I returned our home while he toured with her novel Chapter 8

Chapter 8

“Hi, is Wren Marlow in?”

Kyler’s voice at the front desk of my new office. Day seven in the new city, and he’d found

1. I sat at my desk and watched him through the glass. He’d lost weight, hadn’t shaved, dark circles under his eyes. In his hand, a paper bag.

The receptionist glanced at me. I shook my head.

“Ms. Marlow isn’t in today.”

“She’s not? When will she be back?”

“I’m not sure. Would you like to leave something?”

He stood there a moment, then pulled something from the bag and set it on the counter.

“Please give this to her.”

He left. The receptionist brought it over. A cashmere scarf, deep blue, no letters anywhere. Tucked inside the box was a note. [Last winter you said you wanted a cashmere scarf. I said it wasn’t necessary. I’m sorry. A year late.]

A year late. Last year I wanted one, and he called it unnecessary. This year he flew to another city to deliver it. But in that year, Seraphina had already received the burgundy one. I

put the scarf in my drawer.

At five p.m., a coworker came over. “Wren, there’s a guy who’s been standing in the lobby all afternoon. Security asked who he’s waiting for, and he just said ‘someone.”

I walked to the window and looked down. Kyler stood outside the lobby doors, hands in

his pockets, staring at his phone.

I took the elevator down and pushed the door open. His head snapped up.

“Wren.”

“How did you find me?”

“I asked Mia.”

He looked at me, his lips moving like he’d rehearsed a thousand things but couldn’t get a

single one out.

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“You’ve lost weight.”

“So have you.”

“You know how I got here? Red-eye flight, landed in the middle of the night. Nobody to

pick me up. I called a rideshare at the airport.”

He paused. “The driver asked where I was headed. I said a hotel. He said, ‘All alone this

late?’ I said yeah. Forty-minute drive, barely any cars on the road. I sat in the back, staring out

the window, and it hit me.”

“What hit you?”

“Every time you came back from my mom’s, this is what it was like for you, wasn’t it?

Alone, late, nobody to take you home.”

“I didn’t go that often.”

“But every time you did, you got yourself back. I never once drove you.” His voice started

to shake. “Wren, in those minutes in that car, I realized I’d been a complete asshole for five

years.”

“Kyler-”

“Let me finish.” He pulled something from his pocket. That silver cherry blossom

necklace.

“I got it back from Seraphina.”

“You never should have given it in the first place.”

“I know.”

“Do you know what’s engraved on it?”

“K. My initial.”

“You put your initial on a necklace for another woman. Do you think that’s normal?”

He was silent. “No.”

“When you custom-ordered that for her, did you ever think your fiancée didn’t even have a

plain one?”

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“No.”

“When you took her to Japan every year, did you ever remember the every single ‘next times’ you promised me?”

“No.”

“When you helped her move a cabinet, did you remember I asked you to move a box of books and you said your back hurt?”

“No.”

With every “no,” his voice sank lower.

“Wren, I always thought you didn’t need any of that. You never complained. You never

got mad. So I honestly believed you didn’t care.”

“I cared. I just didn’t say it.”

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