Vows Beneath The Moon Clown Chapter 09
Lucia Bennett once asked me, “Do you still hate him?”
I thought for a long time.
“No.”
Hating someone also takes strength.
And I wanted to keep my strength for myself.
I began learning how to live again.
On weekends, I went to the hospital with my father for checkups.
Sometimes I helped my brother revise his thesis.
After my salary increased, I bought myself a comfortable bed.
For five years, I had slept in the study on a narrow, hard bed.
Back then, I always thought that as long as Adrian was willing to get better, it didn’t matter if I suffered a little.
Now I knew.
Suffering does not earn love.
It only teaches the other person to take your pain for granted.
One day, a new project came to the company.
The product manager from the partner company was Ethan Crane.
At our first meeting, he argued with me for half an hour over flaws in the plan.
He spoke directly, his eyes bright, without the slightest evasiveness.
When the project ended, he invited me to dinner.
At the table, he suddenly asked, “Were you badly hurt in a relationship?”
I froze.
He put a piece of meat into my bowl.
“It’s fine. I won’t ask. If you’re ever uncomfortable, just say it directly. I don’t have many virtues, but I don’t lie.”
I smiled.
It was the first genuine smile I had felt in a very long time.
We were not dramatic.
We simply ate together, took walks together, and argued in convenience stores over which laundry powder to buy.
Before he held my hand, he always looked at me first.
Only after I nodded would he take it.
Once I asked him, “Don’t you think this is troublesome?”
He said, “Respect isn’t trouble.”
In that moment, I finally let go.
Someone who truly loves you will never use a wound as an excuse to deceive you.
Nor will they treat your consideration as a weakness they can trample again and again.