Chapter 9

A month later, everything in our joint account had been settled.

Hannah transferred my half back to me, along with an additional amount she called compensation

I sent the extra money back.

I did not need her compensation.

Compensation suggested that what she owed me could be measured, but the seven years I had lost could not be repaid by any sum.

Dirk visited me one day.

He stood outside my house with a box of cake from my favorite bakery. His eyes were red and swollen.

“Eric, I’m sorry.”

The wind was strong that day. As I looked at him, I suddenly remembered a summer back in high school.

We had stood outside the corner store, sharing a popsicle and laughing as we promised that whenever one of us got married, the other would be his best man.

The friendship we had shared was real.

So was his betrayal.

I did not take the cake.

“Dirk, I don’t hate you anymore.”

A glimmer of hope appeared in his eyes, but then I continued, “But that doesn’t mean I forgive you.”

His tears began to fall.

I went back inside and closed the door.

Later, I heard that Josh had left the city.

Hannah resigned from her job. Her social media profile remained frozen on that third-anniversary post. She never updated it again.

Some people said she regretted everything and often called me when she was drunk, though the calls never reached me.

I changed my number, found a new job, and settled into a different rhythm of life.

It was not easy at first.

Sometimes, I would wake at dawn and instinctively remember how she liked to leave the curtains slightly open at night.

Whenever I passed a flower shop, I would think of the time she ran through the rain to buy me a bouquet of roses that had already begun to wilt.

Whenever my stomach hurt, I would remember the way she used to rush around trying to find me a glass

of warm water.

You could not erase someone you had loved with the press of a button.

The traces she left behind had once found their way into every corner of my life.

However, time was fair.

It could not heal wounds overnight, but little by little, it taught you how to breathe again.

I began going shopping with my mother, playing chess with my father, and painting again after setting my brushes aside for far too long.

I cleaned out the empty flowerpot in my old room and planted a new succulent.

Mom laughed and told me not to kill this one, too.

I nodded solemnly. “I won’t.”

I was not just talking about the plant.

I would never again allow myself to wither inside someone else’s lies.

When winter arrived, I received a package with no return address.

Inside was the ring, along with a handwritten note.

I recognized the handwriting instantly.

Hannah had written: Honey, I regret everything. If I could start over, I would introduce you to everyone from the very first day.

I stared at the note for a long time. Then I tore it into pieces and placed them, along with the ring, in the deepest corner of a drawer.

It was not because I could not bear to throw them away.

I kept them as a reminder that love, regret, and recognition meant nothing when they came too late.

That evening, the setting sun streamed through the window and fell across the tender new leaves on the windowsill.

Mom called me downstairs for dinner. Dad complained that she had made the food too salty. The sound of their affectionate bickering drifted cheerfully upstairs.

I opened the window. The breeze carried the aroma of dinner and the crisp freshness of winter.

My phone screen lit up. A new friend had invited me to an art exhibition that weekend.

I smiled and replied, “Sure.”

A long time ago, I believed Hannah was my entire world.

Later, I came to understand that the world held many kinds of love, not just the one I had known.

The day our seven years together ended, I thought I had lost everything.

However, once I finally moved forward, I realized that all I had lost was someone who had never

deserved me.

At last, I had found my way back to myself.