“All right then…… Sis, if you change your mind, come to the store yourself. Miles and I will be waiting inside.”
After they left, the engine went silent too.
I sat in the back seat in my heavy, soaked clothes, sticky all over, watching the two of them walk off hand in hand.
The air conditioning faded fast. The 104-degree heat and the damp weather turned the car more and more stifling, and before long I was drenched through again.
I tried the door, only to find they'd locked me in.
After a moment, I texted Miles.
“When are you two coming back?”
Ten minutes. No reply.
I sent another. Still nothing.
Half an hour later, I chose to call the police.
When the officer smashed the window, Miles came walking out under an umbrella with Julia.
I was soaked in sweat, my body limp as I climbed out of the car, and a female officer steadied me, her eyes full of worry.
“Gabriella, have you lost your mind?” Before I could even find my footing, Miles's cold voice came from behind me.
“Sis, if you wanted to go shopping too, you could've just texted Miles. Why smash his car? The Research Institute assigned him that car……”
It took me a long while to clear my eyes. I lifted my head and looked at Miles, who stood off to the side with Julia held tight against him.
Then, all at once, I laughed. “So I never texted?”
Miles's face stiffened, and his hand tightened around his phone without thinking.
He'd seen it. He just hadn't wanted to answer.
The female officer couldn't stand it either. Her brow knit tight. “In heat like this, being locked in an airtight car can kill a person!”
“As her family, do you really not know something this basic?”
Julia's expression changed, and she glanced at Miles without meaning to.
Sure enough, a rare trace of guilt showed in Miles's eyes.
He took a few steps toward me on instinct, reaching to wipe the sweat from my temple, but I dodged him.
“Gabby, I didn't see the messages in time……”
I didn't answer. I only thanked the officers quietly, then got into the patrol car.
By the time I came back from the station, it was already eight at night. The apartment was still pitch dark.
Miles had probably gone back to the Research Institute again.
In the ten years I'd been with him, apart from the occasional visit home to see my parents, he spent nearly all his time in the lab.
After my shower, I was about to toss my wet clothes into the washing machine when I found a pair of black lace panties.
Not mine.
My skin was sensitive. I hadn't been able to wear anything but pure cotton for years.
And just then, a familiar voice came from outside the bathroom.
“Miles, I think I left my panties here last time. Have you seen them?”
“If you left them, you left them. I'll buy you new ones……”
“You're awful! You're not planning to keep them for yourself, are you?”
“Am I that much of a pervert?”
“You were way more of one in bed before……”
I gripped the clothes in my hands hard, my eyes locked on the bathroom door.
My heart felt like it had been smashed apart by an iron hammer, the pain so sharp I could barely breathe.
“Cough, stop it. We broke up a long time ago. Gabriella is my wife now.”
Miles's words sent a sudden flare of hope through me.
Did he, maybe, still care about me?
But Julia's tone dropped cold. “Didn't you get close to Gabriella just to win me back?”
“Professor Henson, don't tell me you've actually fallen for her?”
My face went white, and in an instant I remembered the day Miles confessed to me.
Miles and I went to the same university. I majored in English, while he was the campus's famous prodigy in biology.
