The Day I Stopped Sending Him Sunsets Chapter 08
I looked at him and answered the question for him.
“It started when Hannah came back, didn’t it, Aaron?”
As I spoke, I lifted the milk and took a sip.
The warm liquid slid down my throat.
But my heart was still cold.
“Love and the desire to share can’t be separated. All those words you didn’t have time to say to me, all those daily little things you didn’t have time to share with me, you gave them to her, didn’t you?”
Aaron stared hard at the tabletop.
His shoulders began trembling uncontrollably.
After a long silence, he took a deep breath and finally confessed.
“Hannah was my ex-girlfriend.”
“I was the one who ended it back then. I felt guilty toward her. After she came back, she hoped I would take care of her more. I… I couldn’t hold myself back. I wanted to relive the past a little.”
As he spoke, Aaron suddenly grew emotional.
He reached across the table and gripped my hand tightly.
“Nora, I know I was wrong. I really know what I did was wrong!”
“I promise you, when I go back, I’ll draw a clear line with Hannah. Even if I have to cut all contact, I will. I only ask you to forgive me. Give me one more chance. I’ll go back to the way I was before. I swear.”
“I’ll treat you well again. Just like before. I’ll talk to you on the phone ten hours a day, share everything with you. Let’s start over, okay?”
I listened quietly.
I looked at Aaron’s tear-streaked face.
I watched him lower himself into the dust just to win me back.
Only when Aaron had spoken himself hoarse and stopped to breathe did I pull my hand from his palm.
“No.”
“I said no.”
He froze in place.
Large tears hit the tabletop.
“Rather than spend every day terrified that someone with a history of doing this might do it again, I’d rather start over.”
“Start over and find someone willing to help me choose a milk brand. Someone willing to watch boring soap operas with me and complain about them together. Someone willing to talk about nothing and everything with me, even argue over whether today’s clouds look like a cat or a dog.”
“Aaron, I don’t love you anymore.”
The moment those words left my mouth, Aaron looked as if the last bit of strength had been pulled from him.
His whole body collapsed.
He murmured through a face full of tears, still trying uselessly to hold on.
“It’s okay. It’s okay, Nora.”
“I’ll make you love me again. I’ll win you back properly.”
I didn’t want to hear those useless confessions anymore.
I stood and pushed open the coffee shop door.
From that day on, my phone began vibrating constantly.
Aaron seemed like a different person.
He started sharing every tiny detail of his day with me.
In the morning, he passed the stray orange cat downstairs and sent me a photo.
He was late for work and complained about being careless.
He even sent me passages from books he was reading, updates about my favorite actor starring in a new show, and all those rambling little pieces of everyday life.
He said he had completely cut Hannah off.
He had changed jobs and moved away.
He no longer had any contact with her.
Text after text came, as if proving to me that he had changed.
I never replied.
Those words blew into my phone like wind, then settled like dust.
I still ate on time, walked with my parents, shopped with Jenna, and took every job interview seriously.
Aaron was still struggling in the past.
But I had already turned toward the distance.