Chapter 15
Garrett came back once.
Not to return.
To speak.
Rafe asked if I wanted him turned away.
I said no.
My choice.
We met in the empty ballroom.
The fountain was running again.
The console had been replaced.
My ring sat on the table between us.
Someone had recovered it from the wreckage.
Garrett looked at it.
“You kept it.”
“No.”
I pushed it toward him.
“I hadn’t decided what to do with it.”
He picked it up.
For a moment, the man I married returned.
Not the ambitious husband.
Not Evelyn’s son.
Just Garrett.
“I was jealous of you.”
I said nothing.
He laughed softly.
“That sounds pathetic.”
“It sounds honest.”
“I loved walking into rooms with you.”
Pause.
“I hated that nobody looked at me first.”
There it was.
He stared at the ring.
“My mother told me that feeling meant something was wrong with the marriage.”
I shook my head.
“It meant something was wrong with how you understood yourself.”
He nodded slowly.
“I know that now.”
Good.
Late.
But good.
Then he looked at me.
“Is there any version where—”
“No.”
He closed his eyes.
I did not soften it.
He deserved clarity more than hope.
“I can believe you regret it.”
He looked at me.
“I can believe you loved me.”
His eyes filled.
“And still no?”
“Yes.”
He laughed through the pain.
“You sound like Miriam.”
“Good.”
That almost made him smile.
Then he placed the ring back on the table.
“Keep it.”
“Why?”
“Because throwing it was the first honest thing that happened in our marriage for months.”
That hurt.
True.
He left without asking to see my mother.
Good.
Some apologies are better delayed until they stop serving the person giving them.
I stood alone beside the fountain.
The ring remained on the table.
I finally picked it up.
Then dropped it into a small velvet box.
Not destroyed.
Not worn.
May you like
History.
Nothing more.
