He’d done no such thing.
His hands tightened on the wheel, knuckles whitening.Fury tangled with confusion in his chest, a knot twenty years in the making.He started the engine and hit the gas.The Corvette roared to life like it knew he needed the speed, needed the release.
What the hell had happened?
She said he never called.That he’d ended their marriage like it was a high school fling.But hehadcalled.Again and again.He’d left voicemails.He’d sent messages.He’d begged his parents to let him come back to her.
And then she’d emailed him.
A cold, clinical message with three lines that shattered his heart.
“I’ve changed my mind.This was a mistake.Please don’t contact me again.”
He remembered staring at those words on his parents’ laptop in a penthouse suite in Greece, sun blazing outside the window, while his insides froze solid.
He’d cried.
Actual tears.
At eighteen.
All their dreams had been shattered by the most venomous text he’d ever read, words so cruel, they cut him to the bone and left him crushed.
And now she stood there in court, confident, brilliant, furious, and swore he had been the one to abandon her?
None of it made sense.
The memory slammed into him.
That morning after the wedding.They’d woken tangled in the sheets of a cheap motel bed, the scent of her skin still on his fingers.At their wedding, she’d worn a veil from the dollar store and no makeup, and she’d never looked more beautiful.
He’d kissed her forehead and promised he’d tell his parents that afternoon.Then he’d walked into his house and everything changed.
His bags were packed.
“Surprise!”his mother had said, too brightly.“We’re going to Greece.Your graduation present.Isn’t this exciting?”
Before he could say a word, his father had ushered him into a waiting limo.There was no time to argue, no time to fight.They had a plane to catch.They were already late.They’d booked it weeks ago.
Now that he thought back on that morning, they hadn’t even questioned him about where he’d been all night.
Had they known?
“I need to call Nicole,” he’d said, panicked.
“There’ll be time for that later,” his mother had said, waving her hand.
There wasn’t.
The first day, his cell phone was there, but then that night, it was gone.Claimed it got lost in transit.Every time he tried to use the hotel phone, his parents were suddenly there.He’d asked to go home.They’d refused.Then the week in Greece had turned into a month touring Europe.
By the time he got the email, he was a ghost in her life.And just like that, it was over.
He hit the highway and floored it, the Corvette leaping forward as if it shared his need to outrun everything.The sun burned low over the Gulf, painting the sky in shades of rust and gold, but he barely saw it.His mind was a reel of memories: Nicole’s laughter, the night they’d eloped, her crying against his chest when she got her scholarship.
As the reel flickered in his mind, it felt like his chest split wide open, tears stinging his eyes.No, he wasn’t that fragile eighteen-year-old anymore, but the ache was still there, sharp and undeniable.
She’d promised him forever.
