Eight Years Of Waiting For His Flight Schedule Ended With A One-Way Ticket Chapter 08

Eight Years Of Waiting For His Flight Schedule Ended With A One-Way Ticket Chapter 08

I didn’t flinch. Didn’t drop my bowl.

I finished the last bite of peach cobbler and wiped my mouth with a napkin.

“You’ve got the wrong place. This is private property.”

He walked in and closed the gate behind him.

He’d lost weight. Stubble on his jaw. His usually crisp shirt was wrinkled and clinging to him.

He looked wrecked. Nothing like the polished captain I remembered.

“Clara, I’m sorry.”

He came toward me, voice hoarse, eyes veined with red.

“I kicked Amber out. I threw away all her stuff. From now on, the jumpseat is yours. I changed my phone passcode to your birthday. Please come home.”

Like a kid who’d done something wrong, showing off how he’d fixed it.

I looked at him calmly. Like a stranger.

“You flew all the way here to tell me you took out the trash?”

He froze.

He’d expected me to scream. Cry. Accuse him.

He didn’t expect this. This cold. This flat.

“No… I brought you this.”

He pulled a manila envelope from inside his jacket and held it out with both hands.

Something he’d never given me before, no matter how much I’d begged.

“Company-approved jumpseat pass. Permanent. Whenever you want to see thirty thousand feet, we go.”

Then he took out the neatly folded “Debt List” from his pocket.

“This is what I owe you. I can’t go back and do your surgery with you, but I booked you the best health screening. The Lights—we’ll go next month. Anywhere you want, I’ll fly. And your mom’s heart—I talked to a specialist…”

He was rambling, trying to fill eight years of emptiness with promises.

I looked at the list and almost laughed.

“Nathan.”

I cut him off.

“You think I left because you didn’t give me this pass? Because you didn’t take me to see the Lights?”

He stopped.

“That’s a workplace, not a theme park.” Those were your words.”

I stood up and walked toward him.

“Eight years ago I asked you because I was in love with you. I wanted to see the world you loved. I don’t want it anymore because you—you mean nothing to me now.”

I reached out and pushed the jumpseat pass back against his chest.

“You’re too late.”

Nathan’s tears finally fell.

“Clara, please… I know I’m a selfish jerk. I know I ignored you. But I can’t do this without you. I go back to that empty apartment and I feel like I’m losing my mind…”

He tried to reach for me.

I stepped back. Away from his touch.

“You don’t miss me. You just can’t stand that your maid quit. You don’t miss me—you miss being comfortable.”

Every word hit.

His face went white. Like all the air had been sucked out of him.

“That’s not true… I love you…”

“Love?” I laughed softly. “When you sent Amber sunset pictures, did you think about me? When you watched the Northern Lights in Finland, did you think about me waiting?”

“Telling me you love me now—doesn’t that disgust you?”

He stood there, lips trembling, unable to say a word.

He finally understood. Some things break and you can’t put them back together.

I turned, picked up the empty bowl, and walked toward the kitchen.

“Get out. Don’t dirty my yard.”

When I came back out after washing the bowl, he was still standing in the yard.

The night breeze in Sierra Vista was cool. It pulled at his shirt.

He looked at me with desperate, helpless regret.

Finally, he bent down slowly and set the pass and the Debt List on the stone table.

“I’m sorry.”

He turned, pushed open the gate, and walked away.

I went to the table. Picked up the paper and the pass.

Didn’t even look at them. Dropped them straight into the trash.