He Said One Kneel Bought Forever Love, but Finally Begged Me Back Chapter 09

He Said One Kneel Bought Forever Love, but Finally Begged Me Back Chapter 09

The clerk called our number. That’s when Sloane burst through the doors.

She’d cut her hair short since I’d last seen her. Dark circles under her eyes. The swagger was gone.

She grabbed Graham.

“You’re really going through with this?” *

Graham shoved her hand off.

“This has nothing to do with you.”

Sloane stared at the papers in my hand. Then she smiled, a bitter, twisted smile.

“She’s never going to forgive you. So just let her go.”

“We’ve had twenty years, Graham. Just be with me.”

“I’m tired of watching you play house with other women.”

Graham looked at her like he’d never seen her before.

“What did you just say?”

“I said I love you.”

Her voice was shaking, but the words came faster and faster.

“I grew up with you. I was there for every fight, every time you cut class, every late night you spent building your company.”

“Why should I disappear just because you get a girlfriend?”

“I drove off every girl before her.”

“I claimed your clothes. Slept in your bed. Kissed you right in front of them.”

“They saw you’d always pick me. None of them lasted.”

She turned to me. The resentment in her eyes was old. Years old.

“But you were different.”

“You loved him too much to let go.”

“I took your ring. Deleted your photos. Left lipstick on his neck. And you still wouldn’t leave.”

“So I kept pushing. Every time, a little further.”

“The whole ‘best man’ stunt at the wedding? Forcing him to admit I was the boss? That was a test.”

“I wanted you to see it for yourself. He’d always choose me.”

The color drained from Graham’s face.

“Vandalizing her mother’s grave. You did that on purpose too?”

Sloane didn’t answer.

She didn’t have to.

Graham shoved her backward, staring at her with pure disgust.

She stumbled, catching her balance, and let out a sharp laugh.

“Act disgusted all you want!”

“You picked me every single time.”

“You let me live in your house. You took me on that trip instead of her. You snapped the memory card of your own child’s heartbeat in half with your bare hands.”

“You liked it. Knowing I mattered more than any of them.”

“Now that Laurel’s done with you, suddenly I’m the problem?”

Graham didn’t move.

Twenty years. He’d called it friendship. It had never been that.

But Sloane wasn’t wrong.

What she did didn’t erase what he did.

Every decision that hurt me was his.

I turned and walked into the courthouse.

Graham followed.

This time, he didn’t try to stop me.

When it was time to sign, the pen shook in his hand for a long time.

The clerk had to ask him twice before he signed.

I took the decree. His voice was barely there. “Laurel, will I ever see you again?”

“No.”

“What about Milo?”

My hand tightened around the doppler in my bag.

“We can both remember him. We don’t need to be married for that.”

I walked out of the courthouse.

Behind me, I could hear Sloane sobbing in the hallway.

Graham didn’t go after her. He didn’t come after me.

Three years later, I finished the project and came back to Ashbourne for a research exhibition.

A mutual friend brought up Graham over dinner.

Graham hadn’t remarried. He’d cut Sloane out completely.

The apartment was exactly the way I’d left it.

The star-shaped lights in the nursery were turned on every night.

Every day, he played those six seconds of Milo’s heartbeat.

During the day, he went to work. Took meetings. Looked the same as before.

At night, he couldn’t sleep without pills.

One night, his mother stopped by and heard him talking in his sleep.

“I’ll shut Sloane’s joke down.”

“Get out of here, Sloane.”

“Laurel, this time I choose you.”

In the dream, he was back at the wedding. The family toasts.

He knocked the glass away. Took my hand. Threw out everyone who’d laughed at me.

He promised to protect me. And the veil my mother left me.

0

In the dream, I didn’t cancel the wedding

I stood in my dress and smiled at him.

Our friend paused.

“The only place he gets to be happy is when he’s asleep.”

I took a sip of my coffee.

I didn’t feel vindicated. I didn’t feel any lingering spark.

Some people only realize what they had when it’s already gone.

The café door opened.

A familiar figure walked in with the afternoon light behind him and draped his jacket over my

shoulders.

“The dress is ready. The designer’s waiting. Want to go try it on?”

I closed my laptop and took his hand.

“Let’s go.”

At the door, I glanced back through the window.

The wedding that never finished was three years and a lifetime ago.

This time, no one would sit at the head table and tell me to turn a blind eye.

No one would make me pay for love with my dignity.

This time, the wedding was mine.