Chapter 4

I forced myself to walk to the roadside and called a car.

“To the airport.”

The driver saw that my face was pale and that I had injuries.

He asked if I wanted to call the police.

I shook my head and gave him the destination.

Outside the car window, the streetlights swept backward one by one.

They looked so much like the way my mother used to hold my hand and count streetlights with me when I was little.

Back then, she always said,

“Sophie is the best girl, and Mommy loves you the most.”

How ridiculous!

When I arrived at the airport, there were still more than four hours before boarding.

I found a seat in a corner and sat down.

The injury on my knee was still aching faintly.

I lifted my pant leg and saw a large patch of purple bruising, swollen very high.

I went to the bathroom and rinsed it with cold water.

The pain made me suck in a sharp breath.

The person in the mirror had red eyes, and there were dried bloodstains at the corner of her mouth.

I wiped hard, but the more I wiped, the redder it became.

In the end, I simply stopped wiping and just looked at myself like that.

Sophie Miller, remember this.

From now on, no one is allowed to make you cry again.

I went to the pharmacy and bought iodine and bandages, then treated the wound simply.

After finishing all this, my heart became calm instead.

When the boarding announcement sounded, the sky had just begun to brighten.

I turned off my phone and walked into the boarding gate.

The moment the plane rushed into the clouds, sunlight poured in through the window and made me narrow my eyes.

Below the clouds was a gray sky, and above them was dazzling sunshine.

It turned out that as long as you flew high enough, cloudy days would also become sunny.

More than three hours later, the plane landed.

Ethan Clark was waiting for me at the exit, and he froze the moment he saw me.

“Sophie, your face…”

I smiled.

“It’s nothing, I bumped into something by accident.”

“Let’s talk about the project in detail.”

He looked at me for several seconds and did not ask any more questions.

He took my hand and said, “Come on, I’ll take you to eat first.”

Ethan Clark was a very perceptive person.

He knew that if I did not want to talk, he should not ask.

He booked a hotel for me and took me to have a hot meal.

After we finished eating, he sent me the project materials.

He said, “Rest for a day first, and start working tomorrow.”

I shook my head.

“No need to rest, I can work now!”

He stared at me for a long time and sighed.

“Fine, then come with me to the company this afternoon.”

The company was in the city center.

It was not big, but it had everything it needed.

Ethan Clark worked in online retail.

After two years of starting his business, his team already had more than a dozen people.

He had always wanted to bring me in, saying I was the most business-minded person he had ever met.

Before, I could not bear to leave my family, so I refused again and again.

Now that I thought about it, what exactly was I unwilling to leave?

Was it the home where the whole family went out to have fun and only left me out?

Or was it the family who treated me like an outsider?