He Abandoned Our Wedding, I Destroyed His Life novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Not Home

The smile went off my face.

I didn't step back, and I didn't let go of the door.

"How did you get in?"

"Somebody was coming out." He held the roses toward me. "Aud, please. Five minutes."

Across the hall, a lock turned.

My neighbor opened her door the width of the chain, in a bathrobe, with her phone already in her hand.

She looked at Chris.

She looked at the roses.

"Is this the fiancé?" she said. "From the news?"

"Ex," I said.

"Do you want me to call somebody?"

"Not yet."

She nodded and didn't close her door.

Chris lowered his voice.

"I've been thinking about it all week. About the boat. About the... the pancakes. Jade showed me your post."

"I didn't post anything."

"The kid did. On the club's page. You, in an apron." He swallowed. "You never cooked for me."

"You never bought a second skillet."

He didn't know what that meant.

He pushed on anyway.

"I'll drop the case. Tomorrow. I'll call Jade first thing and tell her I'm out."

"You can go back to the firm, we'll get the apartment back, I'll tell the partners it was my call."

I looked at him for a long moment.

He meant it.

That was the worst part.

"Chris. It isn't yours to drop."

"What?"

"It's her case. She's your client. You just offered to sell out your own client to get your girlfriend back." I said it slowly. "In front of a witness."

My neighbor raised her phone half an inch.

Chris's face changed.

I watched him hear it.

"That's not what I meant."

"I know exactly what you meant. You'd drop her the way you dropped me. Whenever someone else needed you more."

"You need me, Aud. You always needed me."

"I paid for three weddings," I said. "I didn't need you. I wanted you. There's a difference, and you never once noticed it."

He held out the roses again.

I didn't take them.

"Go home, Chris. I'm not coming home. This isn't home and neither is that."

He stood there.

Then he set the roses on the hallway floor, very carefully, and walked to the stairs.

We listened to the street door bang.

My neighbor took the chain off her door.

"I'd have thrown those at him," she said.

"I thought about it."

"They're nice roses, though."

"You can have them."

She picked them up, sniffed them, and went back inside.

I closed my door.

I stood in my dark apartment with my back against the door for a moment.

Then I put my shoes back on.

Union Park was four blocks.

I walked them fast, in jeans and the gray cardigan I'd worn at the office, with my keys in my fist and nothing else.

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