One Phone Call Talked Me Out of My Own Marriage Chapter 06

One Phone Call Talked Me Out of My Own Marriage Chapter 06

The large wedding portrait hanging in the living room was no longer a picture of Landon and

Serena.

It showed him standing beside Elise.

Even the wedding bands were engraved with Landon’s and Elise’s names.

For the first time, Landon began to doubt himself.

Had he really lost his mind?

Was his grandfather right?

Had Serena rejected his proposal ten years ago, leaving him so broken that he had invented an

entire marriage with her?

The thought lasted only a second before Landon rejected it completely.

He knew those ten years with Serena better than anyone.

They had watched countless sunrises and sunsets and wandered through spring meadows

together.

They had floated over Turkey in a hot-air balloon and stood beneath the northern lights in Iceland.

The more he remembered, the more the beautiful moments he had suppressed over the years

came rushing back.

They had once been happy.

Truly happy.

So why had everything between them fallen apart?

And why had every trace of Serena suddenly vanished from his life?

Landon stumbled backward and collapsed onto the couch.

He buried his face in his hands, overwhelmed by despair.

What was happening to him?

Elise approached carefully, her eyes red from crying

“Landon, you still have me.”

Her voice trembled.

“We’ve been married for years. You can’t just…”

“Get out.”

Landon raised his head.

The fury and desperation in his bloodshot eyes made Elise recoil.

He stared at the woman who seemed both familiar and completely foreign, feeling nothing but

disgust.

“My wife is Serena.”

His voice shook with rage. “You mean nothing to me. Get out.”

Elise broke into sobs.

“Landon, how can you say that to me?”

Tears streamed down her face.

“What is wrong with you?”

He watched her cry without feeling even a trace of sympathy.

Her tears only filled him with unease and horror.

He shot to his feet and ran outside, fleeing as though something monstrous were chasing him.

In the days that followed, Landon stopped going to work.

He abandoned every responsibility and devoted himself to a single task: proving that Serena had

once been part of his life.

He sought out every mutual friend he and Serena had ever had.

Those who had known him for more than ten years all gave him the same answer.

“Serena Caldwell? That heartless woman who rejected you after you brought the doctor back? She

never accepted your proposal.”

Friends he had met more recently looked at him as though he were delusional.

“Who’s Serena? Landon, are you feeling all right? Elise is your wife.”

Every person told him the same story.

Landon eventually found himself sitting on the side of the road with his head in his hands, his eyes bloodshot.

Not one person could confirm the life he remembered sharing with Serena.

Their marriage, their home, and every intimate moment between them seemed to exist only inside

his mind.

To everyone else, it was nothing more than a delusion.

But Landon knew it had been real.

He had loved Serena.

No photograph, document, or rewritten memory could convince him otherwise.

He returned home in a daze.

Elise was sitting in the living room crying. The moment she saw him, hope appeared on her

tear-streaked face.

“Landon, you’re back. We can still…”

He cut her off. “I want a divorce.”

Elise went completely still.

Her face crumpled as fresh tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

Her voice broke.

“What did I do wrong?”

Landon looked at her in silence for a long moment,

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

His expression was hollow.

“I’m the one who ruined everything.”

“I don’t know what happened or why the entire world remembers a life I don’t. But I know who I

love.”

Over the past few days, he had returned to the same questions again and again.

If he had never betrayed Serena with Elise, would any of this have happened?

Had the universe itself become disgusted with him and erased every trace of the love he and Serena had once shared?

Was this his punishment for betraying the woman who had loved him for ten years?

He didn’t know.

The only thing he knew was that Serena Caldwell was the only name that belonged beside his on a marriage certificate.

Elise resisted at first, but eventually, devastated and exhausted, she agreed to sign the divorce

papers.

Once the required legal process was completed, their divorce became final.

When his grandfather heard the news, he was furious.

“That ungrateful grandson of mine has completely lost his mind!”

He stamped his foot in fury.

“Why is he destroying his marriage over a woman he hasn’t seen in ten years?”

Elise moved out of the house.

Landon spent an entire day removing everything that belonged to her.

Then he spent the next two weeks restoring the house, piece by piece, to the way he remembered

At last, he stood before the recreated wedding portrait.

His heart felt as though it were bleeding.

The photograph looked artificial.

Serena’s image had been taken from an old picture and placed beside his. She was not smiling at

him, and the warmth he remembered was nowhere to be found.

He could still hear her voice from years ago, insisting that this particular wedding portrait was her

favorite and that it had to hang in the living room.

He remembered every word.

So why had everything changed simply because he had lost consciousness for a few hours?

Landon sat alone in the darkened room and allowed the silence to consume him.

He remained perfectly still, like a statue, staring at the fabricated wedding portrait without

blinking.

His eyes were filled with confusion and helplessness

“Serena, is this how you’re punishing me?”

His voice was cracked and painfully hoarse, as if he hadn’t had water in ten days.

“Can you please tell me where you are?”

His gaze remained fixed on her face.

“Can you come back, just once, and let me apologize to you?”

He sat there in a daze and smiled bitterly

Tears tracked down his dry, exhausted face

“I was wrong.”

His voice broke.

“And now I can’t find you, Serena.”