He Gave My Room to Her, So I Took My Life Back novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: What Gabe Knew

Gabe's POV

I knew who was knocking before I opened the door.

It was a quarter past nine on Sunday, and I had been awake since four.

Brooke stood on my porch with my truck keys in one hand and her phone in the other.

She hadn't slept either. Her braid had come loose, and her eyes were red from the cat.

"You told me sometimes it's one," she said. "I think I found out which."

I stepped back and let her in.

She didn't sit down. She held out the phone, with a photograph open on it.

It was the first page of my own divorce decree.

I looked at it for a while.

I had signed that paper in a lawyer's office in Wenatchee five weeks ago, and I had felt nothing at all.

"Where did you get this?" I asked.

"The lining of her suitcase." Her voice shook once and steadied. "There's more."

She swiped.

A listing for her house, with an arrow. A stack of photographs of my own porch.

The last one showed the two of us under the light on Thursday night, with my hand around her wrist.

I put my back against the wall.

"She took that from my bedroom window," Brooke said. "While I was holding a ladder."

"I know," I said.

She stared at me.

"I saw her the day you moved in," I said. "The first Saturday. She stood at the upstairs window with the curtains open, and she was looking straight at my porch."

"You knew," Brooke said, "and you let me sleep in that room."

"Yes."

I didn't dress it up. I couldn't.

"I wasn't sure it was her. I told myself it was a stranger and a bad angle. Then you said she'd just gotten divorced, and I knew."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

I thought about how to say it, and in the end I just said it.

← Chapter 10 · All chapters · Chapter 12 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend