Chase did have a last-minute schedule, but the work only took one day.
He'd added extra days because he was clearly avoiding me.
When I showed up at his hotel lobby with my luggage and cornered him, Chase was obviously stunned.
I stared at him expressionlessly. "Go ahead, keep avoiding me."
Chase's expression was complicated. He frowned slightly and reached for my suitcase. "Let's talk in the room."
I didn't move.
Chase walked two steps, then turned back. All my exhaustion from traveling suddenly hit me and I pouted. "My heels gave me blisters."
Chase froze. He pressed his lips together, pushed my suitcase directly to his assistant, then strode back to me.
Before I could react, he'd swept me up into his arms.
In front of everyone, he carried me through the lobby into the elevator.
By the time we reached the room, my face was still red.
Chase silently found bandaids and knelt down to put them on my blisters.
The air fell into silence.
I grabbed his hand as he was putting on my shoe and cut straight to it. "You saw the photo of me and Ethan at the coffee shop?"
After a long pause, he hummed in acknowledgment.
I said nothing, waiting for him to continue.
Chase sat across from me, seeming to gather enormous courage before speaking. "In high school, everyone said you liked Ethan."
???
What did I just hear?
Chase continued, "Even I thought... Every time I wanted to hang out, you were solving problems with Ethan. You looked at him so intently. It made me uncomfortable. So one day I put hot sauce in your sandwich. But you were so focused on studying you didn't even notice. You never focused on me like that."
Me: "Is there any possibility I was focused on the PROBLEMS, not Ethan? You absolute idiot!"
From Chase's words, I finally saw that period of high school from his perspective.
Chase studied performance in high school, planning to go the arts school route for college.
But sometimes he still had to attend regular classes.
Since he was frequently absent, he actually couldn't make close friends in our class.
Except me. His childhood friend me.
But back then I was obsessed with competing with Ethan for top rank and ignored this fragile teenage boy's heart.
Maybe classmates gossiped about me liking Ethan, or maybe he saw something himself and formed that assumption.
I just didn't realize he'd carried it even after we started dating and got married.
So when Ethan returned to the States and Chase saw us chatting pleasantly at that coffee shop, he lost his sense of security all over again.