MTLNOVEL Chapter 666: Only two women ever mattered in my life.
For the past few days, Aiden has been noticing her eyes. The questions in them.
Every time she looked at him, it was like she was looking for the answers. Yet, she never asked him a single question.
"I promise," he affirmed.
Arwen looked at him and nodded back. "Fine, since you have promised, I will tell you," she said. "I invited Ryan out to meet. Asking him for lunch wasn't intentional, but it happened to be during lunch hours. And since I didn't have anything the whole afternoon, ordering dishes at the table became inevitable."
"But I couldn't have the food with him. As you saw, I barely touched anything there." She explained the way she thought would be acceptable.
However, Aiden stared at her as though he was still waiting for her to finish it.
Arwen caught that gaze and asked, "What? I already told you all. What more are you waiting to find out?"
"Like, why did you ask him out?" He didn't hesitate.
She looked away and took a step back. "I … It's for something. I needed to ask him, and only he could answer. So, I asked him out."
"What was it?" Aiden asked again.
Arwen arched her brows at his question. "That's not for you to know. It's a secret that secrets aren't to be told."
"Secret?" he repeated, and she hummed.
"Hn~" Then she took a step towards him and, with her hands on her back, she leaned a little, drawing close to his face. "Don't you also have a few? I never asked you to tell all of it to me."
Aiden's gaze narrowed a little, but, unaffected, Arwen simply pulled away with a smile.
"Now, my turn," she said. "You promised you would tell me what I would ask you. So, are you ready?"
Aiden studied her, and she pursed her lips, "Don't worry, I am not going to force you if it's something you don't want to tell me."
"You have got all rights to force me, Moon."
"But I don't want to, husband," she responded almost immediately. "I respect you and your reasons. If there is something you are not willing to tell me, I believe you have a reason for it, and I respect it. I can wait until you can tell them to me on your own."
"And what if I never come to tell you?" he asked.
And Arwen paused at his words. She stared at him for a moment, her expression still, but then her lips pulled into a smile. "Then, too, I will respect it. It won't change anything between us. Our life doesn't need to revolve around the things that cannot be shared."
And she didn't say it just for a say. She meant it. Every word.
The past wasn't going to define them. She was trying to know it because she wanted to know the extent of pain, she had caused him by forgetting him and all that they had once shared.
"Now, can we get back to the promise you have given me?" she asked, getting back to what she had thought to begin with.
Aiden nodded.
And staring at him, right to his eyes, she asked, "Under what circumstances will you leave me and never come back?"
She had thought to ask it in a way that wouldn't sound brutal, but when the words rolled off her tongue, she couldn't help but feel her heart clench. As though just the imagination of it happening was too cruel to take.
Aiden was taken aback. His brows furrowed as he stared at her, for a moment not understanding what she meant by that.
"Don't get confused. Something just got me curious, so I simply asked you," Arwen tried to help him make sense. "Will there ever be when you will leave me without looking back? Like —"
His fingers pressed against her lips, and he stopped her from speaking further. "No."
She stared at him, her expression soft, taking in his furrowed brows that again etched his face with fear.
"I can never leave you. Never … regardless of any situation. You are my woman, my priority over everything else. Not even the worst could make me leave you."
Arwen's heart skipped a beat. She knew it, but still, his words made her breath hitch. "Think again," she told him. "Is there really nothing or no one for whom you would leave me behind?"
Aiden looked at her and stepped a step closer. Then, taking her hand, he pressed it flat against his chest, right over her heart. "No one is important than you, Moon. There is nothing and no one that could make me leave you in this world. Trust me."
Of course, she trusts him.
But then …
If there was nothing that could make him leave her, why did he leave her back then?
She was midst of a surgery. Yet he left, and never returned. He disappeared from her world as if he never existed. Why?
She looked at him and her brows knitted a little.
When Aiden saw her like that, he asked, "You don't believe me?"
Arwen didn't answer. It's not like she didn't believe him. She did, but she was confused. She couldn't understand what reason could there been in the past that made him leave her.
There must have been something, and she wanted to ask him.
"Moon," He called her name softly, like it was a prayer on his lips.
She blinked, and his hand cupped her cheek, making her look into his eyes. And except for sincerity, there was nothing else in his gaze.
"In my entire life, only two women ever mattered in my life. One was my mother, and the other one is you. No one else ever mattered, and no one will ever matter."
He said, and his words made Arwen pause.
His mother.
Yes.
How could she forget her?
She was there at that time, and probably already sick.
Did he leave for her that day?