I Walked Away Seven Years Too Late But Right on Time novel Chapter 9

Right before falling asleep that night, Sophie checked her phone and noticed a notification from her bank. Fifty thousand dollars had just been wired into her checking account.

She opened the banking app and checked the transaction history. The money was from Luke Lawrence, transferred two hours ago.

She couldn't tell if the overwhelming feeling in her chest was sheer tragedy or profound relief.

A clean transaction.

Maybe it was severance pay for the abortion. Maybe it was a buyout for seven years of her life.

Sophie tapped open her email app.

Sure enough, a new message from Luke sat in her inbox.

*"Where are you?"*

She opened the second email, sent right before the wire transfer.

*"Call me."*

Was it really that hard for him to figure out where she was?

He knew perfectly well she had no friends to crash with and nowhere to run but home. He knew exactly what city she was from, and her permanent address was sitting in the HR department's files.

If he gave even the slightest damn, he could have pulled her file in five minutes.

It wasn't that he couldn't find her. He just couldn't be bothered to try.

She had never been worth the effort.

What was she supposed to say if she called him back?

Listen to him ask, *"How much more do you want?"*

Sophie couldn't stomach it.

She couldn't slap a price tag on a decade of devotion. To her, what she gave him was priceless.

But in Luke's eyes, her love had a definitive market value, and it capped out at fifty grand.

Fine. Fifty grand it was.

At least this finalized the absolute death of her feelings for him. She swiftly blocked his email address and permanently deleted the entire thread.

She needed to sever every last tie to that life.

That very night, Sophie decided exactly what to do with the money.

All she needed was an employment contract to get approved for the mortgage.

For the next few days, Sophie spent her mornings waiting for interview emails and her afternoons touring developments.

Riding the city buses, she slowly reacquainted herself with the hometown she had abandoned eleven years ago.

You could go from being strangers with a city, to knowing it intimately, and then becoming strangers all over again. It was the same with people. She and Luke went from strangers to lovers, and now they were slowly turning back into strangers.

Sophie had just walked out of a model home when her phone rang. It was Sarah.

"Sophie, where are you? Can you do me a massive favor and pick up Mia from daycare?"

Sarah rattled off the address. It was only a few blocks from the development Sophie was touring.

"Will the teachers even let me take her?" Sophie hesitated. To this little girl—Mia Jenkins—she was a total stranger. No sane teacher would hand a kid over to someone they didn't know.

"Just get over there first. I'm stuck at the hospital with my elderly client, and I can't catch a cab. If I take the bus, I'll be incredibly late. Just go so Mia knows someone is there and doesn't panic. I already called her dad; he's on his way too."

Following her mother's instructions, Sophie hurried to the preschool. She watched as kids were picked up one by one by their parents. By the end, there was only one little girl left, clutching a teacher's hand and wiping away pathetic, silent tears.

"Hi, I'm Sophie. My mother, Sarah, asked me to pick up Mia... sorry, Mia Jenkins."

Sophie spent five minutes trying to explain the convoluted chain of custody, but the teacher firmly refused to hand Mia over, opting to call Jason Jenkins instead.