He Said One Kneel Bought Forever Love, but Finally Begged Me Back Chapter 03

He Said One Kneel Bought Forever Love, but Finally Begged Me Back Chapter 03

The front door beeped unlocked.

Graham walked in with Sloane.

Sloane kicked off her heels at the door and slid straight into my new slippers.

“Laurel, I’m using your shower.”

She didn’t wait for an answer. She was already through the bedroom door.

Graham shrugged off his coat. He caught me watching her and didn’t even blink.

“She took all my shots last night. She smells like a dive bar.”

A short while later, Sloane came out wrapped in my towel and dropped onto the couch.

She slung one leg over Graham’s lap and picked up the tablet the photographer had dropped off.

“Perfect. Let’s go through the photos.”

She swiped through them like she’d done it a hundred times.

She saved the shot of her clinking glasses with Graham. And the one where she stood behind him, hand over his, cutting the cake.

The one where she fell into his arms with frosting on her fingers.

She got to a photo of me standing alone at the altar and deleted it.

“God, your face. You look like you’re at a funeral.”

The next one was me pulling off my veil, eyes red.

She wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, no. Delete.”

“You don’t want to open your album and see that.”

I reached for the tablet.

Graham’s hand came down on it first.

“She’s right.”

“The wedding was already a disaster. Why keep proof of it?”

Sloane finished in minutes.

Forty photos. Not a single one showed my face.

She tossed the tablet on the table. “Now it actually looks like a wedding.”

Graham didn’t object.

I went back to the bedroom and shut the door.

I booked a one-way flight. Leaving in three days.

Through the door, I could hear Sloane. “Graham, where’s the hair dryer?”

He answered. His footsteps passed my door without slowing.

Two days before their so-called honeymoon.

Graham dropped the new itinerary on the coffee table.

My name had been replaced with Sloane’s.

“If you come to your senses and apologize, I’ll put your name back.”

Sloane looked up from packing her dive gear on the floor.

“Hurry up, Laurel.”

“I really don’t want to share a honeymoon suite with Graham. Two bros in a king bed? That’s just tragic.”

Graham almost smiled. He was so sure I’d cave.

After all, they were flying out soon.

What he didn’t know was that I’d be gone long before them.

The next day, we were supposed to visit my mother’s grave.

My mother’s one regret was that she wouldn’t live to see me get married.

Graham had promised we’d go together after the wedding. Bring flowers, leave a wedding favor, and tell her it finally happened.

I stood outside Willowcrest Memorial Park until noon. All I got was a text.

[Sloane has a competition this afternoon, and her car broke down. I’m driving her there.]

[We can visit your mom anytime. If she misses this comp, there’s no reschedule.]

I carried the flowers up the hill alone.

A thin layer of dust covered the headstone.

I crouched down, wiped it clean, and set the flowers in the vase.

“Mom, the wedding didn’t happen.”

“The veil you left me got ruined.”

When I was little and something hurt, I’d come home and tell her everything. Just like this.

“But it’s okay.”

“I’m leaving this time. And I’m not waiting for him.”

Footsteps crunched on the gravel behind me.

I turned around.

Graham and Sloane were coming up the path.

Graham’s voice was flat. “Sloane heard we were coming today. She wanted to stop by after her competition.”

“She made the effort. That’s more than I can say for you.”

Sloane set a bouquet in front of the headstone.

“Mrs. Hartwell, I got a little carried away at the wedding.”

“But don’t worry. If Graham gives Laurel a hard time, his best man will set him straight.”

Then she pulled a red paint marker out of her pocket, the kind she used for autographs at competitions.

“This stone is too boring. Doesn’t even look like your daughter just got hitched.”

She crouched down and drew a sloppy red flower next to my mother’s name.

Then she scrawled underneath it. [Graham got hitched. Sloane was here.]

I grabbed her wrist. “Wipe it off.”

Sloane stared at me like I’d lost my mind.

“I was just trying to make it festive for your mom. Why do you always have to freak out? Let go!”

“I said wipe it off!”

I reached for the marker.

Sloane yanked her arm free.

“God, you’re so dramatic.”

My foot slipped on wet moss, and I went down hard on the stone steps.

My knee split open on the gravel. My elbow cracked against the edge of the headstone.

Blood ran down my arm.

Graham flinched. He started toward me.

But Sloane got there first, rubbing the wrist where I’d grabbed her.

“I didn’t push her. She fell on her own.”

Graham stopped.

He looked at the blood running down my arm, but his voice didn’t change.

“Apologize to Sloane first.”

I braced myself against the headstone and pushed myself up.

“She vandalized my mother’s grave. And she pushed me.”

Graham frowned.

“It wipes off. Did you have to grab her like that?”

Sloane crouched down and swiped at the marks with her sleeve.

The red smeared wider.

She stood up, palms out. “It’s waterproof. I’ll get someone to fix it later. Relax.”

I stared at the red streaks beside my mother’s name. And I finally broke.