The Day I Stopped Sending Him Sunsets Chapter 05
The late-night flight was quiet.
In a daze, I dreamed of what my best friend had said to me that day.
“You’re not leaving because of one text. You’re leaving because of countless texts just like it.”
“Nora, stop crying.”
That day, I still couldn’t help taking a picture of the beautiful sunset.
I just didn’t send it to Aaron anymore, along with all those annoying little words.
I saved it in my photo album.
I believed I would find someone willing to listen to my nonsense and talk nonsense with me.
I turned back and looked at my best friend, then smiled with relief.
“It’s okay.”
“I don’t think I love Aaron that much anymore.”
The plane landed in Rosebay at four in the morning.
I was so tired I could barely lift my eyelids.
I didn’t even have the strength to unlock my phone.
I simply found a hotel near the airport and collapsed again.
My body sank into the soft mattress, and I slept heavily.
When I opened my eyes again, the light leaking through the curtain was already glaring.
It was almost noon.
I plugged in my phone.
The second it connected to the internet, buzzing vibrations exploded nonstop.
The screen flashed wildly.
The red number of missed calls kept jumping.
More than fifty calls.
Aaron’s name filled the screen, dense and overwhelming.
I opened my messages.
Unread messages: 99+.
A small number were worried check-ins from friends who had seen my post.
Most were from Aaron.
He had probably only realized something was wrong the moment I rejected his friend request.
Reason had slowly returned to him.
His finger hovered over the screen.
Aaron remembered that I was pregnant and, no matter what, shouldn’t have been left alone at home.
Panic surged in him.
He said something to Hannah and hurried back.
Aaron opened the door.
The apartment was terrifyingly quiet.
“Nora?”
“Nora Reed!”
He raised his voice and called twice.
No one answered.
The apology he had prepared lodged completely in his throat.
For some reason, panic began rising in Aaron’s chest.
That nameless fear made him rush toward the bedroom.
He shoved open the master bedroom door.
Then he realized something was wrong.
In his earlier rush to search for the blanket, he hadn’t noticed that my half of the closet had already been emptied.
Only a few old clothes I didn’t want hung alone in the corner.
Aaron’s gaze swept abruptly to the vanity.
It was empty too.
The skincare and makeup products I used every day were all gone.
The surface looked cold and bare.
Something exploded in Aaron’s head.
Only then did he remember the two suitcases he had kicked aside before leaving.
Like a madman, he rushed back to the living room.
The entryway was empty.
The only thing that had changed was the dining table.
Two sheets of paper sat quietly beneath a key.
With trembling hands, Aaron picked them up.
The first was a breakup letter.
My handwriting was steady, without the slightest hesitation.
[Aaron Whitman, I can’t accept your boundaryless friendship with Hannah Blake, and I can’t accept the way your desire to share with me has disappeared.]
[into long-term emotional neglect.]
[While you pushed me away again and again, I gradually stopped loving you too. So let’s break up.]
The second sheet fell loose.
It was the procedure form from that day.
On it, I had written only one tiny line.
[Baby, I’m sorry. Mommy didn’t let you come into this world. Please forgive me.]
[But Mommy wanted your birth to begin with love between your parents.]
Other than that, I left nothing behind in that apartment.
Aaron stared hard at those words.
His vision suddenly blurred.
Large tears fell without warning, smearing the ink on the page.
He collapsed to his knees, his shoulders caving in.
In that empty room, he let out a wounded, trapped sob.
After a long time, Aaron’s face was still streaked with tears as he fumbled for his phone.
He opened our chat and tried to send a message.
Even if it was only [I’m sorry].
But when the red exclamation mark appeared, Aaron suddenly remembered that only a few hours ago, he had found my repeated pleas for him to come home annoying.
He had deleted me himself.
He turned to calling me.
“Sorry, the user you have dialed is currently unavailable…”
The cold mechanical voice repeated itself.
He didn’t sleep all night.
He paced the living room anxiously, redialing again and again.
Until finally, sometime in the afternoon, the call connected.
I had just turned off airplane mode when that familiar yet strange name lit up my screen.
My gaze paused for two seconds.
There was no anger.
No reluctance.
I calmly pressed decline.
Then I deleted the contact and blocked the number.
Smooth and effortless.
On the other end, Aaron refused to give up and called again.
But the call that had just gone through returned to the mechanical voice.
Suddenly, he understood.
Aaron collapsed onto the couch.
He covered his face and cried.