He Said Waiting Is Romantic But Not For Me Chapter 06

He Said Waiting Is Romantic But Not For Me Chapter 06

Cole flew out of the house like a madman. 

The car swerved and cut lanes on the clogged beltway, 

horn blaring. 

All he could see was my face from that morning. 

Calm. Compliant. No emotion. 

“Go. Be careful.” 

Those were the last words she ever said to him. 

No complaint about him bailing for Tessa’s pipe. No 

asking him to stay. 

Because she had already stopped wanting him. 

At Meadowbrook International, he abandoned the car on 

the shoulder and ignored the traffic cop screaming at him. He sprinted into the international departures hall. 

He craned his neck, red–eyed, staring at the massive digital board. 

Flight CA937 to London Heathrow. 

The status column showed three cold red letters: 

DEPARTED. 

Cole stood frozen in the middle of the crowd, all the strength draining out of his body. 

He stared through the huge windows at the gray sky. Nothing. 

No plane. No woman who had always waited for him. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He answered like a 

zombie. 

“Cole!” Tessa’s sweet voice chimed. “The plumber says the whole valve needs to be replaced. I don’t know which model to buy. Can you come back and help me look?” 

Before, Cole would have softened immediately–she couldn’t do anything by herself–and driven straight over. 

But right now, hearing that voice, he was hit with a wave of physical nausea. 

His stomach turned so hard he almost threw up in the 

airport terminal. 

“Tessa.” His voice came out like sandpaper. “You don’t have hands or something?” 

Silence on the line. “Cole… what’s wrong with you?” 

“You can’t even buy a valve? Are you a freaking baby?” 

Cole exploded into the phone, veins standing out on his 

forehead. “Am I your father or your babysitter? Don’t call 

me for this bullshit ever again!” 

He hung up hard. 

People around him stared. He didn’t notice. 

He slid down the glass wall and buried his face in his 

hands. 

Tears dripped between his fingers onto the polished floor. 

At that same moment. 

Thirty thousand feet up. 

I sat in the window seat, watching the clouds roll by. 

A flight attendant pushed the cart toward me. “Something to drink, ma’am?” 

“Water, please. Warm.” 

I reached out my right hand for the cup. 

The motion pulled my sleeve back and exposed the angry dark purple bruise on my wrist. 

From yesterday. When the plane had dropped and the seatbelt had crushed her. 

The flight attendant flinched, her eyes softening with sympathy. “Ma’am, your wrist… would you like an ice pack?” 

I looked down at the bruise. 

Deep purple. It throbbed with every tiny movement. 

“No thanks.” I took the cup and gave a small smile. “It’ll fade on its own in a few days.” 

Like some relationships. They hurt like hell until they don’t. 

I pulled down the shade, put on my eye mask, and fell into a deep sleep. 

The most solid, peaceful sleep I’d had in three years. 

No anxiety about waiting up. No fear of being woken by a midnight phone call. No dread of being abandoned at any 

moment. 

Just absolute, quiet ownership of myself.