He Waited for Fifteen Years Chapter 10By Novel7s / June 19, 2026 He Waited for Fifteen Years Chapter 10The tension that had been wound so tight a second ago just stopped.Shepard took the ring and looked at it closely. Confusion flickered across his face.“I’ve never seen this before.”“It was the day you transferred out. Every classmate gave you a going-away present. This ring was mine.”I turned the ring over.On the inside of the plastic band, two letters and a tiny heart were barely hanging on. Written in nail polish. The handwriting was terrible.V❤S“You told me you liked those fake rings from the capsule machines. I bought this one at the school fair on purpose.”Shepard and I looked at each other for a few seconds.Then we both turned to look at Lowell.His face had gone ashen.“Verona. You don’t need to lie to yourself.”“You put this ring on my desk. That’s proof. Proof you wanted to marry me.”That was when Shepard finally remembered.“I remember now. The month before I transferred, he and I were desk mates.”The truth clicked into place instantly.That day, Shepard had been absent from school. I placed the ring on his desk. Lowell thought it was for him.Fifteen years.He had kept that token safe for fifteen years. And it had never belonged to him.Shepard smiled and held the ring up in front of me.“Took a very long detour. But it’s finally back with me.”I laughed too. I reached out and slid the plastic ring onto his pinky finger.I didn’t look at Lowell. Not once.“Verona. Even if the ring wasn’t meant for me. The way you’ve loved me all these years. You can’t deny that.”He pulled out his phone. The screen was full of messages I had sent him. Years of them.“These. You can’t deny these.”I glanced down.The words I used to agonize over late at night. Typing and deleting. Deleting and typing. They looked like someone else’s story now.“You’re right. I did love you. For a lot of years.”“But the moment you told me, to my face, that the person you loved was Talia Whitfield—”I met his eyes.“I stopped.”
