Chapter 19: Ingrid's Turn

Ingrid's POV

I heard it from the corner of the hallway, where I had gone to get out of the crowd.

I did not mean to listen. My boots just stopped.

"You would have forgiven me," Brooke said. "I couldn't stand it."

I could see his back at the end of the pine hall, the set of his shoulders.

"I would have," Finbar said.

She smiled, a little, because she thought she had won something.

"That's why I'm not going to," he said. "Not for the six years, and not for Hattie. You knew I'd say yes, so you made sure I never had to."

"Finbar."

"You took the choice and called it a kindness. It was the cruelest thing anyone has ever done to me."

She started to cry. It was the real kind, with no camera on it, and I looked away.

He didn't touch her. He went past her, down the stairs, and out the front door.

I got into my truck before he could see me.

It was two and a half hours home, up Highway 61 with the lake on my right hand.

I drove it at the speed limit with the radio off.

I told myself he had said no to his old job in a lit room with the whole county watching, and that was easy.

Anyone can say no in a good light.

I had heard men say they would stay. My ex said it on the stairs of my own shop, with a coffee in his hand.

The sun went down behind the hills, and I put the truck in the gravel and sat in the cab without turning off the engine.

Then I went into the cottage and did not turn on any lights.

I stood at the kitchen window until eleven, and then until midnight.

I had made up my mind by then. He would call from Duluth in the morning. He'd be kind about it, and tell me he'd see me at Christmas.

I would say it was fine. I'd be good at that.

Keep reading free with an account. Start An Anonymous Confession Game Ruined My Wedding from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.