Seduced by My Childhood Sweetheart’s Brother

Chapter 18

We gradually stopped contacting each other after that. Sometimes, we’d go up to half a month without saying anything to each other.

He had a girl he liked by his side, after all. I didn’t want to cause any misunderstandings between them. I also didn’t want to distract their lives just because I couldn’t control my emotions. That was why I never made the first move to contact him, no matter how much I missed him.

It was hard to cut back on contacting him, but I needed to move on.

I swore I had to get over him by hook or by crook.

When it was almost time for winter break, he texted me once, asking me when I’d be going home.

I stared at the single line of text on my phone for the longest time ever. My mind was conflicted. I didn’t know if I should feel sad or happy.

I thought I’d forget him as long as I didn’t see him or think about him.

However, when his familiar profile photo popped up again on my messaging app, telling me I had unread messages from him, my mind started wandering once more. And there was no stopping it once it started.

I gripped my phone tightly and stared at our chat window for a long time. Then, I broke down in tears and sobbed like a madwoman.

much

made sense, somehow. I’d been in love with him for 18 years. It wouldn’t be that easy to forget

him. We didn’t belong together. I had my life to live, and he had his own life, too. None of us would even cross paths with each

long line of text. I said, “I don’t know when I’m going back yet. But I’m thousands of miles away from you, so it

me.”

afternoon, he posted on his social media. The first post was a photo of two plane tickets

was a photo of two intertwined hands. There was a

that said, “We’re home.”

My heart broke.

my suitcase behind me as I made my way home through the hills and

north was slightly longer than the other colleges. It was perfect because it meant I could stay at home for a longer time and eat as much of my mother’s cooking as I wanted every day. This was all I ever dreamed of when

home a few days earlier than me. After he learned that I was also home, he would come over and knock at my house

because he felt sorry for me or if he was just trying to reconcile with me. Or, maybe it was just regular interaction between two same–aged people, and I was simply reading too much into

it was, what was in the past should stay in

do about it anyway.

was to Lilac’s,

icicles hanging off the edges of the roof, the crazy locals who opened up holes in the ice

the time, Felix would listen to me and smile faintly. At times, he would teasingly call me a pig for eating that much. Other times, he would tell me

alone.