My Ex, Please Love Me Again

Anya didn’t cry because of the pain in her arm. Instead, it was an excuse to avoid arguing with him in public. At that time she thought of Nina’s suggestion that she could shun him by pretending to be sick. So she managed to escape after bursting into tears.

But she felt surprised when her tears rolled down. The crying was supposed to be a disguise. But tears actually fell down. To weep bitter tears of sadness?

Now she was confused by herself.

Anya didn’t return to her usual calmness until she went back home and had a glass of water.

Then Phil called her. He sincerely apologized to her in the phone. “I am terribly sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just need to explain something.”

“I am fine.” Anya answered. “You could go back to your work. See you at supper.”

Anya wasn’t in the mood to hear any explanation. And Phil was in no rush of explaining as well because new concern arose, for example, what about the lunch?

Wasn’t he supposed to take charge of all the meals she had? Why skipping the first lunch after their pact?

He asked, “How about the lunch?”

Anya told him the truth. “I had an appointment with my mentor at noon.”

“Your mentor?” Phil was fully alert. “A male?”Content protected by Nôv/el(D)rama.Org.

His words indirectly acknowledged that he had people investigate her secretly because he knew every detail of her life, including her mentor’s gender.

Anya didn’t bother to squabble with him about this.

She nodded, “Indeed he is.”

Anya didn’t think having lunch with her mentor, or a male, was a big deal. She wasn’t having an affair with her mentor anyway. They were having lunch because her mentor wanted to ask her favor.

Her mentor was a married man. The favor he was about to ask was exactly relevant to his wife. His wife was obsessed with music and thinking if it was possible to learn piano after knowing that Anya could play that.

To show his wife’s determination, he treated Anya to lunch.

Anya didn’t tell Phil the whole story because she didn’t think it was a necessary thing to do. He was just someone irrelevant to her and she was fed up with all his restrictions and rules.

She almost lost in touch with all her male friends because of Phil. He was so easily jealous that she couldn’t even chat with a male. This man was possessively crazy.

She was good at socializing and used to join clubs. But later Phil meddled too much in her social life and she was compelled to quit. She rejected every social gathering except having class.

Every day she only had two destinations — home and school. Phil was pleasantly satisfied while Anya was on the brink of depression.

She turned into a quite girl who stayed at home all the time from a people person.

Recalling the days when she was under tight control, Anya had growing resentment towards Phil who now again tried to restrict her.

Did he plan to control her as he always did?

Phil at first intended to elaborate something but he compressed his lips sensing the resentment on her voice.

Actually he was hurt by her repugnance. Did she really hate him?

Phil sunk into deep thought and Anya could feel that too. She continued to pour out her true feelings. “Phil, we have been divorced. You have no right to interfere in my personal life.”

Thinking of the following days they were going to spend together, Anya wanted to elucidate her thinking to avoid the potential quarrels between them.

She has made it very clear. They only kept in touch because of the baby and his job was to cook.

“I have had enough of the days when I was forced to cut off my social ties and your rules of prohibiting me from making contacts with males, no matter how little they appeared to be.”

“You have no idea of how close I was to mental collapse during these years.”

“Never in one day had I felt truly happy during the last four years when I was with you. And it was not because of the shortage of love. On the contrary, it was because your compulsive love was suffocating me!”

After remonstrating, she directly hung up.

Holding his phone, Phil froze with shock.

What did she just say?

She was so close to mental collapse?

She had enough of him restricting her social life?

She never felt truly happy?

Phil was heavily devastated by what Anya said just now.

The purported love and care he had towards her was undermined in her “never felt truly happy”.

Admittedly, he was a jealousy-prone man and had the intention of monopolizing her, to the exclusion of other man. He became so possessive and had sex with her every time he learned that other man flirted with her or she took part in activities that had male members.

But it never occurred to him that she could be so unhappy.

He wandered back towards his home after the call. There was work he was supposed to finish but the words Anya said haunted him.

Phil recollected the way she looked when he first met her, an active extrovert. She was happily chatting with her partners in the backstage of anniversary celebration with a big smile.

That smile was deeply rooted in his brain. He would remember that for the rest of his life.

Her smile diminished during the past two years. She became quieter and stayed at home more frequently. He assumed that the reason for her changes was that she was preparing for the looming exam of postgraduate and became isolated. Not until this moment did he realize that he was the one to blame. He was the one who broke off her wings.

She couldn’t bear his possessiveness or any other fights derived from that. So she compromised.

Phil knew that sometimes Anya was in low spirit and he even asked Arthur to find a psychiatrist for her. He guessed that her gloom probably came from Lorie’s illness. Actually he was the major problem.

Phil felt miserably suffocated at the thought of this.

It turned out that his self-claimed peremptory love wasn’t what she called for. For all these years, he never truly understood her feelings.

His so-called love was nothing but a burden to her.

No wonder Anya never ceased the attempt of running away from him.

Phil asked in the group chat, “Do you guys think that my love to Anya is rather oppressive?”

Arthur firstly gave his answer. “Jean wants to answer the question. She had the same worry when Anya chatted with them. And now it really happened.”

“She said that your love was stifling to Anya, especially at the very first beginning when you two haven’t developed strong bond.”

“In the name of helping her, you are actually pleading with her for loving you, which only leads to her repugnance and fright.”