I Heard His Thoughts Never His Love Chapter 13
I never told my parents I had returned.
My whereabouts had never mattered much to them anyway.
Later, I stayed at the university and became a lecturer.
Theo entered the film industry as a screenwriter.
He didn’t abandon his plans because of our relationship.
And I didn’t change the direction of my life to accommodate him.
We moved forward separately.
But always side by side.
Sometimes I took on screenplay projects too.
We occasionally argued until both our faces were red over a plot point, then stayed up all night revising it together.
Theo never dismissed my work.
If he loved something, he praised it sincerely.
If he thought something was wrong, he said so clearly.
But even when we disagreed, he never tried to win by tearing me down as a person.
“This character’s motivation still needs a little work.”
“It’s not that you wrote it badly. It can just be even better.”
“Want to try another version together?”
Only after being with him did I realize that arguments weren’t frightening.
What was frightening was someone using the sharpest words imaginable to wound you, then expecting you to find love hidden inside their silence.
My parents eventually learned I was back and came to the university.
I hadn’t seen them in years.
They looked much older.
Seeing that I was doing well, my father made a rare attempt to praise me.
“I heard you stayed on at the university and worked on several major projects.”
“You’ve done… pretty well.”
After that, awkward silence filled the space between us.
Years of distance stood there.
They didn’t know how to speak gently.
And I no longer expected them to.
I calmly asked,
“Why don’t you go see Serena? You used to adore her.”
My mother’s expression changed.
Eventually, she sighed.
“Your cousin wasn’t as accomplished as we thought.”
Only then did I learn that most of Serena’s glittering résumé had been manufactured.
Several of her prestigious certificates were fake.
Her claim that an internationally renowned professor had invited her home was nothing more than a story she had created to impress people.
She had spent years overseas without ever earning the degree she claimed to have.
She came home only after running out of options.
Once back, she saw the Grey family’s wealth and used her childhood connection to Silas to get close to him.
Her plan had been to turn the fake engagement into a real one and marry into the Grey family.
She hadn’t expected Silas to expose the entire arrangement at the party.
After the engagement collapsed, people started investigating her résumé.
The research institute fired her.
No one in the field wanted to hire her again.
Then she told the family she wanted to start a business and convinced relatives to pool together a large amount of money.
Not long afterward, she disappeared with it.
The Bennett family was left buried in debt.
My parents, who once bragged to everyone about their “genius niece,” became the family joke.
“You raised her all those years and ended up raising a con artist.”
“They ignored their own daughter and treated the sister’s daughter like a treasure.”
They heard comments like that constantly.
Their lives had become much harder.
My father looked at me, hesitating.
“Nora, we were admittedly a little strict with you before.”
“But we only wanted you to succeed.”
I smiled.
Even now, he refused to admit it hadn’t been strictness.
It had been cruelty.
“You didn’t come here to apologize.”
“You only remembered you had a daughter because Serena turned out to be unreliable.”
Their faces stiffened.
My mother reached for me.
“We’re family. Families don’t hold grudges forever.”
I stepped back and avoided her hand.
“When I needed you as a child, you chose Serena.”
“I don’t need you anymore.”
“If your lives go well, I won’t interfere.”
“If they don’t, don’t come looking for me either.”
“Let’s leave things this way.”
I didn’t take revenge on them.
I didn’t pay their debts either.
Their lives simply became a little worse than before.
They endured relatives mocking them.
They lived with the betrayal of the person they had raised above everyone else.
And for the rest of their lives, they would have plenty of time to regret the choices they had made.
That was enough.