He Promised Me A Home And Gave It To Her Chapter 05

Orion stared at the message from the building manager, the color draining from his face.

Jace leaned over to look. One glance was enough to send him running toward the Westhaven gate.

“Hey! Open the gate!”

“Our friend just went through! She took something by mistake!”

A gate agent stepped in front of him.

“Boarding’s closed. You can’t go through.”

“But the plane hasn’t taken off yet, has it?”

Jace’s voice shook with desperation.

“I just need to talk to her. Two minutes, I swear. That’s all.”

Nobody opened the gate for him.

Beyond the terminal windows, the Westhaven-bound plane was already taxiing.

Orion stood where he was and called me.

With my phone switched off, every call went straight to the same automated message.

[The person you’re trying to reach is unavailable.]

Then he remembered the text he’d sent me the night before.

Orion: [Elena, you’ve always been so understanding. You’re not going to blame me, are you?]

I’d told him no.

And he’d actually believed that meant I wasn’t hurting.

Vivian clutched her boarding pass and asked quietly, “Orion, are we still going to Kingswell?”

Jace spun around.

“No.”

“Elena just went all the way to Westhaven by herself, and you’re asking whether we’re still going?”

Vivian went pale.

“I was just asking.”

Julian put a hand on Jace’s shoulder.

“Don’t take it out on her.”

“She wasn’t the only one who made those decisions.”

They canceled their flights and hurried back to Orion’s apartment.

The building manager handed Orion the envelope.

His fingers trembled when the ring slid into his palm.

He’d worked part-time for two months to buy that ring.

On my eighteenth birthday, he’d slipped it onto my finger himself, smiling as he told me it fit perfectly.

Now there was a faint, dark stain on the inside of the band.

It was blood I’d left there when I took the ring off after being hurt.

The note contained only one sentence.

[Orion, thank you for the home you once gave me.]

The last word was blurred by my tears.

Orion stared at it for a long time before suddenly grabbing his car keys.

“Let’s go to the airport.”

Julian stopped him.

“Her plane’s already taken off.”

“Then we’ll book the next flight.”

“She’s going to start college, not take a vacation.”

Julian’s voice was heavy.

“Say you chase her all the way to Westhaven. Then what?”

“Tell her we didn’t mean to leave her alone at the hospital yesterday?”

“Or ask her to be understanding one more time?”

Nobody answered.

Jace suddenly remembered something and rushed back to the grocery store.

Half an hour later, he found the first key in a drawer beneath the register.

The cashier frowned.

“Elena brought that back a few days ago.”

“She said someone else was living upstairs now, and it didn’t feel right to keep letting herself in.”

Jace stood there holding the key, unable to move.

Julian went back to his family’s old Victorian house.

His coat was still hanging by the front door.

The second key was right there in its pocket.

All three keys I’d worn around my neck for eight years were now back in their hands.

Jace’s eyes reddened.

“She’s been saying goodbye to us this whole time.”

“How did we not notice?”

Vivian stood near the doorway and said quietly, “It’s not that you didn’t notice.”

“She was always so understanding.”

“You just assumed she’d never leave.”

Jace looked up sharply.

“You knew?”

“I didn’t know she was going to Westhaven.”

Vivian gripped the hem of her shirt.

“But I knew she was hurting.”

“I took her bed. I took her room. Even when we knew what she wanted to eat, I got to choose something else.”

“And every time, you told me she wouldn’t mind.”

She turned to Orion.

“Orion, it’s not that you couldn’t see what was happening.”

“You just thought she’d stay, no matter how much it hurt.”

Orion gripped the ring so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

This time, no one spoke up to defend him.