All Chapters of You Were Etched Into My Heart: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

10 Chapters

Chapter 1

I made a quick excuse to leave.Professor Reed patted my shoulder and smiled as she reminded me to get there early tomorrow. "Tyler has waited so many years, and Brittany has finally come around. You two are best friends, so you should be right by his side when it happens."My fingers felt numb, but I nodded anyway, and only after the door clicked shut did I look down at my phone. Her message from that morning was still sitting on the screen.[As soon as the awards ceremony wraps up tomorrow, I'll finally make us public.]I stared at it for a long time, until my eyes began to water. So, the relationship she promised to reveal was never ours to begin with.As I walked downstairs, her messages popped up one after another.[Why did you leave so suddenly? It's not what you think. I'll come home tonight and explain everything to you.]I didn't reply to any of her messages.When I got back to the apartment and turned on the lights, I stood in the doorway for a long time. The living r

Chapter 2

I was the one who stuck by her through the toughest years in the lab. I had always believed we were in this together, but as it turned out, we weren't; I was just the person who had to stay hidden in the shadows."Who are you going to spend tonight with?" I asked, keeping my voice low.Brittany's lips parted, but before she could speak, her phone rang. Tyler O'Niel's name was flashing on the screen.She answered almost instantly. "What's wrong?"I couldn't hear what was said on the other end, but her expression shifted dramatically, and she turned to grab her coat."Something came up with Tyler. I need to head over there." At the doorway, she looked back at me and added, "Don't overthink this. When I get back, we'll talk."After the door closed, the house felt dead silent. Standing there alone, I suddenly felt exhausted.This had happened so many times before. When I had a high fever, she told me she had an important meeting and that I should take some over-the-counter medicine.

Chapter 3

The room fell silent for a few seconds. Then, I heard her speak."We'll go together."At that exact moment, the last bit of struggle inside me disappeared.I bent down and picked up the offer letter from the floor. A sharp fragment nicked the pad of my thumb, and blood slowly began to seep out, but I felt no pain at all.I simply smoothed out the paper, walked over to the desk, picked up a pen, and signed my name right in front of them. As the pen moved across the page, I was surprisingly calm.Brittany's face paled instantly. "Harry."I looked up at her and said, "From this moment on, I'm not going to wait for you anymore."She stood frozen, looking as if she had something to say. However, Tyler beat her to it by reaching out and grabbing my phone. By the time I reacted, he had seen the draft email on the screen.His eyes flickered slightly before he handed the phone straight to Brittany."See for yourself."It was a scheduled email that I had written last night and original

Chapter 4

His voice was soft and trembling slightly. "I was so scared last night. When I saw your email, I was terrified something bad would happen to Brittany today, so I sent a screenshot to an acquaintance to ask what I should do. I honestly had no idea it would leak."As soon as he said that, people nearby started looking over, and whispers began to circulate through the crowd."So it's actually true.""No wonder she never made it public.""He seems like a decent guy, but I never would have guessed he's like that behind the scenes."Every word stabbed me in the chest. However, I didn't look at any of them. I just stared at Brittany. I was waiting for her to tell them, even if it was just one thing, that I wasn't pestering her, coercing her, or the other guy.Instead, she simply frowned and whispered to me, "Don't upset Tyler right now. We'll handle this after the awards ceremony is over."She was repeating the same phrase, telling me that we'd talk once it was over, we'd talk later, o

Chapter 5

The host froze, and a murmur began to spread through the audience.Brittany's face grew paler by the second. She quickly stepped down from the stage and reached out, trying to grab my arm."Come with me."However, I stood my ground, refusing to move. "I'll stand right here and ask the question."She lowered her voice, her tone sharp with obvious panic. "Stop making a scene. Just get through today first, and whatever you want afterward, I'll make it up to you."Make it up to me? The moment I heard those words, I suddenly didn't want to ask anything anymore. So even today, she thought all I wanted was her to make it up to me.I shoved her hand away and took the microphone directly from the host's hand."My apologies for taking up a few minutes of everyone's time."My voice echoed through the speakers, and the entire auditorium fell silent."I'm not here to make a scene today. I just want to set one thing straight."With that, I turned around and tinkered with the background s

