I Waited To Settle Our Wedding Date, Only To Find Him Acting As Her Fake Partner Chapter 06

I Waited To Settle Our Wedding Date, Only To Find Him Acting As Her Fake Partner Chapter 06

Early the next morning, I boarded the first Amtrak train south to Virginia.

By the time I got home, it was nearly noon, and the smell of lunch drifted from the kitchen.

I walked through the door and told my parents about every humiliation I’d swallowed over those

seven years, the forty–five thousand dollars Ethan had tried to use,

and every absurd thing that had happened at the police station the night before.

Mom’s eyes filled. She pulled me into her arms, tears soaking into my shoulder.

“You’re home. That’s all that matters. Think of it as a nightmare you finally woke up from. We’re not letting you walk back into that mess.”

I stayed in Alexandria for good.

I changed my number and found a quiet nine–to–five administrative job.

I spent the rest of my time studying for the county civil–service exam.

I no longer had to count every dollar just to patch someone else’s financial holes.

For the first time in my life, my future felt entirely like my own.

Only later did I learn what happened in Boston after I left.

Ethan’s world had begun to collapse piece by piece.

For the first few days, he still convinced himself I was only angry and would eventually come back.

A week later, worn down by nonstop calls from debt collectors, he finally returned to the apartment

and stopped cold.

The place was unnervingly empty.

My shoes were gone from the rack. The little wind chime we’d bought together had disappeared from the balcony.

Even the Polaroids that had covered the walls for seven years had been stripped away without a

trace.

On the coffee table sat the move–out notice and the spare key.

That was the moment something inside Ethan finally broke.

He realized all at once that I wasn’t throwing a fit. I had really left him.

He snatched up his phone and called me frantically, only to hear that the number had been

disconnected.

He tried texting me. Nothing went through.

Desperate for any way to find me, he called Maddie. She sounded annoyed when she answered.

“Ethan, why are you calling me to ask about Claire? Isn’t it better that she’s gone?”

“She’s just jealous because we’re close and because you always have my back. If she doesn’t want

you, I do.”

But as Maddie spoke, Ethan slowly slid down to the floor.

He sat on the cold hardwood, staring at the empty apartment while his stomach cramped in waves

He wanted hot water, only to remember the electric kettle was still broken and no one had fixed it.

He wanted a clean shirt, only to find the closet piled with dirty, mildewed laundry.

For seven years, he’d grown used to my quiet patience and constant care, dismissing all of it as

bland as plain water.

Only after it was gone did he understand what that plain water had been worth.

Without it, he couldn’t even keep his life together for a single day.