I don’t know what happened afterward. After that day, I would run into Rod every few days. He seemed different from before- his eyes colder, his gaze more detached when looking at people. Whenever we met, he would always look at me with casual indifference.
Despite thinking I had rejected him firmly enough, he deliberately cornered me when no one was around, showed me his phone, and pointed at someone on the screen. “Is this your boyfriend? Earl, right? Have you considered my offer? If you’re not willing, I’ll have to talk to him myself.”
I couldn’t take it anymore: “You’ve misunderstood. He’s not my boyfriend. We’ve only met a few times and barely know each other. What are you trying to do? Do you have to make this so ugly? There are things I didn’t want to say before, but the truth is, you never really cared about me, did you? Being with me, treating me specially–it was only because I resembled your first love. When she was coming back, you gave me a car and an apartment just to make me back off so I wouldn’t cling to you, right? And now you’re pulling this stunt. Honestly, it’s annoying and pointless.”
Rod froze, as if he couldn’t quite understand: “What do you mean?”
After a long moment, he cursed under his breath, then spoke again, his voice a bit hoarse: “I never thought you two looked
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alike. Who spread that nonsense? I’ll make them explain themselves. I gave you those gifts simply because I wanted to, with no ulterior motive. I never intended to break up with you. All of this can be explained.”
My throat felt a bit dry: “So what?”
Even if—even if I had misunderstood these things. But his cautious manner when taking Afra’s call, and the knowing looks among his friends–were those all fake too? Regardless of what he thinks now, when we were still dating, he genuinely couldn’t forget his first love.
Thinking this way, I wanted even less to be around Rod. I asked him: “Do you know what you are to me now?”
His eyes brightened slightly: “What?”
I smiled faintly: “After I shower, I never put dirty clothes back on. How are you any different from dirty clothes I’ve already discarded?”
He stepped back abruptly, his face pale, looking at me in disbelief.
His friends came over, saw the scene, and instinctively tried to persuade me one after another. “Rod has been thinking about you all this time. He’s been suffering these days. You two were so good together before–can’t you two give it another shot?”
“Can’t we talk this through properly?”
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I said: “No, it’s impossible.”
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As the words left my mouth, I suddenly remembered how not long ago, they had spoken about Afra in the same way. They said Rod and Afra were a perfect match, meant for each other. How quickly their story had changed.
Edward instinctively tried to smooth things over: “Come on, why don’t I book a private room later, and we can all have some spaghetti together and clear up what happened before? When we previously mentioned in front of you“…a lot of nonsense – that was all just our wild speculation. Don’t take it seriously.”
I shook my head. “I have something to attend to, so I won’t be joining you.”
Edward tried to persuade me further. “Come on, it’s been a while since we last met. Why don’t you remove my number from your blacklist? I still have…”
Halfway through his sentence, Rod suddenly spoke up. “Let it go.”
Edward seemed reluctant. “It’s such a rare chance to see her.”
“I said,” Rod looked at me and repeated each word deliberately, “let it go. Let her leave.”
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