Lahat ng Kabanata ng No Birds Returning In Summer: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 9

In the video, a girl lay in the arms of the sticker-faced mom. “Mommy, hug!”“Alright. I’ll hug you.”It was clearly Mandy’s voice. We had dated for seven years. There was no way I could be wrong. Someone commented a question in admiration. [You’re so happy together, even after so many years. How did you keep your relationship fresh?]Lance Clark, my friend, replied: The secret is in us staying busy for ten months apart from each other, then spending two months dating.The blinding sun shone through the window to land on my screen. My blood ran cold. I had been with Mandy for seven years. She always said that she was busy and had to go to meetings so that she could build our future. It was normal for her to cancel our anniversary celebrations. Even for my birthday, she could only take out some time to have lunch with me. I had complained to her in the past. “Can’t you even get a single day off?”“We’re no longer kids. Some things are even more important than date

In an instant, I felt all my strength drain. So, as long as I survived, all my hardships could be brushed off. All my anger and sadness turned into a lump inside my throat. I turned to leave, but Mandy caught up to me and grabbed my wrist. “Where are you going? You’re hopeless with directions, and we’re not back in Sommerset. What if you lose your way?”I was stuffed into the back seat of the car. Half an hour later, the car stopped in front of a white villa. In the garden were hydrangeas and lemon trees. Under the porch were wind chimes that let out pleasant sounds as they knocked into each other. I stood at the door and felt dumbfounded. The arched door at the entrance, the tall floor-to-door windows in the living room, the semi-open study to the right, and even the embedded shelf beside the fireplace was the same as my designs. Two years ago, I had excitedly brought Mandy to visit a new housing development, and I had said, “Let’s buy it so that it can become our new

The moment I stepped on the streets of Sommerset again, a red racecar came to a slow stop beside me. When the windows wound down, the woman inside removed her sunglasses and plopped an elbow casually on the edge of the window before cocking an eyebrow at me. “Did you come to welcome me back to the country, Mr. Fiance?”I was stunned. The youthful softness in my memories was gone, and her features had become more pronounced. But when she smiled, the slight jut of her left canine tooth was the same as when she was just a little girl. “Samantha Jackson?”She opened the door and came to stand in front of me. “How could you, Andrew? My mother begged for the arranged marriage so many times, and you said no without even seeing me?”I was still dumbfounded. Back then, all of my attention had been on Mandy, and I thought that my parents were being ridiculous for trying to get me into an arranged marriage, so I had rejected it without even thinking about it. The sight of my flabberg

(1st POV)The preparations for the engagement banquet were so complicated that it was frankly stupid. Samantha, that flashy woman, wanted to attract the attention of everyone in the capital to our engagement party. Elizabeth, Samantha’s mother, was even more outrageous. She stuffed the property deeds of several penthouses belonging to luxury apartments under the Jackson family’s name and a thick stack of share transfer agreements into my hands. “Andrew, I’ve been waiting for this for more than twenty years.” Elizabeth held my hand, and she was smiling so much that her crow’s feet showed up. “If Samantha bullies you, chase her out. Everything in the Jackson family belongs to you.”As I stared at the thick and heavy stack of papers, my nose stung. Back then, I took care of Zoey and got dark eye circles for working overnight to take care of her in the hospital, but all I got was her enjoying my care for her and her helping Mandy betray me. But I did not even need to do anythin

Lance suddenly fell silent. All I could hear was his labored breathing. “Andrew, since when have you become like this?” Lance complained with a hint of reproach. “You’ve dated each other for seven years! I swear that I really wasn’t thinking of destroying your relationship. I just wanted Jane to have a bit of her mother’s love. “Is that so wrong?”Finally, I was unable to hold back and laughed. Even at that point, he still wanted to cling onto that broken paragon of virtue. “Lance, stop putting on this pity play. Do you really think I don’t know what you’re planning?”I rapped my knuckles against the table and attacked him verbally. “If you really don’t have any feelings for Mandy, why upload those videos on your social media account every day in July and August? You even gave them those ambiguous captions.“Can you really tell me that you haven’t been hoping that I would see it one day, then be unable to cope with the shock and break up with Mandy so that you could be with he