Healing His Scars, Breaking My Heart

When news came that his ex-girlfriend had died in a tragic accident, my boyfriend, Ethan, relapsed into severe clinical depression. Consumed by grief, he screamed about wanting to follow her into death, standing on the edge of the rooftop ledge countless times. The ninety-ninth time I pulled him back, during our desperate struggle, I was the one who slipped and fell. He knelt beside my hospital bed, slapping himself across the face ninety-nine times until his cheeks were swollen and raw. He wept, swearing, "I will never think about her again. I'll never try to end my life again." From that day on, he cooperated with his therapists. He took care of me as if I were made of fragile glass. The moment his family doctor confirmed he was finally in full remission, I rushed home in pure excitement, eager to plan a celebration surprise for him. Yet the second I pushed the door open, I froze. Ethan was tightly holding his back-from-the-dead ex, Chloe. Chloe looked up, saw me, and wailed even louder into his chest. "Faking my death was just to get back at you! I regret it so much now... Please don't be with anyone else, okay?" Ethan stood silent for a long time. Just when I thought he was going to push her away, he gently wiped the tears from her cheeks. He whispered, "Okay." My eyes dropped to his wrist—there were fresh, raw cuts beneath his sleeve. In that instant, the brutal truth shattered me. His depression had never truly improved. And he had never let go of Chloe. My so-called three-year salvation was nothing more than a pathetic joke. I took an involuntary step back, bumping hard against the door with a loud thud. Ethan walked out in a panic, freezing when he saw me standing there. His instinct was to pull the bedroom door tightly shut behind him before asking, "Why are you home so early?" I couldn't speak. Forcing down the suffocating ache in my chest, I handed him the medical clearance report. The evaluation showed Ethan was doing exceptionally well. His gaze lingered for a second or two on the sentence: Patient has largely emerged from depressive episodes. Then, a soft smile curved his lips. He reached out and took my hand. "I'm so lucky to have had you by my side." "Without you, I never would have gotten better." His voice was laced with warmth, sounding so completely sincere. Three years ago, Chloe had thrown a tantrum after an argument with him and stormed off on a ski trip, where she supposedly died in an avalanche. Ethan blamed himself entirely, sinking into a paralyzing depression. I was the one who pulled him back from the brink time and time again, encouraging him, holding him together until the shadows receded. In front of everyone, he called me his savior. He claimed he had moved on from the past. At least, that was what I, and everyone else, had believed. I looked at Ethan’s wrist, hidden beneath his long cuff, and asked, knowing the answer full well, "It feels like I haven't seen you wear short sleeves in forever." Ethan stiffened slightly. "I just... get cold easily with the draft. Don't worry about it, Nora." As he spoke, he unconsciously tugged his sleeve tighter, as if terrified I might pull it back to look. In the past, sick with worry over his mental state, I would have immediately checked on him. Now, I merely offered a hollow smile and gave a quiet nod. He didn't want to come clean. Why should I humiliate myself by prying? Beep. Beep. Beep. My phone alarm went off. It was time for Ethan's afternoon medication. He looked at me with tense, guarded eyes, terrified I might push past him into the bedroom to get his pills—terrified I would see his resurrected ex-girlfriend sitting inside. His mind was visibly racing, scrambling for an excuse to keep me out. I simply tapped the screen and silenced the alarm. "Since you're all better now, I guess you don't need me hovering over you to take your meds anymore." Looking at him, I fought back the stinging burn behind my eyes. "I'm heading back out." Ethan visibly slumped in relief, making no effort to stop me. "Go ahead. The office can't run without you." I bit my lower lip so hard I tasted copper, keeping the sobs trapped in my throat. Just as I turned toward the entryway, Ethan suddenly called out after me. "Nora, come home early tonight." "I'll take you to that bistro you love. A little celebration." A celebration for what? Celebrating that he managed to trick his doctor on the depression assessment? Or celebrating that his dead lover was miraculously breathing again? Bitter, venomous words burned on the tip of my tongue. Yet in the end, I couldn't bring myself to spit them out. "Okay," I said quietly, walking away without looking back. I walked blocks and blocks in a daze before my legs finally gave out and I stopped. The company CEO called personally to check on why I had stepped away earlier. I couldn't bring myself to explain the mess, so I simply said, "The overseas transfer to the London branch... I accept." The CEO was surprised. "Didn't you decline because your boyfriend couldn't manage without you?" My voice sounded rough and hollow. "I flattered myself. He doesn't need me." I couldn't cure his demons, and he couldn't forget his past. In that case, it was time for me to move on. The CEO didn't pry further, gladly finalizing the paperwork and emailing me my itinerary. My flight was in three days.I buried myself in work at the office for hours. It wasn't until the floor lights began turning off automatically that I realized it was already nine in the evening. A coworker packing up nearby praised my