Left Me to Drown for Her？I’m Done with All Three of You！Chapter 08

Left Me to Drown for Her？I’m Done with All Three of You！Chapter 08

One month later, the production was suspended pending a safety review.

The production and mutually terminated my contract. They dropped the early termination damages and paid a settlement covering my medical expenses.

I used the money to rent a small photography studio in Lindenport and returned to the field I’d

studied in college.

During the years Graham and I were together, I’d given up a magazine job to help build his

startup.

When he was busy, I handled the accounts and spoke with clients.

Once he joined the show, I quit my part–time work so I could film beside him.

Somewhere along the way, my life had narrowed until there was nothing in it but Graham.

Starting again wasn’t easy.

Most of my resumes disappeared into silence.

People recognized me from the show and invited me to host livestream shopping segments.

Companies wanted to cash in on my breakup and market me as a newly single empowerment figure while the story was still hot.

I turned down every offer.

At last, a national travel magazine based in Lindenport hired me as a freelance travel photographer.

My first assignment was to photograph migrating birds at Northwind Wetlands in the Pacific

Northwest.

Tessa came to see me the day before I left.

“Mara, I want to give these back.”

She held out a box.

Inside lay the limited–edition bracelet Graham had given her on the show, Nolan’s necklace, and the earrings Reid had bought.

At the bottom was the ring Graham had once meant for me.

“Why do you have this?”

“Graham left it in my room after he got drunk.”

She kept her eyes on the floor.

1 shut the lid. “None of this is mine”

“The ring was supposed to be yours.”

“Something he never gave me was never mine.”

Tessa’s fingers tightened around the box. Her eyes welled. “Do you blame me too?”

“Why would I?”

“If I hadn’t been there, none of this would’ve happened.”

“If it wasn’t you, it would’ve been someone else.”

It had taken leaving to understand that Tessa’s appeal was never the real problem.

To those four people, I was independent, low–maintenance, and easy to overlook. I never cried or asked for anything, so they decided I deserved to come last.

Tessa just happened to benefit from their preferential attention.

I had accepted the unfairness too. Worse, I’d made excuses for it.

“I’m not the person you owe an apology to.”

I looked at her. “You owe one to yourself for helping them lie.”

Tessa had met Graham and me before the show.

She knew we lived together. She had seen our matching bracelets.

But being the center of three men’s attention suited her, so she pretended not to know.

“I never wanted to steal your boyfriend,” she said.

“Then why didn’t you tell the production he had one?”

Her mouth opened, but no answer came.

I didn’t wait for one. I left her with the box.

The next morning, I flew to the Pacific Northwest.

The shoot lasted more than twenty days.

With no cell service, Heft before four each morning and hauled my camera to the edge of

Northwind Wetlands to wait for sunrise…

The wind numbed my fingers.

Then thousands of birds swept across the lake like one body, and the world opened around me.

It was bigger than a condo we’d never bought.

Bigger than the preferential attention a few people had withheld from me for years.

On my flight home, the magazine’s editor–in–chief told me one of my photographs had been

selected for the next issue’s cover.

Brooke met me at Arrivals in Lindenport Airport.

She held

famous.”

up the magazine like a trophy. “Look at our star photographer. You’re about to be

I laughed and nudged her. “Stop teasing me.‘

Graham was waiting beyond the doors.

He’d lost weight. He was holding the white roses I used to love.

“Mara.”

He stepped into my path. “I’ve waited outside your old place so many times.”

“What do you want?”

“I bought the condo.” He held out a set of keys. They gleamed under the airport lights..

“It’s the floor plan you wanted. The sunniest room is a home office, and there are two wicker chairs on the balcony.”

Everything I had once wanted was real at last.

I looked at the keys. Nothing in me reached for them.

“Graham.”

“A home that comes too late isn’t home anymore.”

His eyes went red. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. Just come back.”

I thought about it.

“You don’t have to do anything.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t love you anymore.”