CHAPTER THREE: HE LOOKED BACK
1096 Words
The headlights stopped so suddenly that Nina pressed the brake, and the small bike jerked under us.
I held her waist tighter, my heart jumping because for one terrible second, I thought Jade had found me. My eyes went straight to the black car parked a few steps away, so polished it reflected the streetlight like glass. The back door opened, and a man stepped out.
I forgot the pain in my body for a moment.
He was tall, dressed in a dark suit like he had just walked out of some meeting that cost more than my old apartment. His shoulders were broad, his face sharp, and even from where I sat, there was something about the way he moved that made everyone around him look smaller. Two men stepped out after him, but nobody spoke to him first.
I turned to Nina quietly. “Who is that?”
Nina followed my eyes and lowered her voice immediately, like even saying his name too loud was a mistake. “That’s Ethan Cole. He owns Cole Group. Biggest company around here. People say he just came back from the States this week.”
I looked at him again.
He was already walking toward the building entrance, but halfway there, he stopped.
Then he turned.
His eyes met mine.
I don’t know why my breath caught. Maybe because I looked like a mess, standing in borrowed slippers with a hospital band still on my wrist. Maybe because he didn’t look away like most people would. He just stood there, one hand in his pocket, staring like he was trying to remember where he had seen me before.
Nina nudged me. “Come. Don’t stand here.”
I looked away first.
But as we walked into her apartment building, I could still feel it.
That man was still watching.
Nina’s apartment was small.
One bedroom, one tiny sitting room, and a kitchen that looked like two people could barely stand inside together. But when she pushed the door open and turned on the light, it felt warmer than anywhere I had been all day.
She handed me a towel and pointed toward the bathroom. “You should wash up first. You still look pale.”
I wanted to say I was fine, but when I looked at myself in the mirror inside the bathroom, I stopped.
My eyes were swollen. My hair was scattered. My dress still had faint blood at the edge.
I sat on the closed toilet seat for a moment, staring at myself. Then I laughed.
It sounded terrible.
When I came out, Nina had already placed a bowl of noodles on the table. Steam rose from it. My stomach turned immediately, but I sat because she was watching me.
“You don’t have to force yourself,” she said.
“I’m okay.”
“You’ve said that three times, and none of them looked true.”
That made me smile a little. My first real smile that day.
She sat opposite me and folded her arms. “So… are you running from someone?”
My hand froze around the spoon.
She noticed. “Sorry. You don’t have to answer.”
I looked down at the food. “My husband cheated on me. With my cousin.”
Silence filled the room.
Nina blinked. “Your cousin?”
I nodded. The words felt strange in my mouth, like they belonged to someone else. “They asked me to sign divorce papers. Today.”
Her face changed. “That’s why you were at the hospital?”
I looked away. “Yes.”
She didn’t ask anything else. She just pushed the bowl a little closer.
“Eat first.”
And for some reason, that kindness almost made me cry.
It was almost midnight when we finished talking.
I told her some things. Not everything. I didn’t mention the baby. I didn’t even know what to call it anymore. Hope? Loss? Something in between?
Nina spread a mattress for me in the sitting room and brought an old blanket.
“You can stay here for now,” she said. “Until you figure things out.”
I shook my head immediately. “No. I won’t stay for free.”
She frowned. “I didn’t ask for money.”
“I know. But I have some.” I reached for the envelope Serena gave me and placed it on the table. “If there’s a small apartment nearby, we can share. I’ll pay my part. I just need a little time.”
Nina looked at the envelope, then at me.
“You just left your husband today and you’re already planning rent?”
I swallowed. “If I stop moving, I’ll think too much.”
She stared at me for a few seconds, then nodded slowly.
“Okay. We’ll check tomorrow.”
I exhaled for what felt like the first time all day.
Then my eyes landed on the paper beside her TV stand.
A newspaper.
The front page had Ethan’s photo on it.
The same man from outside.
The headline was large enough to catch my eye.
COLE GROUP RECRUITING NEW ANALYSTS AS CEO RETURNS.
I picked it up.
Nina noticed and smiled. “You’re interested?”
I read the smaller text. Financial modeling. Data analysis. Mathematics.
My chest tightened.
I looked up. “They’re hiring tomorrow?”
She nodded. “Interview starts at eight. Big crowd, though. Everybody wants to work there.”
I kept reading.
For the first time that day, something inside me moved that wasn’t pain.
Maybe it was anger.
Maybe survival.
I folded the paper and looked at her. “Can I borrow one of your shirts tomorrow?”
I couldn’t sleep.
The mattress was soft enough, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw Jade. Then Serena. Then blood.
So I sat by the window instead.
The apartment faced the next street, and from there, I could see the top floors of the building Ethan had entered earlier. Most windows were dark.
One wasn’t.
So I rested my head against the window frame, but sleep still refused to come. My fingers stayed on the newspaper, reading Ethan’s company name again, and for the first time since leaving that house, tomorrow felt like something I could hold onto. I closed my eyes and told myself I would walk into that company in the morning and start over. Then my phone lit up in the dark, and when I saw the name on the screen, my hand shook.
Jade was calling by 2am..
- Writer