dedication. "Ever since you started looking after your boyfriend, it's been ages since we've seen you work this late." I let out a quiet sigh. I couldn't tell her that I was intentionally drowning myself in spreadsheets just to stop the image of Ethan wiping Chloe's tears from looping in my mind. I checked my phone. A single message from Ethan popped up on Snapchat, asking why I wasn't home yet. Back when his condition was at its worst, if he woke up and didn't see me, he would spiral into a full-blown panic. Dozens of calls, non-stop texts, sometimes even showing up at my office with bloodshot eyes, shaking violently. Today, throughout an entire afternoon, he had sent only one casual text. I locked my screen, gathered my coat, and left with my colleague. When I reached the apartment, the living room light was on. Takeout containers sat on the kitchen counter, completely cold. Ethan was nowhere to be seen. I dialed his FaceTime. He answered almost instantly, his voice soft and gentle. "Why didn't you text me back?" "My dad wasn't feeling well, so I came over to his place to take care of him tonight." "I packed your dinner and left it on the counter. Make sure you eat." I said nothing, my eyes drifting over the containers. Ethan was severely allergic to eggplant. Yet the eggplant parmesan from the Italian restaurant was half-eaten. Someone had shared that dinner with him. The lighting on his end of the screen was dim. I stared at Ethan's handsome face for a long time. Just as I parted my lips to speak, a woman’s coquettish giggle drifted through the speaker. "Your hands are so cold..." It was Chloe's voice. I knew she made that sound on purpose. That was just who she was. Loud, arrogant, and recklessly entitled. That was why, years ago, the moment she found out I had a quiet crush on Ethan, she immediately confessed to him first to snatch him away. That was why, after faking her death for three years, she was still brazenly confident that Ethan would drop everything for her. And that was why she deliberately made her presence known to me, the current girlfriend. The silence between us turned suffocatingly awkward. "Nora, don't get the wrong idea," Ethan scrambled to explain, panic bleeding into his tone. "That was just... the TV in my dad's room." A sharp, stabbing pain twisted in my chest. I could clearly see the headboard behind him belonged to a luxury hotel room, not his father's house. But what was the point of calling him out? "Right." "I'm tired. I'm hanging up." Sensing the dead chill in my voice, Ethan rubbed his neck awkwardly. "Get some rest, then. When I get home tomorrow, there's something I need to talk to you about..." Was he finally going to confess? I let out a bitter, silent laugh. Opening the takeout, I tried to force down a bite. But the rice was stiff and cold, and the congealed grease made my stomach churn violently. I dry-heaved over the sink. Turning back, I threw the entire bag of ruined food straight into the trash. A sudden thought crossed my mind. I pulled out my phone and logged into a burner Instagram account I had created years ago, back when I was secretly in love with Ethan from afar. I refreshed the feed. Sure enough, a post appeared that was hidden from my primary account. Ethan had posted a photo of his hand intertwined with Chloe's. The caption read: So glad I waited for you. Posted this afternoon. Right after I had walked out the door. The comments section was an avalanche of congratulations. True love always finds a way back! Wishing you two eternal happiness! That was Ethan's best friend. The very guy who had once gotten down on his knees, begging me through tears to climb onto the ledge and pull Ethan down before he jumped. I knew it had to be Chloe. The second she came back, you're completely healed. That was Ethan's therapist. The man who had sternly told me that healing Ethan required nothing but boundless, selfless patience from me. Now that Chloe is back, when are you breaking things off with that other girl? That was Ethan's father. The same man who had once wept at Ethan's bedside, calling me the savior of their entire family. It turned out everyone knew Chloe was his one true love. I was nothing more than a convenient, disposable crutch to lean on through their tragedy. I bit down on my lip until it bled, my trembling fingers sliding across the glass screen. Right beneath Ethan's father's comment, I typed a reply: We're breaking up right now. I step aside to fulfill your wishes. Dropping the phone, I finally collapsed onto the floor, curling into a ball as the dam broke, sobbing until I couldn't breathe.The next morning, while I stepped out to grab a coffee downstairs, Ethan returned. I pushed open the door and walked straight into his panicked eyes. "Are you... packing for a trip?" His voice shook. Instinctively, he reached forward and grabbed my wrist. "You know I can't function without you." He had seen the neatly zipped suitcases sitting by the entryway. I stared into his dark, brooding eyes and let out a self-deprecating laugh. Right. Ethan couldn't function without me. I had to be there to ground him, soothe him, and pull him back every single time his darkness flared up. Everyone in his circle took that for granted. The very first time Ethan stood on that rooftop ledge ready to end it all, I had arrived three minutes late because of a mandatory client meeting. His best friend had shoved me, screaming with bloodshot eyes, "If you love him so much, why the hell couldn't you take care of him properly?!" I had drowned in self-blame. I wiped my tears while