For the rest of that afternoon, I didn’t go upstairs.

I sent every file electronically.

If a physical signature was required, I asked a courier to deliver it.

At 6:10 p.m., Alejandro’s assistant called again.

“Miss Su, Director Shen wants to confirm tomorrow’s project meeting.”

“I won’t attend.”

There was a pause.

“Why?”

“My replacement will.”

Another pause.

Then, somehow, his thoughts appeared again.

“Replacement?”

A second later:

“She’s really leaving?”

I closed the drawer beneath my desk.

“Yes. I’ll send the handover list tonight.”

The assistant hesitated.

“Director Shen says the cooperation has always been handled by you.”

“That’s why I’m documenting everything carefully.”

I hung up.

For the first time in two years, I didn’t care whether Alejandro was annoyed.

Or curious.

Or looking at the door.

That night, Lucía showed up at my apartment.

She pushed her way inside carrying takeout.

“What do you mean you’re transferring?”

“It means exactly that.”

“To another province?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Indefinitely.”

She stared at the half-packed suitcase beside my bed.

Then her eyes narrowed.

“This is because of my cousin.”

“No.”

Technically, that was true.

Alejandro had only forced me to see what I should have understood long ago.

The decision was mine.

Lucía sat on the edge of the bed.

“Did he reject you?”

I folded another sweater.

“He didn’t need to.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

That answer frustrated her.

She grabbed my wrist.

“Dulce, you’ve liked him for two years.”

I looked at her.

“How do you know?”

She froze.

Then looked away.

“Everyone knows.”

I laughed softly.

Of course.

Everyone.

Except I had spent two years believing I was hiding it.

Lucía sighed.

“Alejandro knows too.”

“I know.”

“He never said anything because he didn’t want to embarrass you.”

I almost smiled.

How generous.

Then another thought entered my head.

Lucía’s.

“If Dulce leaves, Alejandro will blame me.”

I stopped folding.

Then:

“I shouldn’t have kept sending her to him.”

My fingers froze.

I slowly looked up.

“You kept sending me?”

Lucía’s face changed.

“What?”

“The yogurt.”

“The documents.”

“The dinners.”

“You were doing that intentionally?”

Silence.

She laughed nervously.

“I just thought you two looked good together.”

That wasn’t what I had heard.

I waited.

Her thoughts continued.

“I thought if Alejandro got used to her, he might eventually accept her.”

Then:

“But he always said she wasn’t his type.”

The last little bit of dignity I had been protecting disappeared.

I smiled.

“Thank you.”

Lucía frowned.

“For what?”

“For confirming that I’m making the right decision.”

I finished packing.

Seven days later, I left.

There was no farewell party.

No dramatic goodbye.

I changed my number.

Left the project group.

Moved eight hundred kilometers away.

The new branch office was smaller.

The salary was only slightly higher.

And for the first few months, I was exhausted.

But something strange happened.

Once I stopped spending my energy orbiting Alejandro Shen, I had a great deal of energy left for myself.

I enrolled in night classes.

Took certification exams.

Learned project budgeting.

Then procurement.

Then contract management.

A year later, I was promoted.

Two years later, I was no longer earning five thousand yuan a month.

I was managing an entire regional operations team.

And the mind-reading ability?

It never disappeared.

At first, I hated it.

Then I learned something useful.

People’s thoughts were often ugly, temporary, contradictory things.

A polite colleague might briefly resent me.

A harsh manager might secretly respect me.

Someone could think one thing and choose to do another.

So I stopped treating thoughts as absolute truth.

Actions mattered more.

Alejandro had thought I was annoying.

But the important part wasn’t that thought.

It was that for two years, he had known I liked him and had allowed me to humiliate myself because confronting it would have inconvenienced him.

That was enough.

I heard almost nothing about him after I left.

Until our companies merged operations for a national project three years later.

My name appeared on the meeting list.

Regional Operations Manager: Dulce Su.

Across from it:

Executive Director: Alejandro Shen.

I stared at the screen for a few seconds.

Then closed the email.

The meeting was held in Shanghai.

I entered the conference room at nine sharp.

Alejandro was already there.

He looked almost exactly the same.

Dark suit.

Controlled expression.

That quiet authority that had once made my heart race.

His eyes found me immediately.

And then I heard it.

“Dulce.”

His thought sounded almost stunned.

I sat across from him.

“Director Shen.”

He stared at me.

“You disappeared.”

“I transferred.”

“I know.”

His voice tightened.

“You changed your number.”

“Yes.”

“You stopped talking to Lucía.”

“Yes.”

He looked as though he had rehearsed a hundred questions and forgotten all of them.

Then his thoughts came faster.

“She looks different.”

“No.”

“She looks like herself.”

“I just never looked carefully before.”

Three years earlier, those words would have destroyed me.

Now they barely moved anything.

The meeting began.

I presented our regional plan.

Budget.

Risk projections.

Logistics.

When I finished, one of the senior executives nodded.

“Excellent work, Manager Su.”

Alejandro said nothing.

But I heard him.

“She was always capable.”

Then:

“Why did I think she wasn’t?”

I almost laughed.

Because I had no degree.

Because I earned five thousand yuan.

Because I stood outside his office carrying folders.

Because sometimes people only recognize value when it appears with a title they respect.

After the meeting, he followed me into the corridor.

“Dulce.”

I stopped.

“Is there something about the project?”

“No.”

That surprised me.

He took a breath.

“I owe you an apology.”

I waited.

“I knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That you liked me.”

“I’m aware.”

His face tightened.

“I handled it badly.”

“You didn’t handle it at all.”

“Yes.”

For once, Alejandro Shen didn’t defend himself.

“I thought ignoring it was kinder.”

“And now?”

His thoughts answered first.

“Now I know I was a coward.”

Then he said aloud:

“Now I know I was a coward.”

I stared at him.

That was the first time his words and thoughts had matched so perfectly.

“I’m sorry.”

I nodded.

“I accept the apology.”

Hope flickered across his face.

Then he asked:

“Can we have dinner?”

“No.”

It disappeared.

“Because you still hate me?”

“I never hated you.”

“Then why?”

I smiled.

“Because accepting an apology doesn’t mean reopening a door.”

He stood silently.

Then came the thought I had once dreamed of hearing.

“I think I fell in love with her after she left.”

I felt nothing.

Almost nothing.

Maybe a small sadness for the woman I used to be.

Alejandro spoke.

“I thought about you constantly after you transferred.”

I looked at him.

“You missed being wanted.”

His face changed.

“No.”

“Maybe not.”

I adjusted the files in my hands.

“But whatever you feel now belongs to the version of me you finally noticed.”

I smiled slightly.

“That woman no longer waits outside your office.”

Then I walked away.

Six months later, I accepted another promotion.

This one took me abroad.

Before boarding the flight, Lucía sent me a message after years of silence.

Alejandro is still single.

I deleted it.

Then another arrived.

He says losing you was the biggest mistake of his life.

I looked through the airport window.

For two years, I had believed the greatest tragedy would be Alejandro Shen never loving me.

I had been wrong.

The real tragedy would have been spending my life waiting for him to decide I was worth noticing.

I switched off my phone.

Picked up my suitcase.

And walked toward the gate without looking back.

For once, I didn’t hear anyone else’s thoughts.

And I didn’t need to.

My own life was finally loud enough.