The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 579

"They're going off to have some alone time. They don't want you anymore."

Archie pouted.

"Are you just saying that because you're single and jealous of my mom and dad?!"

*

Half an hour later.

With a soft creak, the door pushed open. Sloane followed Garrison into the apartment she had lived in for years...

She stopped in the entryway, her footsteps slowly coming to a halt.

The layout in the living room was exactly the same as it had been six years ago.

The beige fabric sofa still sat to the left of the floor-to-ceiling windows. It was the exact one she had dragged herself to several furniture stores to pick out.

The coffee table was draped in the crocheted lace cloth she had made herself, the beige cotton threads slightly faded from too many washes.

On the TV stand sat the ceramic cats she used to collect—one orange, one white, sitting side by side. The dust on their little ears had been meticulously wiped clean.

"You... you kept all this?"

Her voice was barely above a whisper.

Standing behind her, Garrison pressed his lips together and gave a low, quiet, "Yeah."

After a long pause, he finally spoke, his voice carrying a rough edge, as if confessing a secret he had hidden for a lifetime.

"On the nights I couldn't sleep, I would just sit in the living room and look at all these things, one by one. I'd imagine how you used to sit right here, waiting for me to come home..."

"I'd just keep looking, and before I knew it, the sun would come up..."

Sloane sighed quietly in her heart.