System Erased Her From My Memory novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: All of It

I left Maia asleep at six with a note on the pillow that said, Gone to the lake. Back in daylight.

The sky over the water was the color of a pearl.

I found Delaney on the pier at Pier Eleven, where I'd carried ice for her father's bankers.

She was sitting at the very end with her legs over the edge and her shoes beside her.

She had a small velvet box in her lap.

"I didn't sleep," she said, without turning.

"Neither did I."

"I wanted to give you this before I lost my nerve."

She held up the box.

I knew what was in it.

The diamond the size of a grape.

"That's the ring you wore to make me jealous," I said.

"Dalton never gave me a ring. I bought it myself, after I left, so the engagement would look real." She laughed, thin and tired. "I think I'd like to be done with it."

"Then keep it, or sell it."

"Maybe." She turned the box over in her hands. "Wes, I'm going to Door County. My father has a small hotel up there, thirty rooms, a bad roof. He said I could run it if I could last a year."

"Can you?"

"I don't know." She finally looked up. "I'd like to find out."

The voice spoke inside my head, soft in the morning stillness.

"Payment 5: Delaney Vanstone must let him go."

I felt my whole body stiffen.

I started to speak, but she was already shaking her head.

"I know," she said. "I heard it too, I think. I didn't have to hear it." She stood. She was shorter than I remembered. "Wes, I'm not asking you for anything. I'm not going to wait on a pier for you to call. You don't owe me forgiveness, you don't owe me your time, and you don't owe me a goodbye. I'm letting you go."

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