Escape from Mr. Whitman (Emma and Theodore) novel Chapter 374

She’s really gone?

A voice echoed in Theodore’s mind again: “Hey, Theodore, you remember that girl from your class, Emma…”

“Shut up!” he snapped.

Renee seemed to remember something else. “Oh, right. Not like you could tell Emma, anyway. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be having dinner with me, rambling on and on.”

Theodore said nothing.

Lately, his dreams kept taking him back to when he was sixteen or seventeen. Sometimes, chatting with Renee felt like he could almost smell autumn’s sweet fragrance drifting through time.

Renee’s voice continued, “Only people who are miserable keep looking back. The ones with something to look forward to just move on. Theodore, let Emma go. She deserves a better future.”

A sharp, twisting pain shot through his chest, and his vision blurred.

Now, even if he wanted to hold on, he couldn’t.

He didn’t have the right to hold on anymore.

“Renee,” he said, his voice strained, “I regret everything…”

For the past two months, he’d been riding high, reckless and wild. Now, every bit of that bravado had curdled into loneliness and regret.

“Theodore,” Renee scoffed on the other end, “You had this coming! Don’t act like some tragic lover now. You think I haven’t seen your posts? That whole speech about ‘spending my whole life working for you’—the first time I saw it, I thought you meant Emma. Turns out it was about your side chick! What, you think just because you deleted it, nobody remembers?”

Theodore froze for a second. When had he ever posted that?

Theodore hesitated, struggling for words. After a long pause, he said quietly, “Renee, if I told you I love Emma, would you believe me?”

“Bullshit!” Renee exploded, swearing at him. “Don’t give me that tragic lover act! You don’t love anyone but yourself, you selfish, self-serving bastard! Ask yourself, do you really love anyone? Whether it’s your side chick or Emma, you only love whoever happens to be there for you. Don’t tell me you’re actually in love with that homewrecker. The truth is, you only ever loved yourself! If you’d just kept quiet, maybe I wouldn’t have said anything, but now? You make me sick, you dog!”

She laid into him, not holding anything back.

The office was silent. Renee’s voice was so loud it echoed off the walls, even though he didn’t have her on speaker. When Jared came in with Cecilia, the only thing they caught clearly was: “You dog!”

Cecilia’s face changed. She hurried over, demanding, “Who were you talking to?”

By then, Renee had already hung up. Theodore held his phone, answering, “An old classmate.”