looking into Ethan’s hollow, vacant gaze. Even though I was the one who threatened to jump with him to force him off that ledge, I was terrified to think what would have happened if he had truly let go. From that day on, I never stayed late at the office. I never took business trips. I didn't dare risk him self-harming over some fleeting memory of Chloe. One by one, I peeled his fingers off my wrist. "It's a business trip." "An indefinite one." Ethan froze, his breath catching as he demanded, "Why? What are you talking about?" A faint, mocking smile touched my lips. "Didn't you find your answer in your Instagram post yesterday?" Ethan's brow furrowed, his lips parting and closing several times before he snapped defensively, "You want to throw away three years just because of a single photo of me and Chloe?" He didn't mention her faking her death. He didn't mention his lies. He reduced everything to a single photo. I nodded firmly. "Yes. We're done." "As if you could actually let him go!" The bedroom door was violently kicked open, and Chloe strutted out, her head held high. An ultrasound scan and a handwritten letter were slapped harshly onto the hardwood floor. Chloe curved her painted lips, greeting me with effortless cruelty. "Long time no see, Nora. You've really learned how to trap a man, haven't you?" My pupils shrank. I recognized those items instantly—they were from the bottom of my luggage. The only keepsakes tied to Ethan that I had planned on taking with me. Our lost baby. The child we lost to an accidental miscarriage during a period when Ethan's therapist warned that his fragile mental state couldn't handle the stress of impending fatherhood. "I've seen plenty of manipulative women like you," Chloe scoffed, crossing her arms. "You talk a big game about breaking up, but it's just playing hard to get. You left these out on purpose to guilt-trip Ethan!" Ethan glanced down at the letter on the floor, his eyes darting away in shame. Yet his tone quickly shifted, latching onto her narrative. "Chloe is right." "If you truly wanted to leave, you wouldn't have kept these." He grabbed my suitcases and locked them inside the bedroom. "Either you prove to me that you genuinely want to end this, or you admit you're just acting out of jealousy and apologize to Chloe." "Otherwise, you're not walking out that door.""How do you want me to prove it?" I heard my own voice asking, flat and devoid of warmth. Chloe smirked, tossing out the cruelest answer with a laugh. "Tear up that letter you wrote to the dead kid. That'll prove you aren't using it to manipulate him." I looked at Ethan. His jaw was clenched tight. He didn't utter a single word to stop her. Yet on the night of that miscarriage, he had sobbed harder than I had. He had held my hand as we wrote that letter together, pouring out our grief, saying how much we had looked forward to holding our baby, and how cruel the world was. "Fine." My eyes were swollen, a bitter, broken smile spreading across my face. With my own hands, I shredded the only proof that my baby had ever existed into tiny, irreparable pieces, letting the scraps flutter to the floor. "Now," I rasped through a raw, shredded throat, "can we break up?" The night I walked out, Ethan went up to the rooftop again. It was his one-hundredth time. His best friend pounded on my new hotel door, bursting inside and screaming at me, "What the hell did you say to Ethan to make him want to jump again?!" "Why aren't you up there talking him down?!" He grabbed my arm roughly, trying to drag me out into the street. He had already convicted me of Ethan's death, yet he still expected me to be the savior. I wrenched myself violently from his grip, chest heaving. "Go get Chloe to talk him down. They're the ones together, aren't they?" My phone buzzed relentlessly. It was Ethan's father. The very man who had publicly cheered for Ethan to leave me on social media was now pleading on the other end of the line: "Nora, Ethan only survived all these years because of you." "You're a good girl. He's standing on that ledge for you right now. You have to go see him!" My throat felt like it was tied in burning knots. In the end, worn down by the sheer weight of obligation, I was dragged to the rooftop. The wind up there was howling, freezing cold. Ethan stood precariously on the narrow concrete railing. When he saw me step through the fire door, a relieved smile broke across his pale face. "I knew you still cared." "Get down from there," I said, looking at him, a dull ache throbbing in my chest despite everything. "Your family and friends are worried sick." Ethan shook his head stubbornly. "Promise me we'll stay together, and I'll step down." This was only the second time I had ever seen Ethan cry over me. The first time was when he held me tight in the hospital, swearing he would never harm himself over Chloe again. He had broken that promise. "You have no idea how terrified I was when you said you were leaving," Ethan spoke slowly, each word heavy and deliberate. "I'll marry you." My mind went blank for a second. Ethan pressed on, his voice desperate: "Let's get married. I'll take my therapy seriously, we'll cure this illness once and for all, and we'll build a real life. Just say yes, and I'll come down right now and hold you." "Nora, I truly love you." What a seductive, intoxicating lie. For a split second, I almost gave in. Just then, Chloe burst through the rooftop door, panting heavily. She screamed toward Ethan at the top of her lungs: "Ethan, I'm pregnant!" "You have to take responsibility for me and our baby!"