Michael was to the point.
“He betrayed me. He only dated me so he could learn about the Blackhawk family secrets. As part of their family, I had information, and he used it to post it all online as a news scoop. It was never about love. It was about using me and manipulating me. Now, he’s stalking me to destroy my life. He's unhinged.”
He looked over.
Had he heard him right?
So the fiancé was not the fiancé anymore?
“I’m sorry,” he said.
But he wasn’t.
Not.
At.
All.
All of a sudden, there was that hope again. It rose up, and Graham clung to it as if it just might be his lifeline.
Was he upset that the man had moved on?
No.
Was he shocked?
No.
Would he fight tooth-and-nail to get him to just look at him with love one more time so he could have peace or to forgive him?
YES.
With what he had left, Graham pushed up, and found a pack of new toothbrushes that he’d put in the bathroom for the next guest.
Then, he brushed his teeth as he tried to figure out a way to heal a wound that had festered for all of these years. It seemed…impossible, but still, he tried.
The whole time that he said nothing more, Michael watched him.
And was honest.
“He broke me. That seems to be a reoccurring theme in my life,” Michael admitted. “Now, I’ve learned that things aren’t what they seem to be. When I left you years ago, I felt betrayed. Here, I’ve come to realize that you didn’t betray me. I betrayed you.”
As he stood at the sink, Graham’s hand stopped, as he didn’t move.
Michael got up.
He needed to know one thing.
“I read the letters. Are they true?” he asked. “Is everything in them real, and have you really written them every year on that day?”
Graham didn’t turn around, but he nodded.
“Every year on the same day,” he whispered, his hands braced on the sink as he prayed for one miracle in his life.
That’s all he wanted.
Just one.
