The Day I Stopped Sending Him Sunsets Chapter 07
Aaron was chased out of the office building.
Instinctively, he took out his phone, wanting to ask the friends around me if they had seen me or knew where I had gone.
But as his finger hovered over the contacts, he froze.
In that city, he had been my only support.
My only familiar person.
Belated pain and regret spread through him, nearly drowning him.
Aaron called Jenna.
Jenna had a bad temper.
The call had barely connected, and before he could even speak, her voice exploded through the receiver.
“Aaron Whitman, you actually have the nerve to call me?”
Aaron knew he was in the wrong and tried to explain.
“Jenna, I’m just worried about her being alone…”
“Shut up!”
Jenna cut him off sharply.
“You’re worried about her? Where was that worry before? Busy cooking for another woman, watching movies with another woman, talking on the phone with another woman for hours?”
“Aaron Whitman, men like you, standing in two places at once and calling it nothing, make me sick.”
She spoke word by word, each one like a whip across his face.
“You think it doesn’t count because you didn’t sleep with her?”
“What did you take Nora for? What did you take yourself for? Everyone could see exactly what was going on between you and Hannah. Both of you were pretending not to know what you knew perfectly well. Even if she’s an orphan, she doesn’t need you taking care of her like that!”
“Nora was blind to waste seven years on a man like you. Stay away. Stop bothering us. You’re bad luck.”
Smack.
The call was cut off.
Aaron held the phone after being scolded bloody, but he couldn’t even feel angry.
Right now, he only wanted to find me and see me.
He wanted to tell me properly that he regretted it.
That he knew he was wrong.
On the third day after I returned home, I looked a little better.
I had already started browsing job postings, planning to start over once my body had fully recovered.
That afternoon, the doorbell suddenly rang.
Aaron was standing at my front door.
He looked terribly haggard, unshaven, his eyes unfocused.
There wasn’t even a trace of the energetic, successful man he used to be.
I wasn’t surprised that he had found me.
My father grabbed a chair from the entryway, ready to hit him.
I stopped him.
“Dad, don’t hurt yourself getting angry.”
Then I turned to Aaron outside the door, my voice calm.
“This isn’t a convenient place to talk. There’s a coffee shop downstairs. We really should talk.”
In the early summer afternoon, sunlight fell diagonally across the table through the glass.
I didn’t order coffee.
I only asked for a cup of warm milk.
Aaron stared at my hands around the cup.
His lips moved, as if he wanted to say something, but I interrupted him.
“Do you know the two bottles of milk you casually took for Hannah that day were the ones I specifically bought for calcium during pregnancy?”
“The doctor said calcium mattered a lot in early fetal development. I prepared those specially for myself, but you gave them away without even asking.”
Aaron’s face went deathly pale.
His eyes reddened instantly, and he choked out three words.
“I’m sorry…”
I ignored his apology and continued calmly.
“Actually, I had wanted to discuss those bottles of milk with you.”
“I sent you several brand introductions and asked you to help me choose which one was best. But you were busy talking to Hannah. When you saw my messages, you only replied, [Decide yourself.]”
I paused and looked at the familiar man in front of me.
Suddenly, I felt a little dazed.
“Aaron, do you remember when we were long-distance? We could talk on the phone for ten hours a day. Even later, when you went on business trips, we could still talk three or four hours a day, as if we never ran out of things to say.”
I tugged lightly at the corner of my mouth, but the smile never reached my eyes.
“When did your replies to me become only [mm], [yeah], and [decide yourself]?”