I Became a Kindergarten Teacher for Monster Babies!-Chapter 496 Explanation

"Then let me show her," he urged, his voice dropping into an intense whisper. "Let me in. Let me show her the texts to my father, the lawyer’s emails, the flight tickets I’ve booked to go confront my parents. Let me show her that every step I’ve taken since meeting her has been toward her, even the clumsy, stupid ones."

"And what if she doesn’t want to see?" Lyla asked quietly, the protector in her rising again. "What if the hurt is too deep? What if your ’clean solution’ comes too late? She’s in there packing, Aaron. She wants to leave everything that reminds her of this pain behind. And right now, you are the source of that pain."

The truth of it hit him like a physical force, and his shoulders slumped. "I know," he murmured, looking down at his shoes. "And if she tells me to go... if she looks at me and says she never wants to see me again, I will. I’ll walk away, and I won’t bother her again. But she has to say it to me, Aunt Lyla. Not to a closed door. Not through tears to you. She has to look me in the eye and tell me it’s over. She owes me that much. And I owe her... an apology that’s not delivered through a messenger."

There was a long silence. Lyla looked past him, into the quiet street, wrestling with her own instincts. Her job was to shield Georgia, to be the barrier against more hurt. Because Georgia was like her own daughter. She had helped Lyla heal parts of herself and her sister. Lyla was deeply grateful for Georgia’s presence in her life. Sometimes, it felt like Georgia was a gift from God.

But was she also becoming a barrier against a truth that might, just might, offer a different kind of healing?

She thought of Georgia’s broken whisper: ’I thought he really cared.’

What if, in his disastrous, flawed way... he actually did?

With a deep, resigned sigh, she opened the door a little wider, though her body still blocked the entrance.

"You wait here," she said firmly. "I will talk to her. I will tell her you are here, and that you claim to have an explanation. I will give her the choice. If she says no, you turn around, you leave this street, and you do not come back. Do you understand?"

A flicker of desperate hope ignited in Aaron’s eyes. "Yes. Yes, I understand. Thank you."

"Don’t thank me," Lyla said flatly. "I am not doing this for you. I am doing it for her. So she can have the final say... and maybe start taking her power back."

She turned and walked down the hallway, her steps slow and heavy. She paused outside Georgia’s door, listening to the muffled sound of drawers closing. She knocked softly.

"Geo? It’s me again."

A pause. Then, a hoarse voice answered, "Come in."

Georgia was folding a sweater, her movements slow and methodical, her face pale but dry. She looked emptied out.

"He’s here," Lyla said simply, without preamble.

Georgia’s hands stilled on the soft fabric. She didn’t look up. "Who?"

"Aaron."

The name seemed to suck all the air from the room. Georgia’s head snapped up, her eyes wide with fresh shock and instant pain. "What? You know him?"

She knew he was Alina’s friend, but she hadn’t known Aunt Lyla knew him too. And Aaron had told her to keep everything about their relationship a secret.

"I know him through Alina," Lyla explained quickly, watching her niece’s face carefully. "He’s at the door. He says he needs to explain. He says... there has been a misunderstanding."

A harsh, disbelieving laugh escaped Georgia’s lips. "A misunderstanding? Is that what we’re calling it now?" The anger returned, a shield against the hurt. "I misunderstood an engagement announcement? I misunderstood his entire family preparing for a wedding?"

"He claims the announcement was his family’s doing, not his. That he’s been fighting it. That he was coming to tell you when you found out."

Georgia stared at her, conflict written clearly across her face. The part of her that still loved him clung to that fragile thread of hope. The part that was humiliated and shattered screamed to throw him out.

"I don’t want to see him," she said, but the words lacked strength.

"He says he’ll leave if you tell him to his face," Lyla said gently. "But he wants a chance to apologize... to you."

Georgia looked down at the sweater in her hands, her fingers tracing the seam. The silence stretched between them. Finally, she placed the sweater into the suitcase with careful precision.

"Okay," she whispered, not looking up.

"Okay?"

"I’ll see him. But you stay. In the living room. I’m not... I’m not being alone with him."

Lyla nodded, relief and anxiety mixing inside her chest. "Of course."

A few minutes later, Georgia stood in the living room, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, as Lyla went to the front door. Aaron was exactly where she had left him, looking like he hadn’t breathed the entire time.

"She’ll see you," Lyla said. "Come in. But remember what I said."

Aaron nodded and stepped inside as if entering sacred ground. His eyes found Georgia immediately, and the look on his face, deep remorse, fear, and unwavering love, was so open it made Lyla’s chest ache.

The clock in Aaron’s mind seemed to thunder. He swallowed hard, his hands flexing at his sides as if trying to catch the right words in the air between them.

"Alright," he breathed. "Five minutes."

He took a step closer, but the icy distance in her gaze made the space feel impossible to cross. He stopped, grounding himself in the center of Aunt Lyla’s quiet living room.

"The engagement," he began, the word sounding like an accusation against himself. "It’s real. It exists on paper, in society columns, in my father’s business plans. But it was never my choice, Georgia. You have to believe that. I walked away from my family’s world years ago because I couldn’t breathe in it. I chose to become an investigator, to find truth, to help people who had no one else. It was the one clean decision I ever made for myself."