For five years, I loved a man who couldn't see me. Then, right before our wedding, a miracle happened: Ewing got his sight back. I stood before him, a playful smile on my face, my best friend Sophia by my side. I wanted him to guess which one of us was his fiancée. Without a moment's hesitation, he chose Sophia. When our friends asked him why, he just blinked and then laughed. "Come on," he said. "My Tina could never be ugly." 1 The moment the bandages came off, the air in the room grew still, thick with anticipation. Everyone held their breath. I watched as Ewing, overwhelmed, pulled his friends into a series of tight, grateful hugs. Then, his eyes scanning the room, he asked the question I’d been dying to hear. "Where's Tina?" A warmth spread through my chest. The first thing he wanted after regaining his sight… was me. Finally, his gaze found me by his hospital bed, tears of joy streaming down my face. As our eyes met, I took Sophia’s hand and pulled her up to stand beside me, my own tears still shimmering. Ewing had become incredibly sensitive to sounds during his blindness. Last night, Sophia and I had practiced, perfecting our vocal tones to match. The plan was simple: stand before him together, a little game to see if he could pick out the woman who had been his entire world for five long years. We spoke in unison, our voices intertwining. "Guess which one of us is your Tina?" "Guess which one of us is your Tina?" It was meant to be a harmless joke, a sweet test. After all, even though we’d only met after his accident, I had poured five years of my life into his care. We had built a love story from scratch, learning each other’s souls in the dark. Everyone, myself included, was certain he would know me in an instant. Ewing’s eyes flickered over my face. For a split second, I saw him pause, a flicker of confusion in his expression. Then, his gaze settled on Sophia, and a brilliant, confident smile—the one I knew so well—lit up his face. "Tina," he said, his voice full of warmth as he reached for her. "Come here. Let me hold you." 2 Ewing once told me, his words slurred with alcohol, about the accident. He’d been on his way to win back his ex-girlfriend when he crashed. A blood clot pressed against his optic nerve, plunging his world into darkness. His ex never visited. Not once. After that, Ewing had sealed himself off from the world, his personality becoming a minefield of unpredictable moods. No one dared to get close. Until me. At the time, I was in the hospital for my own reasons, my face a canvas of bruises and cuts from… an incident. Ewing’s room was right next to mine. In his world of darkness, he was the only person who couldn't judge me for my appearance. He was quiet, a handsome statue of a man, and I turned him into my reluctant confidant, my emotional sounding board. Eventually, my constant chatter wore him down. He finally spoke to me, and one sentence turned into a conversation, a friendship, and then… love. As I helped him open his heart again, his old friends slowly trickled back into his life. Now, in this sterile white room, as he called my best friend by my name, a heavy silence fell over everyone. The air crackled with unspoken awkwardness. One of his friends, sensing the impending disaster, quickly pulled me in front of Ewing, trying desperately to salvage the situation, to protect the last shreds of my dignity. "Ewing, man, you're just messing with her, right? Trying to scare her a little before the big surprise? That’s a risky move, dude. Not the best way to win a girl’s heart." Ewing’s gaze fell on me again, truly looking this time. I met his eyes, a desperate hope fluttering in my chest. A slow, dismissive smile curved his lips. "You guys, stop playing around. I may have never seen Tina, but I’ve painted a picture of her in my mind a thousand times. And my Tina… she could never be ugly." 3 Such a casual, dismissive sentence. To him, this was all just a joke. There wasn't even a trace of anger on his face, only amused certainty. He was utterly convinced that the woman he’d loved for five years, the woman he was about to marry, had to be beautiful. And that woman, he was sure, could not possibly be me. Under the worried gazes of his friends and Sophia, the loving words I’d prepared dissolved into a lump in my throat. I forced a small, brittle smile. "You're a sharp one, Mr. Pence," I said, my voice surprisingly steady. "Of course, I couldn't possibly be Tina." Sophia started to protest, to explain, but I squeezed her wrist, silencing her. The smile stayed plastered on my face until the heavy hospital door clicked shut behind me. Only then did it shatter. From the hallway, I could hear their voices, the murmur of conversation. I could even make out Ewing's incredulous tone. "Seriously, guys, stop messing with me. She’s not Tina? Then… did my Tina not come to see me today?" I sank to the floor in the empty corridor, my body curling into itself. I should have known. I should have seen this coming all along. 