Everyone Knew She'd Leave Me but Me novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: Twenty Minutes
Brooke and her mother come to the condo with movers, and Warner gives them twenty minutes in front of the neighbors. His savings balance drops to fourteen cents.
I got home at ten and didn't turn on the lights.
My condo looked like it always did, with Brooke's throw pillows on the couch and her candles on every shelf.
I had paid for all of it, and until tonight I had never counted.
My sister Maggie let herself in with her own key at 10:15, still in her scrubs.
She dropped a pint of ice cream on the counter and looked at my face.
"You look like you got hit by the bus I drive in my nightmares," she said. "Who do I kill?"
"Brooke's coming for her things."
"Tonight?"
"Her mother texted. She says she's bringing movers."
Maggie put two spoons down very slowly.
"Good. Let them come. I'll watch."
They arrived at 10:40.
Brooke used her key, because I hadn't changed the locks yet.
She came in with Marlene and two big men in black T-shirts who carried flat boxes and wouldn't look at anyone.
Marlene still had my gift bag on her arm.
She walked straight to the middle of the living room and turned in a slow circle.
"Well," she said. "We'll start with the sofa."
I set my phone on the kitchen counter and started a timer.
"You have twenty minutes."
"Excuse me?"
"Twenty minutes, then you give me the key." I looked at Brooke. "Everything that's yours, take it."
Brooke's eyes were red, and her ring was still on her hand.
"Warner, you don't have to do this."
"I really do."
Marlene let out a short laugh.
"Listen to him, Brooke. Playing landlord in my daughter's home."
I opened the folder on the counter, the one I'd pulled out of the desk before they came.
"This is the deed," I said. "My name. This is the Audi lease. My name. The electric, the internet, the building fees. My name, my card."
Marlene didn't look at the papers.
"I'd like you to name one thing in this condo that you paid for," I said. "Just one. And then I'd like you to explain why you called me a gigolo in a hallway."
A neighbor from across the landing had opened her door to see what the noise was.
She stood there in her bathrobe, holding her cat.
"Is that the man who paid for the whole wedding?" she asked the movers.
One of them looked at the ceiling.
Marlene's face turned a dark, blotchy pink.
"We don't need to air this in front of the building."
"You aired it in front of two hundred people tonight," Maggie said.
She was perched on a barstool, eating ice cream straight from the carton.
"Don't let me stop you. Take the espresso machine. It's Brooke's. He bought it, but she liked it."
Marlene turned on her and then thought better of it.
She waved the movers toward the bedroom.
For eighteen minutes there was only the sound of tape and boxes.
A man in black carried out Brooke's winter coats. The other carried the candles, two to a hand.
Marlene lifted the framed engagement photo off the wall above the couch.
It was the one from the lake, with Brooke laughing and my arm around her.
"This is hers," Marlene said. "She won't want you keeping it."
"Take it."
She pulled too hard.
The frame hit the corner of the bookshelf and the glass cracked across the middle.
A long, thin shard dropped to the floor, and I bent to pick it up before anyone stepped on it.
It sliced the heel of my left hand.
Blood ran down my wrist before I felt anything.
"Oh, my God," Brooke said.
She took one step toward me, and Marlene caught her sleeve.
"Leave him. It's a scratch."
Maggie was already off the stool, pulling a dish towel off the oven door.
She pressed it into my palm and held it there, hard.
"Out," she said to Marlene. "Now."
The timer on the counter went off.
I watched them go, one by one, past the neighbor in her robe.
Marlene went first with her chin up and the shattered frame in her arms, and the movers followed with the boxes.
Brooke was last.
She stopped in the doorway with her key in her hand.
"Dean makes me feel like somebody picked me," she said. "You never did."
"I picked you for four years."
"You picked me and then you stopped asking what I wanted."
She said it gently.
She put the key on the table by the door.
Her phone lit up in her other hand, and she looked at it, not at me, and her thumb moved across the screen.
I felt my own phone buzz on the counter.
Maggie reached it first.
She read the bank alert, and the color went out of her face.
"Warner," she said. "Look at the balance on the joint savings."
I took the phone.
Brooke was already in the elevator when I read it.
"Available balance: $0.14."
← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →
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