed on some house rules.

The first one was never to ask about each other’s past.

But one ordinary afternoon.

I sat in a rattan chair with a few friends, soaking up the sun.

The chairs swayed, and I forgot who started talking about the past first.

One friend said she had also been deceived by a man who pretended to be

poor.

She had been young and truly in love with him, and she cried secretly under her blanket.

Luckily, she got through it in the end.

Another friend picked up the thread.

“I’ve always loved flowers, but my ex said he was allergic to pollen and never bought me any.”

“Later I found out he wasn’t allergic to pollen.”

“It was just that his flowers were only for one person, and I wasn’t that person.”

It felt like everyone had been through that stage.

To love, to hurt, to lose.

To meet people who were always going to leave.

And then to lose them in the crowd.

So I sat in the sun and started telling them about Sebastian and me.

“It started when I was working a side job at the mall…”

I told the story in bits and pieces.

By the time the sun set, they asked me.

“How do you feel now?”

How did I feel?

I lowered my head and took a sip of my drink.

“I feel like today’s mint sparkling water tastes just right.”