บททั้งหมดของ Never Returning Home: บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 9

Using the location tagged in her post, I took a cab to the beachfront hotel.After I got into the car, I received a transaction alert from our joint account.Hannah had just spent a six-figure sum.The charge was from a jewelry store.At the same time, she uploaded another post.The photograph showed the man holding out his wrist, which was adorned with a diamond watch.The caption said: Men deserve to be spoiled like princes too.I looked down at my own wrist.A faint scar ran across it.The previous winter, Hannah had woken with a stomach ache, so I got up in the middle of the night to make her some soup. I accidentally touched the edge of the pot and burned myself.She had been so distressed at the time. She held my hand and blew on it for a long while.“Honey, let me take care of things like this from now on,” she said.Eventually, she did learn how to make soup.Just not for me.In one of her posts, when that man fell ill, she sat by his bedside and fed him soup.Th

I was standing on the sidewalk when my phone buzzed.It was a message from my father.[Eric, are you and Hannah going to visit anytime soon? Your mom was asking about the wedding again today.]I stared at the words until my eyes finally began to sting. I had lied to my family for far too long because of Hannah.I told them she was busy. I told them that she did love me, but she preferred to keep her private life private. By the end, I had repeated those lies so often that I had almost started believing them myself.I called my mother.Her gentle voice came through the phone. “How did it go? Have you and Hannah set a wedding date yet? Are you visiting us anytime soon?”“Mom, we broke up.”There was a long silence on the other end.Long enough for me to think she would accuse me of acting too hastily or tell me to give Hannah another chance.Instead, she only sighed.“Did she hurt you?”Her question nearly shattered the composure I had fought so hard to maintain.“Yes.”My

The next morning, I was awakened by raised voices at the front door.I heard Mom speaking in a low voice. Her tone was unusually cold and firm. “He doesn’t want to see you. Please leave.”A dull ache spread through me. I threw on a jacket and walked over to the window.Hannah was standing outside. She was still wearing the same dress from the day before, but it was badly wrinkled now. When she saw me standing by the window, her eyes lit with desperate hope.“Honey, please come out and talk to me.”I did not move.She kept her face turned toward the window. Her voice was painfully hoarse. “I took the earliest flight here. I didn’t pack anything. Eric, I’ve learned my lesson now. Please don’t leave me.”In the past, I could never bear to see her like this.Whenever she called me “honey” with tears in her eyes, I would always give in to her. I would remember how much those seven years meant and forget how she had hurt me, though looking at her at the moment, she felt like a strang

The next morning, I made a public post on social media.For the first time in seven years, I wrote out Hannah Levin’s full name.I did not plead for sympathy or insult her. I simply laid out the timeline of everything.Her confession in college. Our seven-year relationship. Moving in together. Our joint account. Meeting my parents. Her promises that we would marry.Then, three years earlier, she had begun dating Josh. She publicly acknowledged him, introduced him to her friends and mother, and all the while told me she was traveling for work, that she was busy, and that she was waiting for the right time.At the end of the post, I included the video I had taken at the hotel that night.In it, Hannah said, “I’ll marry you, but I’m going to give him a wedding.”After publishing the post, I turned off my phone and went with my mother to the farmers’ market.She held my hand the entire way, just as she had when I was little, and she was afraid I might get lost.She did not ask me