The Years Between Us

9. She Didn’t Survive

I watched Ezra as realization slowly settled over him like something cold and merciless. The fragments of the past were finally beginning to connect inside his mind.

I never wanted to ruin the memory he had of his mother. But the c***k had already formed, and now I could almost see the darkness seeping through it little by little.

Ezra lowered his head. One hand came up to cover his face. For a brief second, I wanted to reach for that hand. To hold it the way I used to.

I had lived with this wound for years. But for Ezra, this was new. A fresh layer of truth he had never even imagined existed. And strangely, for the first time in a very long while, I no longer felt entirely alone carrying the bitterness of this secret.

Ezra’s life had turned out well. His mother had gotten what she wanted. She was even gone now.

So then... was I finally allowed to live the life I wanted too?

“Ezra...” I called softly.

He slowly lifted his face. His expression looked exhausted, clouded by too many emotions colliding at once.

“How is your father?” I asked carefully.

For a moment, Ezra looked distracted from his thoughts. Then a humorless smile tugged at the corner of his lips, somewhere between amusement and bitterness.

“Believe it or not,” he said quietly, “our relationship actually improved after my mother died.”

I stayed silent, waiting for him to continue.

“I never hated him,” he admitted after a pause. “But after spending most of my life feeling like a stranger to him... I don’t think I ever truly learned how to see him as my father either.”

I smiled faintly to myself. Relief. A selfish kind of relief I probably didn’t deserve.

“Does that mean you’re one of the directors at his company now?” I teased gently, trying to lighten the heaviness pressing between us.

A small smile appeared on Ezra’s face. “I’m just a poor photographer,” he replied casually.

I raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced.

Ezra let out a quiet sigh. “Fine,” he muttered. “I still have to go to the office. Just... not every day.”

The look of pure annoyance on his face almost made me laugh. For a moment, it felt frighteningly familiar. Like we were still the two university students who used to spend hours talking about nothing important.

Silence settled between us again.

The soft scraping of chairs. The sound of the front door opening and closing. The distant hum of traffic outside the coffee shop windows. The last customer had just left. Now only Ezra and I remained inside the nearly empty café.

“Don’t hate your mother too much,” I said quietly at last. “She was kind to me.”

Something immediately shifted in Ezra’s expression. His gaze sharpened.

“So this really was because of my mother?” he asked slowly. His voice sounded far more wounded than angry. “You left because of her?”

“She only wanted what was best for you.” Sadness weighed heavily in my voice. I swallowed before continuing with difficulty. “Maybe... if I were in her position now, I would’ve done the same thing.”

Ezra looked hurt all over again. I had already lost count of how many times his expression had broken tonight.

Years of regret over pain he had never chosen for himself now seemed too heavy for him to carry anymore. His eyes reddened. His lips trembled faintly. I could tell he was fighting with everything he had not to completely fall apart in front of me.

“And what about me, Meara?” His voice cracked. “Did you ever think about me?”

His hand clenched tightly on the table until his knuckles turned pale.

“How could something that big be decided by everyone else without ever asking what I wanted?”

For the first time that night, I truly had no defense left. No explanation that sounded noble enough. No sacrifice pure enough to erase what I had done to him.

Slowly, I reached for his trembling hand. “I’m sorry, Ezra.”

He lifted his face and looked at me with a pain so raw I could barely endure it. Then, in a voice so quiet it almost disappeared beneath the music still playing softly overhead, he repeated the same question he had asked me at the bar that night.

"How is she?" she asked in a fragile voice. "Or... he?"

My breath caught instantly. Slowly, I pulled my hand away and turned my face aside, no longer capable of looking directly into his eyes.

“She didn’t survive.”

The words came out barely louder than a whisper. Heavy with regret.

And just like that, whatever remained of Ezra’s composure shattered completely.

He bent forward and covered his face with both hands. His shoulders shook violently. Something inside my chest broke at the sight.

I pushed my chair back and walked toward him before my mind could stop me. Then I wrapped my arms around his trembling body.

Ezra didn’t resist. For several seconds, he stayed frozen in my embrace as though he no longer knew how to hold himself together. Then suddenly, his hands gripped the fabric of my coat tightly.

And he broke. The sound that escaped him was quiet. Far too quiet for that much pain.

I closed my eyes. Fifteen years. Fifteen years of grief buried beneath silence. Not just mine. His too.

I glanced toward the corner of the room and found Erick standing near the counter. His expression softened the moment our eyes met. Without saying anything, he gave me a small understanding nod before walking toward the entrance and flipping the sign on the glass door from OPEN to CLOSED.

I mouthed a silent “Thank You”.

The café became even quieter after that. Outside, rain had started falling lightly over Windele. Thin streaks of water slid down the windows while jazz music continued humming softly through the nearly empty space.

And there, beneath dim café lights and the ghost of a city that still remembered us, Ezra cried in my arms for a very long time. For all the old wounds that had never truly healed. And for the new wound I had just reopened with my own hands.

At some point, Nadine’s face crossed my mind. Her bright smile. Her excited voice while talking about her wedding dress. The way she looked at Ezra with complete trust.

Guilt twisted violently inside his chest. I felt cruel. Cruel for standing here like this. Cruel for still loving him. Cruel for feeling relieved that some part of Ezra still belonged to me after all these years.

But sometimes... when you become a mother, you also become capable of turning into the most selfish creature in the world.