“I’ll text you if anything’s missing,” I say, nodding toward the door.
His shoulders drop a fraction, and he gives a stiff nod. Mechanical. Defeated.
“Right. I should…” he trails off.
He crosses the threshold with slow steps, his posture no longer pulled upright by pride or pretense. It’s the first genuine thing I’ve seen from him in a while.
Then, he hesitates, his back still to me before he glances over his shoulder. “For what it’s worth, Jules…” His voice is lower, rougher than before. “I did love you.”
The nickname catches me off guard.Jules. It doesn’t sound right coming out of his mouth anymore.
“I know,” I say softly.
He doesn’t ask for forgiveness or try to explain his choices. Maybe he finally understands there’s nothing left to salvage.
And then he’s gone.
My breath catches somewhere in my chest. My throat burns from the sheer force it took to say what needed to be said.
Ineverdo that.
I’ve always been the one who smooths over the rough edges, who bites her tongue so no one else has to feel uncomfortable. I can’t believe I just stood there, spine straight and voice steady, and I told him the truth. I just wish it didn’t hurt so damn much.
My knees give the tiniest wobble as I close the door and press my forehead against it. The tears come slowly at first, just a sting behind my eyes, but then they fall hard, ungraceful and hot, as they run down my cheeks. No sobs. No gasps. Just tears.
There’s grief for the love I poured into someone who didn’t know how to hold it, though beneath it, there’s also a small flicker of pride.
I wipe my face with the sleeve of my sweatshirt,sniffling before letting out a mirthless laugh. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t disappear to make someone else comfortable.
I’m just beginning to notice the calm take over when there’s a sudden knock on the door. It better not be James coming back to drag this out any longer.
But when I open the door, it’s not James.
One of my neighbors, Mrs. Boone, is standing there looking like she’s been waiting for this exact moment, a bottle of wine in hand. She lives a few doors down and knows everything that grows, wilts, or misbehaves on this street. She also owns a garden center. When I first moved in, she showed up on my doorstep with a potted succulent and the kind of smile that made me feel right at home.
“Hey, darling,” she says, that unfiltered, boisterous tone of hers filling the doorway. “I thought you might need this.”
“I’m glad you came by,” I say, stepping aside to let her in.
“I figured you might be in need of some serious hydration and a good old-fashioned dose of unasked-for advice,” she tells me. “Have you been sitting in this house, waiting for him to show up, looking like a wilted fern for the last hour?”
“I wasn’t looking like a wilted fern,” I quip with a small laugh, but there’s truth in her words. I’m drained and worn down.
She shoves the wine into my hands, then points at the corner of the room where one of her overgrown monstera plants sits. “See that? That monstera’s been sitting in that spot for years. Same pot, same light, same space. You think it’s been happy? Hell no. It’s not thriving, it’s surviving. You need to move that plant. Get it some new soil, some new light. It might scream, it might sulk for a bit, but it’ll thrive. Same as you. You’ve been standing still too long, darlin’.”
She makes her way to the kitchen, pulls out a chair at the table, and sits down. “Sometimes we need to rip up the roots,toss ‘em out, and find a new patch of soil. Don’t be afraid to leave something behind if it means you can finally grow. Maybe you’ve been too scared to move. I get it. But trust me, you don’t want to be a sorrow-ridden, crumpled mess stuck in the same old spot.”
I stand there, holding the wine bottle in my hands, staring at her. I didn’t expect a lesson on plant care, let alone a life lesson.
“You’ve been so busy looking after everyone else’s needs, you forget about your own. That’s gonna stop. Right now, you’re gonna take a deep breath and ask yourself…do I want to sit here and mope, or do I want tolive?”
I blink, caught off guard by the whiplash of her no-nonsense wisdom wrapped in affection and collapse into the chair across from her. “You’re something else.”
“Damn straight,” she says. “And you’re gonna thank me when you’ve got a new pot to plant yourself in.”
six
JULIETTE
