Ch. he left me waiting for 3 years so i left him forever 9 he left me waiting for 3 years so i left him forever 9

Chapter 9 

Three years later, I ended my travels and returned home. 

That same evening, Ethan appeared outside my mother’s apartment building. 

I stood at an upstairs window and watched him from a distance. 

He had lost a great deal of weight. His face was covered in stubble, and he seemed to be wearing the same 

old clothes he had worn three years earlier. 

Even his hair had gone gray at the temples. 

Mom came to stand beside me and sighed. 

“While you were gone, he came to see me often.” 

“Sometimes he asked me to tell him stories about your childhood. Other times, he simply stared at your 

photographs for hours.” 

“Most of the time, he sat in your old room clutching a copy of your marriage certificate, looking like he barely 

knew where he was.” 

Mom gestured toward the unfamiliar things Ethan had added to the apartment, her expression conflicted. 

“Two years ago, I mentioned that my back had been hurting. He bought me that massage chair.” 

“Then, after a routine physical showed that my immune system was weak, he stocked the refrigerator with 

nutritional shakes and filled the cabinets with supplements.” 

“All of this came from him.” 

She led me to the closet and motioned for me to open it. 

It was packed with brand–new clothes, every item still carrying its tag. 

There were white dresses in small, medium, and large, along with matching handbags in every color 

imaginable. 

I counted them carefully. 

He had bought five complete outfits for every season. 

Over three years, he had bought sixty outfits in total. 

“He also asked me which dishes you liked,” Mom continued. “He learned to cook each one and kept bringing 

them over.” 

“Whenever I finished eating, he’d ask whether I thought you would’ve liked it.” 

I remained silent. 

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Mom sighed, pulled a handwritten recipe notebook from a drawer, and pressed it into my hands. 

I flipped through the pages. 

Every recipe was for something I loved. 

But food was meant to be eaten while it was still warm. 

Six years had passed. The food had gone cold, and so had everything between us. 

I handed the recipe notebook back. 

“Mom, Ethan and I are never getting back together.” 

On my third day back, I had barely stepped outside when the building’s security guard hurried over, looking 

uncomfortable. 

“Ms. Bennett, that man has been demanding to see you. No matter what we say, he refuses to leave.” 

“He’s been waiting here all night.” 

I followed his gaze. 

Ethan’s hair was disheveled, and his clothes were deeply wrinkled. 

“Claire, are you going somewhere?” 

“Yes. Why didn’t you go home?” 

He shook his head. 

“What would be the point? I’d still be alone. It’s just four walls and complete silence. There’s no one to talk to 

and no sound except my own breathing.” 

“At least here, I’m a little closer to you.” 

“Ethan, we’re divorc-” 

“I know.” He cut me off immediately. “Don’t say it again. Just listen to me.” 

“I finally understand what those three years were like for you.” 

“You came home alone to a dark apartment. There was no one to speak to and no one waiting for you.” 

“Grandma got much older after you left. She developed one age–related illness after another, and every time the care facility called, I was terrified.” 

“I kept wondering whether you’d felt the same way back then. I kept wondering whether you’d felt the same way back then, whether every time something happened, you wished I had been beside you.” 

A cold gust swept past us, and I tucked my hands into my coat pockets. 

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“I’m glad she’s doing okay.” 

Ethan’s voice suddenly broke. 

“Claire, Grandma died two years ago.” 

“The night before she passed, she held my hand and kept asking whether you had come home.” 

“She said she was sorry.” 

His eyes reddened. 

“But she wasn’t the only one who wronged you. I did, too.” 

“I cost you three years of your life.” 

I let out a quiet sigh. 

“It’s over now.” 

“No, it isn’t.” 

Ethan pounded a fist against his chest, his voice rising into a desperate shout. 

“Claire, I don’t have any family left.” 

“I can’t lose you, too.” 

He turned and lifted a flowerpot from behind the hedge. 

A cluster of daisies bloomed brightly inside it. 

“Is that the seedling from three years ago?” 

“Yes.” 

“It bloomed beautifully.” 

“Do you like it?” 

“No.” 

He went still. 

“Ethan, I saw more of the world during the last three years than I ever had before.” 

“I went to Alaska and watched alpine wildflowers push through the snow beneath Denali. They were more 

beautiful than I could ever describe.” 

“I hiked through the Blue Ridge Mountains and saw flame azaleas blazing across sheer cliff faces.” 

“I visited a lotus garden in Washington, D.C., and watched the blossoms rise clean from the muddy water.” 

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“I’ve seen more flowers than I can count, and I no longer have any interest in flowers trapped inside a pot.” 

“There’s no going back for us.” 

Tears filled Ethan’s eyes. 

“Claire, if I hadn’t lied to you back then, would everything have turned out differently?” 

“No.” 

I adjusted the strap of my bag. 

“Go home, Ethan. Don’t come here again.” 

I raised my hand, and a cab pulled up to the curb. 

“A car won’t wait forever.” 

“Neither will a person.”