I Lost The Game But Won In The End Chapter 10
We booked our tickets for two weeks later.
The night before I left, I still received a message from Ethan.
I heard you’re going to London. What time is your flight?
I didn’t reply.
The day I went to the airport, both my parents came to see me off. Biscuit came too.
My father held his leash, but Biscuit kept lunging toward my legs the whole way.
I crouched and hugged him.
“Be good at home. Listen to Grandma and Grandpa.”
As if he understood, Biscuit whimpered and burrowed into my arms.
Sloane urged me from the side.
“It’s not like you’re never coming back. Stop being so dramatic!”
My mother’s eyes reddened.
“Call me when you get there.”
“Your stomach is sensitive. Don’t drink with Sloane every day.”
Sloane immediately protested.
“Mrs. Bellamy, why am I getting called out by name?”
My mother finally smiled.
My father took my suitcase.
“All right. It’ll be good for her to get away for a while.”
No one in the family had mentioned the engagement again in the past few months.
My father had even pulled the Bellamys out of the project they had originally planned with the Sinclairs.
I knew it was his way of telling me I no longer had to worry about the Sinclair family.
While I was checking my luggage, someone suddenly called my name from behind.
“Nora.”
I didn’t have to turn around to know who it was.
Ethan had still come.
Julian was behind him.
They both looked a little awkward when they saw me.
Julian waved first.
“Little sis. I came to see you off.”
I lifted a hand and waved back, but said nothing else.
Ethan walked over.
“How long are you going for? When are you coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked down and smiled faintly.
“You used to complain if you had to be abroad for more than a week.”
I remembered when my mother once sent me to Europe for a project.
By the third day, I was whining to him over the phone.
“Ethan, I want to go home.”
He booked a flight that same night and came to join me, then stayed by my side through the remaining four days of the trip.
When we got home, he had teased me.
“Can’t survive without me?”
I had hugged him.
“Nope.”
But no one actually dies just because someone leaves.
Ethan took a small box from his pocket.
It was the engagement ring we had chosen before.
He held it out to me.
“I never returned it. Take it.”
I didn’t reach for it.
“Return it.”
His hand slowly tightened around the box.
“You used to love it. Keep it as a memento.”
“I don’t want it anymore.”
In the end, he put the box away.
The airport announcement began calling passengers to board.
Sloane came over and tugged me along.
“Come on.”
I had just turned away when Ethan suddenly spoke.
“Nora, I’ve kept thinking about it.”
“If only you hadn’t turned around that day on the yacht.”
I stopped.
He was quiet for a few seconds.
“If you hadn’t looked back, you wouldn’t have seen it. Maybe we’d already be engaged by now.”
When the game began, I truly had wanted to win.
So when Julian said Ethan was holding Zoe’s hand, I didn’t turn around.
When Julian said they were hugging, I still didn’t turn around.
And yet, in the end, I lost.
But if I had won that day—
Maybe I still wouldn’t know who Zoe really was.
I wouldn’t know Ethan had used me as her way into our circle.
I wouldn’t know my family had helped hide the truth from me for all those years.
I turned around and looked at Ethan one last time.
“I would have found out sooner or later.”
“And if I hadn’t looked back, I would have lost far more. Turning around was how I actually won.”
The boarding announcement sounded again.
I turned and walked toward security.
Julian called after me.
“Nora, have a safe trip!”
I raised a hand and waved.
I really had lost that game.
But that one glance back finally let me see the people standing behind me for who they truly were.
And once I had seen them clearly, there was no reason to ever look back again.
The End