Chapter 6

The video of the awards ceremony spread like wildfire that night. Everyone in our circle of friends was laughing at the spectacle. The "perfect partnership" Brittany and Tyler had spent so long building crumbled to pieces overnight.When I got back to the apartment, the first thing I did was pack up my things. In the closet, my clothes took up half the space. In the bathroom, my toothbrush was still resting right beside her cup. On the refrigerator door, a sticky note I had written a few days ago was still attached. "The milk is about to expire. Don't forget to drink it."I glanced at it, reached out, pulled it down, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it into the trash can. Then, I started clearing everything, item by item.I packed what I could take and threw away what I couldn't. I didn't even leave behind the matching pair of cups we had bought together.When I got to the bookshelf, I stumbled upon an old lab notebook. Inside were tucked plenty of sticky notes. They were all

Chapter 7

"From this day on, you, Tyler, your project, and the lives of everyone else have nothing to do with me anymore."When she looked down and saw the overseas employment confirmation, her expression shifted."Are you really leaving?"She reached out to stop me, but right at that moment, the emergency room doors suddenly swung open.A nurse rushed out and called out urgently, "Where is the family? Come sign this, quickly!"Professor Reed was in emergency resuscitation all night. Although her life was saved, the doctor said she could never handle another traumatic event.The next day, top management from the institute officially stepped in to investigate. The project was suspended, the relevant personnel were relieved of their duties, and all interviews, recommendations, and collaborations were canceled. That awards ceremony became the first stone that set everything collapsing.As for me, I never showed my face again. After all the paperwork was processed, I ended my lease, resigned

Chapter 8

Life abroad wasn't easy. A new environment, a new direction, and a new team required adjusting from scratch.During those first few months, I worked as if my life depended on it. I would have meetings during the day, revise materials at night, and spend weekends buried in the lab.Sometimes I would return to my place at two in the morning, too tired to even turn on the lights. I would just sit against the door for a while before finding the strength to get up and take a shower. Yet, I was so busy that I finally had no time to dwell on the past.Nobody here knew me. Nobody knew about that awards ceremony, and nobody knew that I had spent five years as a secret lover kept hidden from everyone. All they knew was that I was Harry Johnson.All that mattered was whether the papers I wrote could be published, whether the project I led was good enough, and whether my words carried weight when I stood on the stage. When I was seen purely for who I was for the very first time, I was almost u

Chapter 9

Brittany froze."How could it be meaningless?" I looked up at her and said, "Do you really think showing me all these things is going to make me feel any better?"She opened her mouth, but no words came out.So, I continued, "Are you trying to tell me that you didn't mean for any of this to happen? That back then, you were just caught between the project, public opinion, and Professor Reed, and so you made one mistake after another?"Her face turned pale.Suddenly, I felt exhausted. "Brittany, Tyler wasn't the one who truly broke me. It was you. I wasn't surprised when he set me up. Because he was jealous of me, he stole what was mine and ruined my opportunities—I can accept all of that now."I paused for a moment, then calmly met her gaze."But you were different." I stared at her, laying out every word. "I trusted you. I stayed by your side through the hardest five years by your side, and every time you told me to wait, I chose to keep believing in you. But what about you?"E

Chapter 10

By the time we arrived at the hospital, Tyler was undergoing emergency treatment. While driving to see Brittany, he crashed into a guardrail, and he had lost a great deal of blood by the time he arrived.Outside the operating theater, Tyler's mother sat rigid on a bench, completely numb. She froze for a moment when she saw me. Her lips trembled as if she wanted to say something, but in the end, she stayed silent and simply handed me a voice recorder."Tyler left this for you," she whispered.I took it and pressed play.In the recording, Tyler finally dropped the act. He admitted that he had been jealous of me for years and envied how Professor Reed always favored me, the admiration in people's voices whenever they mentioned my name, and the look in Brittany's eyes when she looked at me—a look no one else could ever replace. That was why he had methodically stolen everything that originally belonged to me.From the conference invitation to the technology transfer agreement, the a

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