Tenant’s Secret Love

Chapter 49: Brittany's appointment

Back in the old house where Renee and I had countless arguments, I was lying on the sofa, chewing on a chewable tablet to relieve the pain, when Renee poured me another glass of water and sat down opposite me.

She asked me, “Are you feeling better?”

“I'll be fine after a little rest,”

Renee nodded and said, ‘Then when you're feeling better, I'll take you back.”

I sat up with the pain, ’Where am I going back to?”

“Aren't you staying with your friend for now? I'll take you back there.”

I replied angrily, “Can't you show a little humanitarianism? I'm a patient!”

Renee said calmly, ”This is my house, not a hospital. Why do I have to keep you as a patient? Or if you feel that your health is poor, I can take you to the hospital.”

I lay back down on the sofa, in a posture of not wanting to deal with her, and the two sides fell into a cold war because of their disagreement.

After a short while, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I rolled over, took it out and looked at it. It was an unfamiliar number, with a Shanghai area code. I answered it in confusion: “Hello, who's this?”

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line before someone said, ‘It's me, Brittany.”

My mind suddenly went blank, and I couldn't even feel the pain in my stomach. After a long while, I responded mechanically, ’What's up?”

“Come out and sit down. I'll wait for you at the usual place.”

I didn't react, and Brittany hung up the phone. She was just like she used to be, and she wouldn't give me any chance to refuse, so I didn't refuse when I broke up with her, and I didn't ask for a reason.

The phone had been off the hook for a long time, and my heart was still pounding, but one thing was for sure: if she invited me, I would definitely go on the date, and at the very least, we were still just friends.

I finally put the phone in my pocket and said to Renee, “I'm going out to meet a friend.

“Hurry up and go, and don't bother leaving the door open. Let's see what other things of yours are in the house and take them with you.”

At this point, I had no intention of arguing with Renee. I looked at her again, then walked towards the door. My stomach still ached, but perhaps the pain in my heart was even more unbearable.

...

I stood outside the community waiting for a taxi, but I wondered where the place Brittany had mentioned was. Was it the CC Music Restaurant? Or was it by the moat? I wasn't sure. This also shows that we have too many memories of Suzhou, too many places we have lingered, and each place is an unforgettable part of the past.

In the end, I chose to go to the moat. Once, that was where we would go for a walk every evening. We laughed and joked here, and the scenery was picturesque.

After a quarter of an hour, I arrived at the moat, the section of the path we used to walk the most. I sat down on the grass and lit a cigarette as I felt a stomachache. My heart was pounding with anxiety. I didn't know why Brittany had suddenly asked me out, and I didn't know how I should feel when I saw her, or what I should say to her when we met... Look, look, this is how time passes, and all the intimacy we once shared has turned into ignorance now!

Half an hour had passed and Brittany had not yet arrived. In the cold autumn wind, I finally realized that I had come to the wrong place. Perhaps Brittany was waiting for me at CC's Music Restaurant.

I immediately took out my phone and dialed, but Brittany's phone was busy. As soon as I hung up, Brittany's phone rang again. Maybe we had both dialed the other person's number at the same time.

When I got through to her, Brittany told me she was at the CC restaurant. I told her I was by the moat, and I said I would go find her, and she said she would come to me. Naturally, I obeyed her, and the call ended, and a new wait began.

I felt a little lost. I had not been able to choose the old place in Brittany's heart. Our hearts had long since no longer matched, so a breakup was inevitable.

...

The autumn wind covered the night, and neon lights illuminated everything around me. I lit another cigarette by the seemingly nice moat, and watched the smoke fill the air before it dispersed.

Twenty minutes later, I saw the Cadillac CTS parked on the shore. This top-of-the-line CTS was a graduation gift from Brittany's father three years ago, and it was this car that tore us away from our simple campus romance. I still remember it vividly: the day Brittany took me for a drive in her new car, I put on a forced smile, as if I had a painful premonition of the end of Brittany and me in that moment. In fact, I did predict it.

Brittany opened the car door and got out of the car. She was dressed very casually in a short leather jacket and loose-fitting off-white slacks. Her hair was simply tied back, and she looked very different from the last time I saw her at the bar, when she was dressed in luxury brands and I didn't dare look directly at her.

I couldn't greet her with my eyes, so I looked away and instead heavily inhaled the cigarette in my hand. Just one drag and half the cigarette was turned into an ashtray.

Brittany's familiar feminine fragrance drifted into my nostrils, and I finally looked up at her and said stiffly, “What do you want to see me for?”

Brittany sat down next to me and said, ‘Do I need a reason to see you?”

I tried to relax a little and asked with a smile, ’Didn't you go to Nanjing with Robert? Why are you back so soon?”

“I have my own arrangements.”

“That's right, you have your own arrangements,” I said along with Brittany, but I didn't know what else to say to her, so I lit another cigarette and looked at the river surface, which was being blown by the wind. Confusion and anxiety alternated in taking possession of my emotions.

Brittany took the cigarette out of my fingers and looked at me and said, ”Don't smoke in front of a lady, you should be a gentleman.”

My mouth twitched. Brittany actually asked me to be a gentleman. Time really does change people. In the past, she liked to hang out with me, have fun together, and even smoke the cigarette I was smoking. At that moment, I realized: she really has gone too far out of my world, while I have not learned to keep up with the times, just standing stupidly in the same place looking around, which is why I so rudely smoked in front of her.

After a long silence, I finally said to her, “Tell me, what is it that you wanted to do with me? You and I shouldn't just sit here in the cold wind.”

Although I said this, I was willing to sit here with her all night, and then look at her, carefully watching her appearance three years later, so that she would know how much I like her sparkling eyes, her slightly upturned corners of her mouth, her smiling face like a blooming flower, her expressionless face, the womanly scent of her body, her seemingly scolding but caring love, her whispering in my arms, and the heavy breathing as we cuddled together after making love...

I like everything about her, everything about being with her, but now she is like a kite that I have let go, grasping only the torn string, helpless as she flies far to the north, drowning in the setting sun, and finally just a memory in my mind.

What a loss, what a feeling of melancholy, what a reluctance to let go!