Seven years after my divorce from Hallie Walker, I ran into her by chance at a flower shop.
She was buying flowers to celebrate her husband’s promotion, while I had stepped inside to avoid the rain.
After a brief, awkward moment, we exchanged greetings.
Hallie asked kindly how I had been over the years. I answered respectfully that everything was fine.
As we were about to part, she suddenly said, “Byron Stewart, you seem a bit different from before.”
I smiled but stayed quiet. In truth, nothing had changed. I just… didn’t love her anymore.
——
A cold wind blew through the crack in the door.
My right leg, the one that had been hurt before, began to ache faintly.
I rubbed it gently and said nothing.
The only sound around was the rain tapping against the window. The silence broke when the shopkeeper brought out a bunch of irises.
“Mrs. Walker, you and your husband have such a good marriage.”
“Even on a rainy day, you still remember to buy him flowers.”
Taking the flowers, Hallie glanced at me without thinking.
She gave her usual kind of reply. “Harrison Robinson has been under a lot of pressure at work lately; seeing these flowers will make him feel better…”
With a nod, I gave a few polite compliments.
As the rain slowly stopped, I took my bag and got ready to go. When I reached the door, Hallie suddenly caught my hand.
“Where do you live? Let me walk you home.”
“There’s no need.”
I stepped back a few paces, keeping some distance from Hallie.
Calmly, I said, “I’m afraid your husband might take it the wrong way.”
As she turned around to leave, Hallie seemed to say something.
The wind was too loud and I didn’t catch it. Only the breakfast in my hand was soaked through by the rain.
What a waste.
I tossed the ruined food into the trash can.
The wind lifted my sleeve, showing the scars left from the past. I stopped, remembering something.
It had been seven years since my divorce from Hallie. And three years since I had truly let her go.
There was no sadness I imagined, none of the wild emotion I felt right after the divorce.
I was calm now, like looking at someone I no longer knew.
The rain had ended and the sky was clear.
Pulling down my sleeve, I walked unsteadily toward the steamed bun shop.
Cooper, who was helping out inside, greeted me with a bright smile.
“Byron, you’re here! I found a box while cleaning up.”
“See if you still want it. If not, I’ll toss it out. That way, I’ll have room for the dough press.”
I wiped the dust off the box. Right away, my eyes landed on Hallie’s neat, flowing handwriting. [A gift from Byron.]
Curious, Cooper leaned closer.
He jokingly asked, “Oh, which woman gave you this present?”
“The wrapping looks so fancy, it’s clear she spent time on it.”
He eagerly checked the signature at the bottom.
As soon as he saw the graceful handwriting, he froze. His voice shook a little. “Hallie Walker?”
“You mean that famous genius beauty with a PhD?”
“That stunning astrophysicist PhD who got featured in an international journal for discovering an asteroid?!”
Cooper’s look toward me instantly turned full of surprise. “Byron, who are you really?”
Opening the box, I said quietly, “I was Hallie’s ex-husband.”
The unstable, unpredictable man. He had once stayed in a mental hospital because of his delusions.
The ex-husband she saw as a lasting shame.
Under Cooper’s constant questions, I sat down and told him my story with Hallie.
