After I Lost My Memory, My Ex-Husband Became My Caregiver - Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The weather was beautiful on the day I was discharged from the hospital.

Zhou Yinghuai didn’t pack my things for me.

He stood beside me and asked, “Should we take this?”

If I said yes, he put it in the bag.

If I said no, he put it back where it had been.

Aunt Liu passed by the ward door and looked at us with a beaming smile.

“Xiao Zhou, you’re a fast learner.”

Zhou Yinghuai’s ears turned red.

I nearly laughed out loud.

After the discharge paperwork was done, he asked me where I wanted to go.

I said, “Back to my own place.”

He nodded.

“I’ll take you downstairs.”

“You’re not taking me up?”

He glanced at me.

“You didn’t invite me.”

I leaned against the car window.

“Zhou Yinghuai, you’re really careful with your words now.”

“Mm.”

“Afraid I’ll run?”

His hands tightened around the steering wheel, and he was silent for a few seconds.

“Afraid you’ll feel uncomfortable.”

I didn’t say anything else.

The car passed the intersection where the accident happened three years ago.

I asked him to pull over.

Zhou Yinghuai looked at me.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

We stood by the side of the road.

The place had already been repaired. The guardrails were new, and so were the streetlights.

But when I closed my eyes, I could still hear the rain, the screech of brakes, the shatter of glass.

Zhou Yinghuai stood beside me without touching me.

I said, “That day, I really thought I was going to die.”

His voice went tight.

“I know.”

“I also thought you wouldn’t come.”

“I came.”

I opened my eyes.

“But you came too late.”

Zhou Yinghuai’s face paled.

“Mm.”

I turned to look at him.

“But afterward, you were always there too.”

He froze.

I lowered my head and took the ring out of my bag.

The ring I had thrown at him that day-he had put it back in my bag later.

I had never asked about it.

Now, I finally saw the letters engraved on the inside clearly.

It wasn’t S&Z.

It was S&Y.

Su Qingyu, Zhou Yinghuai.

I had misread it back then.

Or maybe at the time, I had wanted so badly to hate him that I saw everything as evidence.

I placed the ring in his palm.

“I’m giving it back to you for now.”

Zhou Yinghuai’s fingertips went rigid.

“For now?”

“Mm.”

I said, “I still don’t want to wear it right now.”

He looked at the ring for a long time before nodding.

“Okay.”

I took a few steps forward.

The wind blew over, carrying the dampness after the rain.

I turned back to look at him.

“Zhou Yinghuai.”

He immediately raised his eyes.

I said, “I won’t forgive you on behalf of who I used to be.”

He listened quietly.

“But I also won’t trap who I am now in that car accident for the rest of my life.”

His eyes slowly reddened.

I said, “I’ll sign the divorce agreement.”

Zhou Yinghuai’s fingers clenched tight.

I added, “After I sign it, if you still want to pursue me, you’ll have to get back in line.”

He stood there in a daze.

As if he hadn’t understood.

I kind of wanted to laugh.

“Don’t get it?”

His throat bobbed.

“I get it.”

“Then what should you say right now?”

Zhou Yinghuai looked at me, his voice very hoarse.

“Su Qingyu, may I pursue you again?”

I walked to the other side of the sidewalk.

Sunlight fell across his shoulders, illuminating him clearly from head to toe.

I said, “Depends on your performance.”

A month later, I signed the divorce agreement.

Zhou Yinghuai didn’t stop me.

He only went with me to the Civil Affairs Bureau. After the paperwork was done, he handed me a peeled apple.

This time, the peel hadn’t broken.

Looking at that apple, I suddenly remembered a long time ago when I asked him what reward he would get if he managed to peel it in one unbroken strip.

Back then, he had said the reward could be owed.

I took the apple from him.

“Zhou Yinghuai.”

He looked at me.

I said, “A reward that’s owed isn’t guaranteed to be cashed in.”

He smiled faintly.

“I know.”

“But I can keep peeling.”

Later, many people asked me what exactly my ex-husband and I were.

I couldn’t really explain it either.

We had divorced. We had lost memories. We had lost a child we never got the chance to meet.

All of that was true.

But later, Zhou Yinghuai learned to knock. He learned to ask if I was in pain. He learned to stop when I said no.

He didn’t become a perfect person.

And I didn’t suddenly become magnanimous.

It was just that one night, I worked overtime until very late. When I got home, the hallway light was broken.

But there was a small lamp glowing by my door.

Beside the lamp was a bag of apples.

On the sticky note was Zhou Yinghuai’s handwriting.

I won’t disturb you.

I was just afraid you’d be scared of the dark.

I stood at the door and looked at it for a very long time.

Then I sent him a message.

“Are you free tomorrow?”

He replied very quickly.

“Yes.”

I said, “Come peel apples.”

This time, he didn’t ask if he could come inside.

He asked, “What time do you want to see me?”

Looking at that line of text, I slowly smiled.

Outside the window, it started raining again.

But I didn’t think of the car accident anymore.

I only thought of a very foolish man standing in the rainy night three years ago, smashing the car window, his hands covered in blood as he shouted my name.

And I thought of him in the hospital room three years later, lowering his head and admitting,

“I was a real bastard.”

I replied, “Seven.”

Then I added, “If the apple peel breaks, you’re not allowed inside.”

Zhou Yinghuai took a few seconds to reply.

“I’ve practiced.”

I put down my phone and turned on the little lamp by the door.

I didn’t delete the recording on my old phone.

I only put it away in the very back of a drawer, then placed an extra pair of men’s slippers by the door.

The End