The Graduation Trap novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Five Years Patient
Joanna overhears her husband promise his first love he will keep her trapped for life, drops her ring into a champagne glass and walks out, straight into Sullivan Brennan.
My mother-in-law tapped her fork against her glass and stood to toast our fifth anniversary in front of sixty guests.
"To Joanna," she said. "Who has been so very patient with my son."
The guests laughed.
My husband laughed too, a short breath through his nose, and looked at his phone.
It buzzed against the tablecloth.
He read the screen and his face softened into something I had not seen on it in years.
"Excuse me," he said, and walked out of the restaurant before his mother had finished her sentence.
The chair beside mine was still empty.
My best friend Daphne had texted that she was stuck in traffic and would be here for dessert.
Rain had started against the tall windows.
He had left his coat on the back of his chair.
I picked it up and went after him.
I told myself it was only the coat.
He was standing on the corner outside, under the hotel awning, with one hand over his other ear.
I stopped behind a stone planter ten feet away.
"I know," he said. "I know. Don't cry."
His voice was gentle, the way it was when he talked to dogs and old women.
"Daphne, listen to me. It's tonight, it's one dinner, and then I'm yours for the evening."
I stood very still with his coat in my arms.
"No. She suspects nothing. She never does."
A bus went by and I lost a few words.
"Joanna isn't going anywhere," he said when it passed. "I'll keep her in that house, under that note, until we're both old, if that is what it takes for you to sleep at night."
He listened.
"You're the only one who matters to me. You know that."
I walked back inside.
I did not run, and I did not cry, because I was thinking about the note.
The Archibalds had paid my mother's hospital bills the year she died.
They held the deed to her house on Alder Street as security, and it would come free on our tenth anniversary.
If I left before then, Cynthia could take the house.
I had stayed five years for that house, and for the fault I believed was mine.
I sat down in my seat.
Three minutes later the doors opened and Daphne came in, shaking rain out of her hair.
"I'm so sorry, everyone, the roads are a disaster!"
She kissed my mother-in-law's cheek, and she hugged me from behind, hard, her damp coat cold through my dress.
"You look beautiful, Jo. Hold still."
She fixed the strap on my shoulder.
Then she picked up the champagne bottle and filled my glass, the way she had at every party since we were nineteen.
"Here. Just how you like it."
I had never ordered my own drink in front of her, not once in ten years.
"Thank you," I said.
My voice sounded normal.
My husband, Braden, came back to the table with his phone dark in his hand and kissed the top of my head.
"Sorry. Work."
"You left your coat," I said, and laid it over his knees.
His mother, Cynthia, lifted her glass again.
"Where were we? Yes. Five years. Braden, a few words for your wife."
He half rose, smiling the smile he used for his mother.
"Joanna," he said, "you've been wonderful."
"Say it again," I said.
The table went quiet.
"Say what you said on the corner, Braden. To Daphne. About keeping me in the house until we're both old."
Nobody moved.
Daphne's hand came across the cloth and covered mine.
"Jo, honey, I wasn't even here. Whatever you heard, I'm sure he didn't mean it the way it sounded."
Her eyes were wet, and her hand was warm.
Braden didn't look at her.
He looked at me, and the soft look was gone.
"Sit down, Joanna," he said. "You're making a scene at my mother's table."
He did not say he hadn't said it.
Cynthia set down her glass.
"If you leave this room, you will not be going home to Alder Street. I will have the note called in the morning."
"Mother," Daphne whispered, "please, don't."
I took off my wedding ring.
I dropped it into the champagne Daphne had poured, and it sank and touched the bottom.
"Keep the house," I said to Cynthia. "Keep the five years too."
Braden stood up.
"Joanna. If you walk out of here, don't come back."
So I walked out.
I went through the lobby, past the doormen and the wet planters, and out under the awning where he had stood.
The rain was heavy now.
Across the street, a man was leaning against the door of a bar with its sign off, a cigarette dead in his fingers.
He was soaked, and he was looking at me.
I knew the shape of him before I knew the face.
Seven years ago, on graduation night, I had led a drunk Daphne Lowell toward that man's bedroom door.
He pushed off the wall and crossed the street without hurrying.
"Joanna Gidley," Sullivan Brennan said. "Took you long enough."
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