The Letter I Refused to Accept Chapter 07

The Letter I Refused to Accept Chapter 07

At eight that night, the doorbell finally rang. Cole practically threw himself at the door and

yanked it open.

“Sienna, you’re finally…”

The words died halfway out of his mouth. It wasn’t Sienna standing there. It was a delivery

driver.

The moment Cole saw the familiar packaging, his pupils shrank. It was the brand he always

wore. Sienna’s name was on the label.

He couldn’t have said what made him do it, but he signed for the package in her place. He tore the box open before the driver had even left.

Inside was a watch, the exact one he’d mentioned to Sienna once in passing. He stared at the

price tag. It said 6,889 dollars.

His fingers shook as he flipped over the card tucked underneath. It was in Sienna’s handwriting.

[Happy eighteenth birthday, Cole. Love, Sienna]

The whole world started spinning. So that so–called big purchase on Sienna’s record had been

for him.

He couldn’t hold it in anymore. He clutched the watch to his chest and broke down sobbing.

My mother moved fast. That same night, Ruth and I were on a flight overseas.

I pulled out my SIM card and threw it in a trash can at the airport. My phone screen stayed lit, but not a single message I didn’t want to see popped up anymore.

I watched the evening sky glow pink and orange along the horizon, and I felt strangely calm. From then on, everything I’d left behind back home had nothing to do with me.

We landed the next afternoon. A car was parked outside the arrivals exit with its window halfway down.

When I saw that familiar profile, I felt dazed for a moment.

-My parents had divorced when I was ten. After that, my mother, Diana Carlisle, moved

overseas, and not long after, my father died in a car accident

I still remembered the last time I’d seen her. It was at his funeral. She’d only shown her face

for a few minutes before she left.

I’d stumbled after her car for a long way, but she never looked back.

Back then, Cole had been the one who helped me up from behind. He’d promised that from then on, he’d protect me.

But time had worn that promise away to nothing.

The next time I heard from Diana was six months ago. She told me she was sick.

In all the years we’d been apart, she’d never remarried, and she’d never had any more children.

She’d never been afraid of anything before, but now that her life was nearing its end, she’d

started to feel lonely.

She asked to take me with her. She wanted to send me to school overseas so I could take over

her business someday.

But back then, I was still lost in the beautiful dream Cole had spun for me. After she finished, I

quietly hung up.

After that day, she called me almost every week.

Later, I didn’t know whether she’d found something out, but she started bringing up teenage relationships, here and there. She made snide comments about young people who treated love

like it was their whole life.

“Men are all the same. I’m saying this for your own good. You think he’s your forever right now, but give it time. How could he possibly not change?”

It felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over my head.

That day, we had a fight, which was rare for us. The next time I saw her number, I let it ring.

And right when I thought I could prove to her that Cole was different from everyone else,

reality slapped me hard across the face.

On my third day there, Diana took me to enroll at my new school.

On the way back, she looked out the window at the falling leaves and suddenly spoke.

“The day you sent me pictures of those two acceptance letters, I thought things might be different for us too. Then I zoomed in and looked closely, and I saw the reference numbers didn’t match. He was lying to you.”

When she brought that up, I looked down. “Then why didn’t you tell me back then?”

If I’d known sooner, they wouldn’t have been able to play me like that. If I’d known sooner, maybe I could have spared myself all of it.

“Would you have believed me?”

I froze, and then it finally sank in.

Back then, I’d been completely taken in by that sweet illusion. Even if someone had told me it was all fake, that the admission was fake and the letters were fake, would I have believed it?

The answer was no.

Because even that day, when Chelsea put the real acceptance letter right in front of me, my first thought had been that they were joking.

Even after Cole himself confirmed it, I’d still stayed up late at night, refusing to give up, checking the admissions portal again and again.

I curled my fingers into my palms. The tears I’d held back the whole way finally broke loose.