He Gave Away My House During the Vows, So I Canceled the Marriage Chapter 09

He Gave Away My House During the Vows, So I Canceled the Marriage Chapter 09

Jason never lived to see the sentencing.

He couldn’t handle the fall from grace. He went from the golden boy everyone envied to a convicted felon awaiting judgment.

On a warm, sunny afternoon, he jumped into the river near his hometown.

The villagers didn’t find him until three days later.

The current carried his body downstream to an old stone bridge, where a fallen branch caught him.

When they pulled him out, he was swollen and pale, his features so distorted he was no longer

recognizable.

In his suit pocket, he carried only his law license.

Margaret lost her mind when she identified the body.

She stood there staring for a long time. Then she ran to the bloated, unrecognizable corpse, laughing and crying, babbling the same words again and again.

“My son was so successful… My son was a lawyer in the big city…”

They sent her back to her hometown. She sat every day on the stone step outside her front door, asking everyone who passed by, “Have you seen my son?”

No one talked to her anymore.

Patricia, Jason’s aunt, came once. She tried to take Margaret to a nursing home, but Margaret

refused. “I have to stay here and wait for my son. He’ll come home for dinner.”

I went to the best hospital in the city for an abortion.

Lying on the operating table, staring up at the bright surgical light, tears ran silently down my face.

The timing had been all wrong.

His father didn’t deserve to be a parent. And I couldn’t bring a child into the world to carry the label of a criminal’s son.

The procedure was quick.

When I woke up, my uncle was sitting by the bed, holding my hand. He didn’t say anything.

Outside the hospital window, the sun was shining.

I sold the house. Every dollar of the money came back to my account.

I offered to leave some for my uncle, to thank him for everything he’d done over the years.

He wouldn’t take it. He sent every dollar back to my account, and even added more of his own.

The note said: [Seeing you live well is thanks enough.]

In the end, I quit my teaching job and booked a flight to Avalon Springs.

When the plane broke through the clouds, the light outside the window was blinding white.

I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes.

Scenes flashed through my mind.

My parents, still alive, sitting around the table for Christmas dinner. Jason holding my hand for the

first time, his palm sweaty.

The wedding day, me lifting my dress carefully as I walked down the hallway, my heart full of hope

for the future.

It was all over.

When I walked out of the terminal, I stopped on the sidewalk and swapped in a local SIM card.

I looked up. In the distance, Longhorn Peak was covered in snow that never melted, glowing pale

gold in the morning light.

The wind was cool, carrying the scent of pine and earth.

I took a deep breath, snapped my old SIM card in half, and dropped it in the trash can at the curb.

Then I pulled my coat tighter around me and started walking toward the golden light.