Her Second Chance, My New Life

Four years of long-distance. I flew a thousand miles for our concert date.

But she gave my ticket to her friend from school, and I watched them walk in, holding hands.

They framed me as a scalper. I was beaten by the crowd. She just stood there, watching coldly, even backing their story.

Afterward, her call was breezy and dismissive. "You're such a good guy, you won't blame me, right? Now be good, fly down to my city, and we'll get married."

I laughed.

Then I turned around, bought a ticket home, and blocked her on everything.

Years later, she returned—a world-famous scientist—and stood before me, demanding I take her back as if it were her right.

I just introduced her to my wife standing beside me and the son in my arms. "I'm sorry," I said. "Have we met?"

1

The tickets were gone.

After a four-year, long-distance relationship, my girlfriend Ava had suggested we finally meet in the middle, at a reunion concert for The Wanderers. I’d flown a thousand miles to a city I didn’t know, and when I got to the will-call window, the attendant gave me a pitying look. “Sorry, sir. These tickets have already been picked up.”

I figured Ava must have grabbed them. But when I called her, it went straight to voicemail. Again and again. A knot of dread tightened in my stomach.

Dejected, I was drifting toward the main gate when I saw her. She was standing in the security line, her hand laced through the fingers of some handsome, clean-cut guy I’d never seen before.

Something hot and sharp flared in my chest. I walked straight up to them. “Ava?”

Before she could answer, the guy with her shot me a wounded look. His eyes were actually turning red.

“Dude,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “I paid you ten times face value for this ticket. What, you think you sold it too cheap? Today’s my one-year anniversary with my girlfriend. I’ll give you another twenty bucks, just leave us alone, man.”

I stared at Ava, waiting for her to clear this up, to laugh it off as a crazy misunderstanding. Instead, she just looked at me, her expression hardening, and backed him up. She let him slander me.

Suddenly, I was the enemy. The crowd around us, smelling blood, turned on me. “Scalper!” someone yelled. “Trying to rip the kid off on his anniversary?” another one shouted. Voices rose, people shoved, and before I knew it, a fist connected with my jaw. Someone kicked me from behind. They were all screaming about calling the cops, about parasites like me ruining everything.

The concert ended hours later. Only then did Ava finally call, her voice breezy and casual, as if nothing had happened.

“That was Ethan, a guy from my program. He just went through a really bad breakup, and The Wanderers are his all-time favorite band, so I just… let him use your ticket. You’re such a good guy, Caleb. I knew you’d understand, right?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. “Anyway, listen! I just have this one summer project left and then I’m done, I graduate. You should book a flight down to Miami, come to campus. I’ll show you around, and then… we can go home together. Go to the courthouse. What do you think?”

“Okay,” I said, my voice flat. “Sounds good.”

Then I hung up and bought a bus ticket. The destination wasn't Miami.

It was Maine.

She had no idea that I never wanted to marry her again.

“Caleb, I checked for you,” Ava’s voice had said through the phone, tinny and distant. “There’s a seat on the midnight Greyhound. You should book it now. It’s too loud to talk here with everyone leaving the stadium, I’m gonna go.” Click.

I sat in the fluorescent hum of the bus station, my phone dead in my hand. I laughed, a bitter, hollow sound that pulled at the fresh cut on my lip. After she’d let a mob of strangers beat me up, I’d stormed off to the airport, intending to leave immediately. But a sliver of foolish hope kept me there, a fantasy that there was some noble, complicated reason for her betrayal. I’d sat in that sterile waiting area all night, waiting for an explanation that would make it all make sense.

All I got was an excuse about some lovesick kid from her program. That was her reason for holding another man’s hand, for joining him in painting me as a greedy scalper?

And her suggestion… her school was in Miami. The only way to get to my hometown in Maine from there, besides a flight, was a grueling three-day bus journey. She knew I got violently motion sick. The last time I took a long bus ride to save money, I was pale and useless for a week.

The old Ava would have stayed up all night trying to find me a cheap flight. The old Ava, if she couldn't find one, would have cried, apologizing over and over for making me endure that kind of misery.

This new Ava didn’t even seem to care. Her carelessness was a shard of ice in my gut.

I didn’t hesitate anymore. I booked the next bus heading north, back to Maine. It was leaving in twenty minutes.

The bus had been on the road for a few hours, deep into the black of night, when she called again.

“Ethan and I have to go out of town for that summer project,” she said, her voice rushed. “It’ll be at least a week. When you get to Miami, just find a hotel or something. It’ll give you a chance to heal up.”

Right before she hung up, I heard his voice in the background, syrupy sweet. “Ava, I’ve got the whole road trip planned out…”

My mouth twisted into a sneer. How thoughtful of her to invent a cover story for their little vacation. How considerate of her to remember that I was, in fact, covered in bruises and bleeding because of her. While strangers were screaming at me, calling me a scumbag, threatening to have me arrested, she had just stood there, watching, her expression as cold as a winter morning. The memory of it still chilled me to the bone.

Download the MotoNovel app, Search 【 242713 】reads the whole book.