They Buried A Promise For Ten Years, They Broke It In Ten Minutes Chapter 08

They Buried A Promise For Ten Years, They Broke It In Ten Minutes Chapter 08

“Ava, Ethan’s been a mess ever since he came 

back.” 

The message was from Lily, sent from Owen’s 

phone. 

I’d been in London for a month. 

Work was falling into place. I commuted forty minutes a day, bought groceries after work, cooked for myself, and ate alone. 

Sometimes I worked late, and the cold wind didn’t 

feel like a burden. 

No one needed me to wait, and no one made me 

wait. 

That kind of freedom was new. 

Like breathing fresh air for the first time. 

I looked at the message and didn’t reply. 

Then Owen sent another one himself. 

Owen: [Ava, are you really not coming back?] 

Ava: [No.] 

Owen: [You’ve thought it through?] 

Ava: [I’ve thought about it long enough.] 

He sent a long voice message. I hesitated, then 

played it. 

Owen: [Voice message: Ava, I’ll be honest. That 

day with the wine, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have 

opened it after you said to wait. But did you ever 

think–if you’d just told us how much it meant, we wouldn’t have-] 

I turned it off. 

If I’d just said it. 

If I’d just spoken up. 

If I weren’t the kind of person who always said “it’s 

fine.” 

Owen, when did you ever need me to say it? 

When we were kids, you always handed me your 

umbrella before I asked. 

In middle school, when I was getting picked on, 

you stepped in without me saying a word. 

When did that change? 

After Lily came. 

She knew how to pout. How to cry at the right moment. How to seem fragile. 

And all I knew how to say was “it’s okay.” 

So you started to believe I was okay. 

You started to believe I didn’t care about anything, didn’t mind anything, didn’t need anything. 

I didn’t reply. 

That evening, the firm’s partners took everyone to 

dinner to celebrate a new project. 

One of them asked, “Ava, did you come to London. 

alone?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Brave,” an Italian colleague said, raising his glass. 

I clinked and took a sip of red wine. It was a little 

bitter. 

“Not brave,” I said. “There just wasn’t anything left 

for me there.” 

On the subway home, I got a message from Ethan. 

Ethan: [Ava, I’m coming back next month. You don’t have to see me. I’ll wait until you’re ready.] 

I read it and deleted the conversation. 

Not because I was angry. 

Because I didn’t want to see those words 

anymore. 

Every one of them felt like a hand pulling me 

backward. 

But I wasn’t going back. 

My phone buzzed again. 

Owen. 

Owen: [Did you see Lily’s Instagram? Ethan took a 

photo of her at that coffee shop you two used to go to. She posted it.] 

I hadn’t seen it. I’d muted all three of them on 

Instagram. 

But there was something else in Owen’s message. 

He was telling me–Ethan said he’d change, but he 

hadn’t. 

Ava: [Why are you telling me this?] 

It took him a while to answer. 

Owen: [I don’t know. Maybe you should know.] 

I looked at the words and suddenly understood. 

Owen felt guilty. 

But instead of sitting with his own guilt, he was 

pointing at Ethan. 

As long as Ethan was worse, Owen’s own neglect 

didn’t matter. 

Ava: [You’re not any better, Owen.] 

I sent it, turned off my phone, and lay in bed 

staring at the ceiling. 

The London apartment had a water stain too, 

yellow under the light. 

But this time, it didn’t bother me. 

Because I chose this one.