He Cancelled Our Future for Her Anxiety novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Key

Owen's POV

For ten years I have kept a bag packed.

It sits on the shelf above the coats in every place I've lived.

It is a gray duffel with a passport, three shirts and four hundred dollars in cash.

Corinne found it on Tuesday when she reached for a hanger.

She looked at it, and then at me, and said nothing, which was how I knew she had understood.

On Friday morning I stood in the head of department's office with the bag still on the shelf at home and a contract in front of me.

"It's a three-year fellowship," she said. "You turned it down in March."

"I did."

"The reason you gave was that you weren't sure you'd be in London."

"That was the reason."

She folded her hands.

"Last night a young man told a hall full of people he'd been paid to love someone.

"Then I watched you walk up the steps with that folder." She looked at me over her glasses. "I don't think you were ever unsure about London, Dr. Strand. I think you were unsure you were allowed."

I didn't answer.

She slid the pen across the desk.

"I'd like you to stay," she said. "I've wanted that for a year. I just couldn't tell you that the choice was yours."

I looked at the line for my signature.

Everything I owned had been chosen so I could leave it quickly.

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