4 I’d never really been in a relationship before. Ewing was my first true boyfriend. My looks had always made me a target, a joke. I still remember the day he asked me to be his girlfriend. He was holding my hand, his thumb gently tracing circles on my skin. In front of all his friends, his unseeing eyes were fixed on me. They said a blind person's gaze was empty, but in Ewing's, I could have sworn I saw a universe of devotion. That, combined with his striking features, was intoxicating. "It doesn't matter what you look like," he'd said, his voice a low promise. "I would know you anywhere, Tina. You feel… different from anyone else." His friends, who knew his history, weren't so sure. One of them had quietly pulled me aside once. "Ewing’s always been about looks, Tina. If he ever gets his sight back, you should…" He trailed off, but the warning was clear. Everyone thought he was only with me because he couldn't see me. But Ewing seemed determined to prove them wrong. He appeared to love me so deeply. Once, as a prank, his friends had another woman take his hand when I wasn’t there. He’d recoiled instantly, his face twisting in anger. I heard he’d lost it, smashing a glass table and screaming at them. "Don't you ever pull a stunt like that again! Tina is one of a kind. She’s everything to me." After that, his friends all apologized to me, changing their tune. "Man, even his ex showing up now wouldn't stand a chance. He’s completely head-over-heels for you. He’s genuinely in love." Only one of them, a man named Liam, never bought it. Every time he saw me, he’d give the same quiet advice. "Don't waste your time on him, Tina. What he feels now isn't real." Liam had grown up with Ewing in the same wealthy enclave. They were close, with similar temperaments, though everyone said Liam had a shorter fuse. He was brutally honest, a trait that had apparently scared off every woman his family had ever tried to set him up with. But over the years, I'd learned he was a classic case of all bark and no bite. When the news came that Ewing’s surgery was a success, everyone else tried to hide it from me, to "manage" the situation. It was Liam who had driven straight to my apartment and brought me to the hospital. But it turned out he was right all along. Ewing's love wasn't for me. It was for a fantasy, a beautiful ghost he had named Tina. 5 As I left the hospital, Liam fell into step beside me. He looked like he wanted to say something comforting but couldn't find the words, just awkwardly hovering near me. For five years, Ewing’s friends had been polite to me, but I always knew it was a performance. If Ewing hadn’t needed me, they wouldn’t have given me the time of day. We were from different worlds, our lives intersecting only by circumstance. Now that the circumstance was gone, it was only natural for our paths to diverge. A sleek, stiletto-heeled figure breezed past us before stopping short in front of Liam. "I hear Ewing can see again," she said, her voice dripping with arrogance. The impeccably dressed woman clearly knew Liam. He shot her a sideways glance, his expression screaming, 'Not interested.' Losing patience, she ignored him and strode toward the hospital entrance. Liam muttered under his breath, "Disappears for five years without a single visit. The second she hears he can see, she materializes. You don't need to be a genius to figure out what that’s about." He glanced at me, watching for my reaction. When I just managed a weak, bitter smile, he seemed about to press his point. But I spoke first. "He'll take her back." My words stopped him cold. I looked at him, forcing another smile. "Don't you think?" Liam never lied to me. He just nodded. 6 A week passed. A week of absolute silence from Ewing. Then, I saw it online: a video of him at a gala with the woman from the hospital. Under the flash of cameras, they were the picture-perfect couple, her hand tucked possessively in the crook of his arm. The only odd thing was Ewing’s expression. The man who had always smiled for me now wore a stony, unreadable mask. The internet was buzzing about the reclusive Pence heir’s sudden return to the public eye. A notification popped up at the top of my screen, obscuring Ewing’s face. It was from Liam. Library? I was applying for grad school. When Liam found out, he’d volunteered to be my tutor. I knew what he was really doing—gently guiding me back to my own life. I’d spent so many years wrapped up in Ewing’s world, even taking a year off from college to help him navigate his darkness. On my way, I typed back. As I closed the app, a call history notification caught my eye. A number so familiar it was burned into my memory. In the beginning, Ewing, bored and lonely, must have gotten my number from somewhere. He’d call me from morning till night, not to say anything important, just to whine like a child until I brought him a caramel apple from the stand near campus. This time, however, his voice wasn't playful. It was heavy, serious in a way I’d never heard before. "Tina," he said, his breathing ragged on the other end. "I miss you." I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting back a fresh wave of tears. It took a moment to steady my voice. "Ewing," I whispered, "let's break up." His heavy breathing filled the silence. We used to stay on the phone all night, talking until we both drifted off, neither wanting to be the first to hang up. Five years of intense, all-consuming love. Even now, as I ended it, he didn't ask to see me. A cold certainty settled in my stomach. Deep down, he already knew. He knew the "ugly" girl from the hospital was the real Tina. He said nothing more. The silence stretched on, chilling my fingers and