His Final Wish Said He Settled for Me, So Reborn, I Left novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The First Choice
Leah overhears her dying husband say he only settled for her, leaves her ring on his tray, and wakes up fourteen years back at the diner counter.
Thirteen years of marriage ended with a sentence I was never meant to hear.
I was standing outside Calvin's hospice room with two paper cups of ice chips.
The door was open a hand's width.
His mother sat by the bed, holding his wrist the way she always did.
The monitor beeped slow and uneven.
"Mom," Calvin said.
His voice was only air by then, but I heard every word.
"After I'm gone, call Jocelyn Ellington."
"I will," his mother said.
"Tell her she was my first choice."
His mother did not answer.
"Tell her I settled for Leah," he said.
The ice chips slid in the cup, because my hand had started shaking.
"It worked out fine," he whispered. "She was steady. She stayed."
"Hush now," his mother said.
"Don't tell Leah. Let her think I was happy."
I was thirty-seven years old.
I had spent the last four of those years sleeping in a recliner beside his hospital bed.
I had learned to read a pill organizer faster than a menu.
I had learned to hear his breathing change from two rooms away.
I had given up a place in a school in Cincinnati, and a dozen other things I couldn't name anymore.
All of it had gone to a man who called me his settlement on his deathbed.
I pushed the door open.
Calvin's eyes found me before his mother's did.
They went wide, then wet, then very guilty.
"Leah," he said.
"Say it to me," I said.
"Honey, I didn't..."
"You said it to her. Say it to me."
His mother stood up so fast the chair scraped the floor.
"Leah, he's on a lot of morphine. He doesn't know what he's saying."
"He knew Jocelyn's full name," I said.
Nobody answered that.
The monitor beeped, and beeped, and beeped.
Calvin tried to lift his hand toward mine.
It was the same hand I had washed, and warmed, and held through eleven hospital stays.
I did not take it.
I twisted my wedding ring off my finger.
It stuck at the knuckle, because I had worn it for thirteen years.
I worked it loose and set it on his food tray, next to the untouched applesauce.
"Leah, please," Calvin said.
"You had a first choice," I said. "Go be with her."
I walked out into the corridor.
His mother called my name twice, and the second time it sounded like an order.
I kept walking.
I passed the nurses' station without seeing a single face.
I pushed through the door marked STAIRS because I couldn't stand to wait for an elevator.
I made it down one flight.
Then my legs quit, and I sat on the cold concrete step with both hands over my mouth.
I wasn't crying yet.
I was counting, the way I counted pills.
Thirteen years of dinners I cooked with his low-sodium list taped inside the cupboard.
Thirteen years of birthdays at his mother's house, where I carried the plates.
A dozen vacations canceled because his heart acted up.
And I had never once asked myself if I was the one he wanted.
Above me, the stairwell door banged open.
Footsteps came down fast.
"Mrs. Reeve?" a nurse called. "Mrs. Reeve, he's asking for you. His pressure is dropping."
I looked up at her.
"He asked for Jocelyn," I said.
The nurse blinked.
I stood, and my vision went white at the edges.
My chest squeezed tight.
The railing slid out from under my fingers.
The last thing I heard was the nurse shouting for help.
Then everything went warm and loud and bright.
Plates clinked.
A fryer hissed.
Someone said, "Leah. Leah! Table six has been waiting on that coffee."
I opened my eyes.
I was standing behind the register at Marlow's Diner in Dayton, Ohio.
My hands were small and smooth, with no reading glasses in my apron pocket.
On the counter lay a receipt, and on the back of it, in blue ink, was a phone number.
Underneath it, in handwriting I would have known anywhere, were the words: Call me, pretty girl. Calvin.
The date printed at the top of the receipt was fourteen years ago.
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