After Eight Years, They Threw Me Away

Chapter 34: She Found Me

Olivia waited outside Liang Tea Ware.

I did not tell her the address.

Ryan swore he did not either.

I believed him.

Regret made people resourceful.

She must have followed pieces. Old contacts. Business registrations. Social media posts from clients. A delivery tag in a photo. Something small enough to miss, large enough for someone desperate to follow.

I saw her before she saw me.

She stood across the street under the shade of a plane tree, wearing a light gray dress that looked too thin for the wind. Her hair was tied back, but strands had escaped around her face. She had lost weight.

Not the graceful kind.

The kind that came from sleepless nights and fear eating before you did.

For a moment, I did not move.

Liang stood beside me, holding a box of gift sets.

"Trouble?" he asked.

"Old trouble."

He followed my eyes.

"Ex-wife?"

I looked at him.

"You guessed fast."

"Only ex-wives look at men like that. Current wives shout from closer."

I almost smiled.

Across the street, Olivia turned.

She saw me.

Her whole body went still.

Then she crossed the road too quickly, ignoring a scooter that honked at her.

"Ethan."

Her voice broke on my name.

Liang silently took the box from my hands.

"I'll be inside."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Just don't let drama block customers."

He went in.

Olivia stopped two steps away.

For a second, neither of us spoke.

The last time we stood this close, I had been dragging a suitcase away from our apartment while Adrian waited downstairs.

Now she was the one with empty hands.

"You look..." she began.

"Busy."

She swallowed.

"I was going to say different."

"That too."

Her eyes moved over my shirt, the rolled sleeves, the tape mark on my wrist from packing boxes, the phone in my hand with client messages still arriving.

She looked confused.

As if the man in front of her refused to match the version she had kept in her guilt.

"I went to your parents," she said.

"I know."

"Your mother hates me."

"No," I said. "She remembers."

Olivia flinched.

Her eyes filled almost immediately.

Once, her tears could move me before words did.

Now I noticed them the way I noticed rain clouds.

Weather.

Real, but not always mine to fix.

"Adrian lied to me," she said.

"I know."

"He took everything."

I said nothing.

"The car money. The savings. The loan. The apartment..." Her voice failed. "I may lose the apartment."

The apartment.

Not our apartment anymore.

Hers.

The one she had taken in the agreement Adrian helped her prepare.

"Did you report it?"

"Yes."

"Good."

She stared at me.

"Good?"

"What else should I say?"

"I don't know." She wiped her face quickly. "I thought... I thought you would be angry."

"I was angry before this."

"Are you not angry now?"

"I am tired."

That seemed to hurt her more.

Anger still tied people together.

Tired cut the rope.

She took a step closer.

"Ethan, I know I have no right to ask you for anything."

I waited.

People often said that right before asking.

"But I need to say it. I was wrong. About you. About Adrian. About everything. I thought he was giving me a better life, but he was just taking what you built."

"What we built," I said quietly.

Her eyes lit with fragile hope.

I finished, "And what you chose to hand over."

The hope died.

"I know."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"Then why are you here?"

Her hands twisted together.

"Because I miss you."

I looked at her.

The street noise grew louder around us. Scooters, vendors, customers entering Liang's shop. Ordinary life pressing against a sentence that once might have changed everything.

"No," I said.

She froze.

"You miss being safe."

Tears spilled down her face.

"That's not true."

"It is."

"Ethan, I loved you."

"Maybe."

"I still do."

"No."

The second no came easier.

She stepped back as if I had slapped her.

I did not feel proud.

I did not feel cruel.

I felt clear.

"Olivia," I said, "when I lost my job, you did not ask if I was hurt. When I said I was framed, you asked who would hire me. When Adrian came into our home, you defended him. When you wanted divorce, you took everything and told me a real man should not fight a woman over property."

Her mouth trembled.

"I was scared."

"So was I."

She had no answer.

"I was scared every day," I continued. "But I did not betray you. I did not humiliate you. I did not replace you in our living room."

She covered her face with both hands.

"Please stop."

"You came here."

Her hands dropped.

The truth of that landed.

She had come to the man she had discarded and asked him to become gentle with the wound.

"What do you want me to do?" she whispered.

"Go home."

"I don't have one."

The sentence hit me.

It was honest.

Too late, but honest.

For a moment, I saw the apartment again. The light on the seventeenth floor. Olivia standing in the doorway with the divorce agreement behind her.

I breathed through the memory.

"Then build one," I said.

She stared at me.

"Without you?"

"Yes."

Behind me, the shop door opened.

Nora stepped out carrying a folder.

She stopped when she saw Olivia.

Olivia saw her too.

Something changed in her face.

Pain, jealousy, recognition.

She knew.

Before anyone spoke, she knew Nora was not just a coworker standing nearby.

Nora looked at me first.

Not possessive.

Not afraid.

Asking silently whether I needed space.

I shook my head once.

Olivia saw that too.

Her voice broke.

"Who is she?"

I looked at Nora.

Then back at Olivia.

"Someone who was there when I had nothing."

Olivia's face went white.

The answer was not cruel.

That was why it hurt.