After I Gave My Husband Away, He Begged Me to Stay Chapter 02
The clerk clicked through a few screens on her computer.
A cancellation receipt slid out of the printer.
I folded it and slipped it into my folder.
My phone rang again.
This time it was my brother, Ryan Bennett.
“Where are you? Ethan said you’re still at the courthouse.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t do anything rash.”
I stopped walking.
“You knew?”
He cleared his throat.
“I only found out last night.”
“What time?”
“Does that matter?”
“What time?”
“…A little after nine.”
I stared at my reflection in the courthouse glass doors.
A little after nine last night, I’d been in Ethan’s kitchen packing boxes of chocolates for what was supposed to be our courthouse wedding.
Ryan had been sitting in the living room eating watermelon.
Ethan’s mom had even told me to pack two extra boxes for the courthouse staff.
So even then, they’d already known there would be no marriage record with my name on it today.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you so you could blow everything up on the spot?”
Ryan sighed.
“Claire, Noah only gets one shot at starting school this year. You and Ethan have already been together eight years. What’s one more?”
“And Megan’s raising a kid on her own. She’s had a rough time. If we can help, why wouldn’t we?”
The wind lifted one corner of the cancellation receipt in my hand.
“Ryan.”
“Yeah?”
“When I was eighteen and you used the money I’d saved for another year of college prep to cover your car accident, you said the same thing.”
The other end went silent.
I kept walking toward the parking lot.
“You said you only needed me to give in that once.”
“Then when you got married and came up twelve thousand dollars short on the down payment, you said it was just once.”
“Last year, when your store was buried in unsold inventory and I put eighteen thousand dollars on my credit card for you, you said it was the last time.”
“Now even my wedding gets pushed aside because somebody else needs to come first.”
“Claire, why are you dragging up things from years ago?”
“No reason.”
I opened my car door.
“I just realized how consistent all of you are.”
“You all count on me to be the one who gives in.”
I hung up.
The car had baked in the sun.
Two untouched boxes of wedding chocolates sat on the passenger seat beside me.
I unwrapped one. The wrapper stuck to my fingertip.
My phone screen lit up.
HR had sent one final confirmation message:
【Launch Operations Director, Crestwell Health San Jose Campus. Please confirm by 6:00 p.m. today. No response will be treated as a decline, and the position will go to the next candidate.】
I had turned the position down twice.
The first time was last year.
Ethan had just been promoted to regional manager and said he couldn’t relocate.
The second time was three months ago.
Our wedding date had already been set. He had held up the hotel contract and said,
“Can we deal with San Jose after we’re married? The city isn’t going anywhere.”
This time, HR would only hold the offer until six.
I checked the time.
4:17 p.m.
I opened the reply box.
【I accept.】