The Direction I Failed to Run Toward at Eighteen Chapter 2

The air in the room turned to ice.

Penelope couldn’t hide the delighted surprise in her eyes. She lowered her head, feigning shyness. “Oh, Alistair… you shouldn’t have…”

Alistair fumbled to end the call, his eyes darting toward me. He expected me to scream, to fly into a rage, to interrogate him with the same hysterical fury I apparently had before. After all, the diary detailed how the twenty-eight-year-old Lydia had turned herself into a haggard shrew over trivial matters like this.

But he was about to be disappointed.

To my eighteen-year-old self, this scene wasn’t infuriating. It was comical.

I simply sat there, even picking up my chopsticks to eat a piece of braised pork.

“How lovely,” I commented coolly.

“‘Beloved Penelope.’ It has a nice ring to it. After all, garbage belongs with the trash.”

Alistair was stunned. He stared into my eyes, searching for a flicker of jealousy or pain.

All he found was a dead, chilling indifference.

That indifference terrified him. It was a sign that I was slipping from his control. He took a deep breath, reverting to his old tactics of manipulation.

“Lydia, are you jealous?”

“I know that ring is the style you’ve always wanted. We were poor back then, and I couldn’t afford it. You suffered so much with me…”

“Now that I have money, I want to make it up to you. But Penelope has been with me for years, without any official title. This is just a small token to comfort her.”

He grew more confident with every word, seemingly moved by his own twisted generosity.

“Come on, Lydia, stop this. Tonight is our wedding anniversary. I have a surprise for you.”

“As long as you behave, accept Penelope, we can all be a happy family again, just like before.”

I put down my chopsticks and looked at this insufferably arrogant man.

And I laughed.

I laughed so hard tears started to form in my eyes.

“Alistair, are you an idiot?”

I grabbed the journal and, in one swift motion, hurled it at his face. It hit him with a sharp, satisfying crack.

He staggered back, stunned, a red mark blooming on his forehead.

“Who told you I was in love with you when I was eighteen?”

I stood up, looking down on him as if he were an insect. “When I was eighteen, I was the diamond of the city’s high society. The line of men trying to date me could have circled the city three times over.”

“And you? You were just a scholarship kid in a washed-out shirt, too poor to even afford meat in the university cafeteria.”

The color drained from Alistair’s face. That was the past he fought so desperately to forget.

“The only reason I ever gave you a second glance was because you reminded me of a pathetic stray dog my family once took in.”

“Loving you was something that foolish future version of Lydia did.”

“As for me, right now, all I want is for you to…”

“Get out of my house with nothing but the clothes on your back.”