I am sorry.
Wednesday 8:00 am
I know I do not deserve it, but I would like a chance to explain…
Friday 11:00 am
Please answer Harper, I won’t even apologize if you do not want to hear it. I just wish to know that you are okay.
I tossed the phone onto the bed and sat up, dragging my hands over my face like I could wipe the exhaustion clean off.
Would I change anything, though?
If I could go back and tell her the truth on that first night, would I really make a different choice? Let the chips fall where they may?
I didn’t know.
Because if I had… I never would’ve gotten to know her smile. The peace of it. The way she touched me like I wasn’t broken. Like caring for me was easy. Like I was worth the effort.
And maybe I’d rather lose her than never have had her at all.
I kicked off the covers, sliding out of bed.
Funny. My whole life I clung to routine like it was a lifeboat. Structure meant safety. Predictability meant peace. But now?
Now it just felt like a carousel that wouldn’t stop turning. I was alone, spinning in circles, while everyone else—families, lovers, people whoheld on—wandered the world freely. While mine kept spinning and spinning and spinning, without her.
My heart stilled when a heavy knocking sound came from my door.
For a moment, I did not move. It was as if something had broken through the fog I had been in.
“Harper,” I whispered, rushing to the door, throwing it open.
A massive wolven stood there instead, arms crossed, jaw tight. Eyes cold and unreadable.
His calculating eyes roamed my disheveled form without the slightest attempt to mask his disgust.
“You Ambrose?” he eventually asked, voice low and rough.
My brows furrowed. But before I could ask anything he thrust a white envelope into my hand.
“What is this?
“What do you think it is?” he said with a scoff. “Harper is quitting. Effective immediately. She asked me to give this to you.”
“She’s quitting? Where is she going?”
He shrugged, all casual disinterest, but the wind shifted—and I caught it. Her scent. Faint but real. It clung to him. Wrapping around me like a ghost.
“It doesn’t matter where. Not to you anyways. I saw what Chad’s cheating did to her. And I picked up the pieces when she came home afteryoupulled whatever it was that you pulled. She deserves to be happy, man.”
His words settled in my heart like cement.
“Who are you to her?” I asked, sharper than I meant to.
He lifted an eyebrow, then gave a hollow laugh. “Funny. I was just about to ask you the same thing.” He shook his head. “I’m part of the reason she ever got into this mess. So think of this—” he tapped the envelope against my chest—“as the end of my penance. Or whatever.”
I stared down at the letter, a pit forming in my stomach.
