Chapter 4

For five full days, I didn't answer Ethan's calls.

My paperwork was already complete.

Dr. Ward had helped arrange the remaining logistics.

In two more days, I could leave exactly the way I wanted to — quietly, without forcing anyone into a conversation none of us wanted.

I had underestimated Ethan's determination to have that conversation anyway.

Maybe he was desperate to clear the old relationship away so he could finally pursue the love he'd discovered too late.

That afternoon, I stepped out of my graduate residence hall and saw him waiting outside.

I almost smiled from habit.

Tall, handsome, waiting quietly by the door — he looked exactly the way he always had when he came to find me.

In the past, he showed up to take me on dates.

Or bring food his mother had made.

Sometimes he came all the way across the city just to say, "I missed you."

Today was different.

I knew I couldn't avoid him forever, so I gathered myself and walked over.

"Hey. What are you doing here?"

Concern flashed across his face.

"Why are you wearing so little? It's getting cold. You're going to get sick."

He reached up and pulled my thin collar closer around my neck.

His other arm lifted automatically, as if he were about to draw me into his chest.

For one second, I almost believed he was still the boy who loved me without hesitation.

The boy who once spent an entire year fighting with his parents because they didn't approve of us.

Then reality returned.

We had been together for six years.

Of course some tenderness had become habit.

I was about to step back.

Ethan realized first.

His raised arm stopped in midair and slowly lowered.

Pain stabbed through me anyway.

He hesitated.

"Why haven't you answered my calls?"

I gave him a casual smile.

"My phone's been acting up. I've been buried in my thesis and haven't had time to get it fixed."

His eyes stayed on my face for several seconds.

Then he looked away.

"Oh. Okay."

Silence stretched between us.

Cold wind cut down the corridor behind us.

Neither of us spoke.

My skin had always reacted badly to cold wind.

Soon, angry red patches spread across my face.

Only then did Ethan finally say, quietly, "Mia, there's something I have to tell you."

His phone rang.

I looked up.

The ringtone had changed.

It used to be a recording of me singing.

Now it was Summer's favorite song.

A thin smile pulled at my mouth.

Maybe Ethan hadn't changed at all.

When he loved someone, he remembered everything. Every preference, every tiny detail.

"Hello?"

A man's voice came faintly through the speaker.

"Ethan, where are you? I can't reach Mia. Summer was in a car accident. She refused to call her family because she didn't want Mia worrying, so she's alone at the hospital."

It was Danny Keller. He and Summer had grown up on the same street.

Ethan's face changed instantly.

"How bad is it? Which hospital?"

The answer came through clearly enough for me to hear.

"Nothing life-threatening. Broken leg. She can't walk."

Ethan's brow tightened instead of relaxing.

"I understand."

He hung up.

For a moment, he looked torn.

Then he lied to me.

"Mia, one of my relatives is sick. It's urgent. I need to go to the hospital. I..."

I pretended I hadn't heard the call.

I nodded quickly.

"Go. Of course."

Only then did he notice the red patches across my face.

He hesitated, reached into his pocket, and pulled out the medicated cream he had carried for me for years.

"Put this on when you get inside, okay?"

Then he hurried away.

I looked down at the little tube in my palm.

It was still warm from his body.

Something inside my chest felt as if it were being eaten alive.

After this, he wouldn't need to carry medicine for me anymore.

He really wouldn't.