When the Contract Ends in Goodbye Chapter 4

I froze.

I steadied myself and looked up at the person.

It was Julian. His fingers were tightly gripping the newspaper.

His eyes were fixed on me, as if trying to see right through my soul.

He opened his mouth, but seemed at a loss for words.

The owner of the newsstand saw us locked in a stalemate.

"Are you buying it or not?" he asked impatiently. "If not, don't block my business."

I shook my head. "I don't want it anymore."

I didn't really want such a "souvenir" anyway.

I saw Ava walking over from the distance. I grabbed my luggage, turned around, and walked away.

Julian tried to chase after me, but Ava caught his arm.

I watched him and Ava through the crowd, watching him get dragged away by her.

He ended up buying that newspaper.

In that moment, the last connection between us dissolved into smoke.

I saw him looking back at me countless times. So, he could be anxious. He could care.

But I gave you chances, Julian. One hundred times. You were the one who pushed me away with your own hands.

I arrived at the ticket gate with barely a minute to spare.

But there was a problem when I tried to board.

A conductor stopped me, saying there was a glitch in the ticketing system today and my ticket was a duplicate.

I looked at my seat. There was indeed someone sitting there.

I said I could switch to a standing ticket, but the conductor apologetically told me that standing tickets were also sold out. They could only rebook me for tomorrow.

I didn't want to make things hard for the station staff.

There was no other way now. I couldn't go back to that house.

I planned to make do for the night at a motel near the station.

But when I got to the motel, I found there were no vacancies either.

Everything today seemed to be going wrong.

Coming out of the motel, while wondering what to do, I saw Julian’s car.

In an instant, I understood exactly where all my bad luck today came from.

So that’s how it is.

I should have guessed.

The car door opened, and Marco stepped out, jogging a few steps to my side.

"Madam, the boss is looking for you."

Marco seemed very embarrassed, looking at me pleadingly.

I had no choice but to walk toward Julian's car. Seeing me approach, he immediately got out.

He looked nervous, so nervous that he was walking awkwardly without realizing it.

He was cautious, fumbling.

"Ella... did you buy a train ticket? Is something wrong? Why didn't you tell me? Didn't we agree to have dinner together tonight?"

So the arrogant Julian Costello had moments where he was this timid.

He was usually a man of his word, never cautious.

In those 100 compensations, he had said so many hurtful things.

The tenderness of the early years was long gone.

Maybe. Maybe in the very beginning, he did care about me.

When did it start to change?

Maybe when Ava came back.

Or maybe it was slowly worn away in the repeated instances of indifference.

Seven years of marriage. I forgave him again and again, waited again and again.

His sincerity now held less than ten percent credibility with me.

I opened my mouth, but still didn't know what to say to him.

Looking at him, I just felt entirely exhausted.

All my misfortunes today came from him.