Three Years Later, He Came Back Begging novel Chapter 444

For parents, time passed like a fleeting breeze, sweeping up the dust of the years. In the blink of an eye, they realized their children were already grown.

Just as Lawrence had predicted, Hayden Lane's clingy phase was incredibly short-lived.

Once he started elementary school, Hayden never asked to sleep in his parents' bed again.

He was a quiet and calm boy, but far from withdrawn. Bonnie and Lawrence often felt a steady, comforting warmth radiating from their son.

If Lawrence was a wild wind, Hayden was an unshakeable mountain. Bonnie sometimes marveled that she and Lawrence had raised a boy with such an even-keeled temperament.

People always said he took after her, but Bonnie didn't think that was entirely true.

In her youth, she had seemed calm, but she had needed a thick layer of ice to protect herself. Beneath the surface, she had been sensitive and fragile, feeling profoundly suffocated during the years when she misunderstood her parents the most.

Though age and experience had brought understanding and forgiveness for the unforgettable pains of her past, allowing her to view people from multiple perspectives, her core personality hadn't changed drastically.

Even now, to anyone outside her close circle of family and friends, Bonnie still gave off an unapproachable, icy vibe.

But Hayden was different. He inherited her quietness, but none of her coldness.

He inherited Bonnie's tolerance and kindness, growing into a gentle boy with a mind of his own. He wasn't fragile, sensitive, lonely, exclusive, stubborn, or rigid.

He simply existed like a steady mountain, like a vast and welcoming ocean.

In many ways, Hayden also took after his father.

He possessed Lawrence's hidden emotional depth and his fiercely optimistic spirit. Though he wasn't as wildly extroverted as Lawrence had been in his youth, he was never a child who shied away from expressing his love.

It was a tiny detail—something Bonnie might have noticed once upon a time, but had long since grown so accustomed to that she had forgotten it entirely.

In his essay, Hayden wrote: "Dad sat on the couch to watch a movie with Mom. It was my fourth time watching Toy Story, but Dad said it was his eighth time watching it with her.

"When the movie finally ended, Dad did what he always does. He gently kissed Mom on her left ear, like he was kissing a feather-light leaf, a soft flower, or a pure white cloud.

"I asked Dad why he always loved kissing Mom's left ear. Ever since I was old enough to remember, Mom and Dad would kiss each other before leaving for work every morning, but right at the end, Dad always made sure to kiss her left ear one more time.

"Dad said it was a special memory between him and Mom. Since I wasn't around for that memory, he wouldn't tell me what it was.

"I secretly asked June. June came to live with Mom and Dad way before I did, so he had to know, right? Unfortunately, he didn't know either.

"But I think, whatever that memory is, my parents must be moving closer to love. Just like on this quiet afternoon, I felt like I was a little bit closer to love, too."