Left Me to Drown for Her？I’m Done with All Three of You！Chapter 09

Left Me to Drown for Her？I’m Done with All Three of You！Chapter 09

Graham didn’t move. He just stood there while airport announcements played on a loop

overhead.

Travelers were warned not to leave their luggage unattended.

Only then did he seem to understand.

The person left behind doesn’t wait forever.

“You’re lying.”

His voice shook. “Five years don’t disappear overnight:”

“They didn’t.”

A little disappeared the first time he left me.

More vanished every time he chose Tessa.

When river water closed over my mouth and nose, it carried away the last of what I’d been

waiting for.

“I really didn’t see you out there,” Graham said.

“I know.”

“Then why can’t you forgive me?”

“Because you didn’t just fail to see me.”

1 looked at him calmly.

“You never thought I was someone you needed to look for.”

The color drained from his face.

White roses slipped from his arms and scattered across the airport floor.

I walked around him and left with Brooke.

Later, mutual friends told me Graham never moved into the condo.

Nolan picked a fight with him, and each blamed the other for going too far on the show and turning the public against them.

Reid cut them both off.

He still sent me messages. First apologies, then weather reports and news links.

I never replied.

Tessa left the entertainment business.

Without cameras, the devotion the four of them had performed quickly became an off–camera

mess.

Maybe they had never loved Tessa at all.

Maybe they loved the generous, honorable versions of themselves they could play while competing to give her everything.

The following spring, the magazine sent me back to Millstone Gorge.

Our location was close to the stretch of the Millstone River where I’d gone overboard.

A coworker offered to replace me on the assignment.

I declined.

When the shoot ended, I enrolled in lessons at Lindenport Community Aquatic Center.

The first time I entered the pool, my chest tightened. Rushing water filled my head again.

The swim instructor stood at the edge. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

I gripped a kickboard and moved forward one inch at a time. I swallowed water, and I cried.

One month later, I swam to the other end of the pool without help.

Brooke charged at me with a towel when I climbed out.

“Congratulations, Ms. Whitfield. You officially know how to save yourself.”

I wiped the water from my mouth. “This time, I really do.”

That summer,

the wetland series won me Emerging Travel Photographer of the Year.

At the ceremony, an organizer gave me a letter from Graham.

He didn’t ask me to come back. He only admitted he’d spent years relying on my refusal to

leave.

Tessa cfied. She let herself appear fragile. She told him again and again that she needed him.

I always told him I was fine.

Eventually, he believed I couldn’t be wounded or disappointed

His letter ended with two lines.

[Mara, I’m sorry.]

[I didn’t just start loving you now. I only understand now how much selfishness I called love.]

I folded the paper and slid it back into the envelope.

I didn’t reply.

An apology could be heard without being accepted.

After the ceremony, the editor offered me a yearlong assignment.

I would travel to twelve cities to document endangered regional crafts.

“Interested?”

“Absolutely.”

Rain battered Lindenport Airport on the day I left.

I rolled my suitcase into the terminal alone.

On a giant screen above the concourse, my old dating show played a promotional reel.

Graham shielded Tessa from the rain.

Nolan carried her bags.

Reid settled a jacket across her shoulders without smiling.

At the edge of the frame, half of my profile appeared in soft focus.

A group of young women below the screen debated which man belonged with Tessa.

No one recognized me.

I kept walking.

At security, an employee checked my ID. “Ms. Whitfield, your gate is ahead and to the left.”

I thanked her.

The pale groove our matching bracelet had once left around my wrist was gone.

So were the engagement photos and condo plans on my phone

In their place were mountains, deserts, lakes, and the cities waiting ahead.

The boarding announcement sounded.

I glanced back once.

Rain blurred Lindenport beyond the windows and washed the giant screen into color.

I used to think being loved meant someone would choose me, no matter what happened. I had

learned something better.

If no one came, I could turn and choose myself.

Boarding pass in hand, I stepped into the bright corridor.

There were no cameras. No producer–driven storyline.

I didn’t need anyone else to choose me.

At last, I became the only person whose choice came first in my own life.