The Hour He Never Gave Chapter 07
After Jared got discharged, Daphne said she needed a break and asked Pierce to take her and Jared on a beach trip.
The three of them booked the first flight out and headed straight to an island resort overseas, staying there for over two weeks.
Pierce lay back on a beach chair, staring at the waves, distracted.
Lucia and Ellie kept creeping into his head.
He unlocked his phone over and over. Still nothing. No texts. No missed calls.
The silence felt wrong.
Pierce felt weirdly unsettled by it.
He opened Lucia’s chat and realized almost every message had been from her.
He’d barely replied.
And he’d never messaged first.
His finger slowed as he scrolled through the old chats. After a while, he searched by date and opened the conversation from the day he’d first added her.
Pierce still remembered falling for Lucia first.
At the university welcome party, she’d worn a white dress while hosting as the freshman rep.
The second he saw her, that elegant figure burned itself into his mind.
To get close to her, Pierce spent two months bribing her roommates with snacks and drinks, even running errands
for them.
After all that work, he finally got Lucia’s contact.
But he didn’t dare add her. He was scared she’d think he was creeping on her and end up with a bad impression of
him.
So instead, he found out she liked studying at the library.
Pierce hated reading, but after that, he showed up at the library nonstop, rain or shine.
He even checked out every book Lucia borrowed and forced himself to read them all.
Until one day, he managed to grab the newest novel from her favorite author before she did.
A soft tap landed on his shoulder.
The girl he’d spent months thinking about was suddenly standing right in front of him.
“Hey, can you let me know when you’re done with that? I wanna borrow it too.”
Pierce forced down his panic and nodded like he was calm. Then he held up his phone.
“Add me. I’ll tell you when I finish it.”
The day they added each other, they talked nonstop-books, professors, everything college kids cared about back
then.
Scrolling through those old messages now, Pierce couldn’t stop a faint smile from pulling at his lips.
This chat recorded everything. How he and Lucia met, got close, and fell in love.
He kept scrolling until he reached the messages where Lucia sent wedding dress ideas.
Wedding plans.
Honeymoon itineraries.
The two of them had been completely wrapped up in their perfect future together.
Back then, Lucia loved sending cute little animal stickers.
Pierce always unconsciously pictured them with Lucia’s face instead.
Whenever her messages popped up, he’d imagine the expression she had while sending them and instantly want to ditch work and rush home to hold her.
Sometimes he even wished he didn’t have a job at all, just so she could stay in his sight every second.
His finger kept scrolling.
Soon, he reached the day Lucia gave birth.
He still remembered Lucia going into the delivery room before sunrise.
He waited outside alone all night until morning.
Every scream from inside felt like a knife twisting through his chest. He wished he could take the pain for her instead.
Even knowing she couldn’t see them, he kept sending message after message.
Praying the delivery would go safely. Praying both Lucia and the baby would be okay.
After they brought Ellie home, he couldn’t stand the thought of Lucia waking up all night, so he slept in the nursery with Ellie instead.
He recorded how many times Ellie woke up, how much milk she drank, and how many diapers he changed, then sent everything to Lucia.
So when had this chat, once full of love and happiness, started changing?