making my legs ache. I finally pulled the phone away from my ear. The call had been disconnected for who knows how long. 7 I hailed a cab and headed for the city library. Love might be gone, but I couldn't let my future slip away too. Liam had scheduled our session for the afternoon, but when I arrived early, I found him already there, sitting in our usual corner spot. He waved me over. As I sat down, he pushed a warm bottle of coffee across the table toward me. "You're early," I said, shrugging off my coat and scarf. I watched as he methodically laid out his notes and textbooks, covering the empty table. "Figured you might be crying somewhere and needed a place to go." He tapped a section in a textbook with his pen, a passage he’d already highlighted and annotated. "Start with this." The page was covered in his neat, red-ink notes and detailed diagrams. "I broke up with Ewing," I said flatly, copying his notes into my own notebook. Liam paused. Ewing always said Liam was the biggest chatterbox in their group, but with me, he was usually quiet, a listener to my endless monologues. "He won't agree," Liam said. "It's just a matter of time," I replied, my pen stopping. My nose started to burn again. "He's just lying to himself right now. He can't avoid me forever. The moment he truly accepts that the Tina in his head is… me… this plain, ugly girl… not the perfect fantasy he created… he'll let go." "You're not ugly." The words hung in the air between us. We both looked up at the same time. He looked incredibly uncomfortable, his lips pressed into a thin line, the corner of his eye twitching. I saw a faint blush creep up the tips of his ears. He was trying so hard to look composed, but he repeated himself anyway. "Tina, you're not ugly. Just because other people say it doesn't mean you have to accept it. A person's worth, whether they're ugly or beautiful, isn't just about their face. I hope you get that." His gaze was intense, unwavering. I didn't understand what he was trying to say. In the world I'd grown up in, being told you were ugly because your appearance wasn't pleasing to others was a simple, unchangeable fact. It was a "fact" that had brought me nothing but pain. Because I was "ugly," my teacher believed the popular girl who copied my test answers and punished me for cheating. Classmates called me shameless. My own parents told me I was an embarrassment. He was just trying to be nice, I figured. I gave a half-hearted smile and looked back down at my book. But a bitter complaint slipped out anyway. "You people who are good-looking will never get it. No one's ever going to point a finger at you, Liam, and call you ugly." I peeked up at him. He had turned his head, and all I could see was the sharp line of his jaw and his thick, fan-like eyelashes. I couldn't read his expression. Just when I thought we'd spend the rest of the afternoon in silence, he ran a hand through his perfectly styled hair, messing it up. He said my name, "Tina." I looked up, startled, and met his burning gaze. He looked… exasperated. "I said you're not ugly! God, you’re impossible. If you argue with me one more time, I swear I'm done tutoring you." 8 Liam's sudden outburst left me baffled. It was as if some long-dormant, irritable part of his personality had just burst forth. Thankfully, things returned to normal after that. By the time we left the library, the sky had bruised to a dark purple, pricked with a few early stars. As we walked, Liam took a call, and I watched his brow furrow deeper and deeper. When he hung up, he explained, "My grandfather collapsed during dinner. Angina. They've taken him to the hospital. It sounds serious. The family wants me there now." I remembered his grandfather, a respected old general with a stern face but a kind, cheerful smile whenever he saw me. He was always in his dress uniform, the chest heavy with medals. Liam scanned the street, a river of red taillights and blaring horns. It was rush hour in the heart of the city. Driving to the hospital would take at least an hour. "The subway," he said decisively. "We can make it in twenty minutes." I was a little surprised. I never imagined a guy like Liam would willingly take public transit. Ewing had once told me that people in their circle had private drivers since they were kids and were gifted sports cars on their eighteenth birthdays. He’d looked genuinely pained when I told him I took the subway and bus everywhere, vowing that I’d never have to suffer like that again now that I was with him. For me, it was just… life. It wasn't "suffering." I watched Liam expertly tap his phone at the turnstile. I couldn't help but ask. "Don't you find this… embarrassing?" "Why would I?" he shot back instantly, looking at me with genuine confusion. "The city builds this incredible system for us. Shouldn't we appreciate it and use it? Or is it that you look down on yourself for using it?" The double meaning hit me, reminding me of our argument in the library. He let out a short, scoffing laugh and turned to watch for the train. But his next words floated back to me, clear and sharp. "Tina. Dignity is something you earn for yourself. It’s not something other people give you with their words."
? Continue the story here ?? ? Download the "MotoNovel" app ? search for "384477", and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel