The Aurora Borealis Keeps Its Lament novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Supply Plane

I let go of his hand.

I did it so fast that he flinched, and I hated that I had seen it.

"You let me think you didn't see me," I said. "For eight years."

"Alba."

"I stood in front of you every morning and read you your numbers. I watched you look past my head. I thought, he finds me dull. I thought, I'm furniture. I cried in the bathroom at the Institute so Sabina wouldn't hear me." I was crying now, and I didn't care. "You could have said, I'm losing my sight. One sentence."

"And then what?"

"Then I would have known!"

"You would have stayed." He turned his face toward the sound of my voice. "You would have stayed forever, with a folder in your lap, until you were forty and had never done a single thing of your own. That's what I couldn't give you."

"That wasn't yours to decide."

"No."

"You decided it for me. Like the data hut. Like the engagement. You decided I'd be freed from you."

"I wanted you free."

"I wanted to be asked!"

The stove ticked in the silence.

He sat very still, with the green light from the open door lying across his shoulders.

When he spoke again, it was lower, and I understood that he had been carrying this for a long time too.

"You left without asking me one question," he said.

I stopped.

"You found a name on a list. You didn't come to my lab. You didn't ask why. You cancelled our wedding in front of both our families and signed up for the end of the earth, and I stood on the steps of that restaurant and let you go." His voice shook. "I thought, she's finally done with me. I thought, I've earned it. Do you know what that's like, to be left by the one person you can't see leaving?"

← Chapter 11 · All chapters · Chapter 13 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend