I hung up on Emily and looked at my phone again. The conversation thread was still stuck on the message I had sent him.
He didn't send me a single message.
In the last 72 hours, I had sent over a hundred messages, made more than twenty voice calls.
I had also called him twenty or so times.
He didn't answer his calls, didn't reply to any messages?
When I called too frantically, he blocked me.
I was anxious and on edge, constantly worrying about him, while he was just taking care of his childhood friend.
Sixty-two hours...
He could reply to just one message in seconds, to let me know he was safe. But in the time it took for his little childhood sweetheart to come back, he couldn't spare me those few seconds.
My heart felt empty, as if the person who used to mean everything to me had suddenly disappeared.
When I got home, I entered the access code twice, but it showed as incorrect.
When I called the property management to report it, the door opened from the inside.
A woman wrapped in a bathrobe with wavy, curled hair opened the door.
I knew who she was—Yvonne.
I had seen her photo before, and honestly, she wasn't as pretty as her pictures.
"Gabrielle?" Yvonne asked, seeing me with my suitcase, looking worn out from my journey.
She seemed surprised and said, "Jared told me you weren't coming back until the day after tomorrow."
"Oh, sorry, when I was with Jared, the access code was my birthday."
In the kitchen, the exhaust fan was humming as Jared was busy making soup, wearing a little bunny apron.
When he saw me, his expression seemed to darken.
He wiped his hands and walked toward me.
"Sweetheart… Gabrielle, you're back?"
"Why didn't you tell me you were coming back early?" His tone carried a hint of reproach.
My heart chilled. Was he blaming me for returning early and disturbing his time with Yvonne?
I took out my phone and held it up in front of him.
"Jared, I've called you twenty-four times, sent a hundred and nine messages, and called you twenty-nine times."
"You blocked me?"
"Is it my fault that I didn't inform you in advance?"
Perhaps my tone was too harsh, because Jared's expression also turned unpleasant, awkward even.
He seemed like he wanted to explain, but what came out instead was: "Gabrielle, I didn't pick up because I had something going on. Why did you keep calling me when you didn't even know if anything was wrong?"
In that instant, my anger flared up.
I've been on edge for days, restless and anxious, but now all of that has turned into a burst of anger, like a fuse being lit.
It was a sharp, intense, and bitter feeling.
From the side, Yvonne chimed in, "Jared, you should talk to your wife properly, don't argue over me."
I glared at Yvonne.
What did this have to do with her?
Jared grabbed my suitcase and said, "You're back, so you're back. It's not a big deal."
Those words made me feel uncomfortable.
This was the home I had lived in for two years, the home I had carefully decorated piece by piece.
And he was just going to say—"coming back is no big deal"?
Was it wrong for me to come back?
But I didn't want to argue with Jared at that moment, so I grabbed my shoes from the shoe rack to change.
Only to discover that there were several new pairs of women's shoes in the rack, ranging from a dozen to twenty pairs.
The once small shoe rack was now completely filled.
There were all kinds of styles, except for my shoes.
"Gabrielle, I'm sorry, I have a lot of shoes, so I ended up taking up more space in the rack."
"Didn't know you'd be back today. We were actually planning to go buy a new shoe rack."
Yvonne said this while pointing to a torn bag beside her.
"I've put your shoes in this bag for now." She smiled innocently.
"If you had returned a couple of days later, Jared and I would have gotten you your own shoe rack," she added.
I took the bag and bent over to look for my slippers.
But just then, out of nowhere, a "bear" collided with my waist, sending me stumbling.
I wasn't prepared for it, and I fell awkwardly, landing hard on the floor, pain shooting through me, making my eyes tear up.
"You're a piece of shit."
The kid, holding a water gun, aimed black ink straight at my face and clothes, spraying me with it.
