---- Chapter 9 Zeke took out his phone and called Scarlett. He stood in front of me and put the call on speaker. "Did you miss me, Zeke?" Scarlett asked gleefully after picking up the call. Scarlett's sudden question made Zeke feel awkward and anxious. "Stop joking around, Scarlett," he hastily tried to resolve the situation. Scarlett didn't expect him to speak to her like that. If I had to guess, that was probably how they interacted with each other in private. When she froze, Zeke continued, "I think we should stop contacting each other so often, Scarlett. I have a girlfriend, after all-it's not appropriate for me to have such a close relationship with another woman." Scarlett couldn't believe what she was hearing. ---- "What did you just say, Zeke?" she asked in disbelief. "Could you repeat that?" Zeke took a deep breath and said with a raised voice, ''I said we should stop contacting each other so often. Do you understand me?" "Oh... I get it now. Your control freak of a girlfriend is jealous, isn't she?" Scarlett declared as if she'd figured everything out. She added, "Why would you care about her? She's so petty. She's probably just jealous of us because she has no friends." The more Scarlett spoke, the angrier Zeke looked. I could already tell how often they badmouthed me behind my back. "That's enough. Please respect my boundaries. Joanna is my girlfriend-you have no right to talk about her like that. "Do not contact me ever again. Goodbye," Zeke ---- said irritably. Then, he ignored Scarlett's objections and hung up the phone. Even after he hung up, his phone kept ringing. Despite that, he didn't pick up any of the calls. Instead, he looked at me with a desperate look on his face and said, "See? I've already cut ties with her. Let's just live our lives together from now on, okay? I'll stay here and wait for you to come back. I promise I'll do exactly as you say." Subsequently, he acted as if he was taking an oath in order to show me how determined he was. I froze. Initially, I planned on breaking up with him on the day of my departure. However, judging from the way things were progressing at that moment, I needed to speed things up. "You don't need to wait for me. I think we should break-"