6. Chapter Six #2
“I believe Serena wanted the campaign to become real,” Wendy continued. “I believe you rejected her. I believe the video was cut to hide that. I’m still leaving.”
The hope vanished.
“You can’t say you believe me and walk out anyway,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because the thing everyone thinks happened didn’t happen.”
“The thing that happened is enough.”
Hunter took a hard breath. “I can cancel the statement. I can pull the reaction footage. I’ll call the label and tell them the duet story is done.”
“What about the tour?”
He hesitated.
Wendy closed her eyes for a second. “You still have to think about it.”
“There are contracts. Crew, venues. People have spent money.”
“And there it is.”
“That doesn’t mean I won’t fix it,” he defended himself.
“You keep trying to fix my departure before you’ve understood why I’m going.”
“Tell me what to do, then.” His voice rose, then lowered again. “Please. Tell me.”
She looked at the man she’d loved since she was twenty.
He was frightened, sleepless, and finally willing to offer anything because the bag was packed.
Yesterday, when her pain had still been contained inside the house, he’d stayed away.
At the Bowl, when cameras had searched her face, he’d let them.
In their kitchen, when she’d asked a direct question, he’d turned and left.
Now he needed instructions because she was moving beyond his reach.
“I needed you to care before I made leaving real,” she said.
“I cared the whole time.”
“Then I wasn’t safe in the way you cared.”
Hunter took that without answering. His eyes shined with unshed tears. Wendy bent for the bag. He stepped into her path. Not close enough to trap her, but close enough to make her stop.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Somewhere safe.”
“With Lily?”
“I’m not telling you.”
His lips parted. “You won’t tell me where you’re going?”
“Not tonight.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“When can I call you?”
“You can’t.”
He went pale. “Wendy.”
“I can’t give you rules that turn this into another schedule you can manage. I don’t know what I want from this marriage. I only know I need distance from you while I find out.”
“Let me drive you.”
“No.”
“It’s dark. You haven’t slept.”
“Neither have you.”
“Then wait until morning.”
“If I wait, you’ll keep talking until staying feels easier than choosing myself.”
Pain crossed his face. “You think I’d manipulate you into staying?”
“I think you’d hold me. I think you’d tell me you love me, and you’d mean it. I think I’d want to believe meaning it is enough.”
He lifted his hand again, slower this time. “Can I hold you now?”
Every part of her hurt.
“No.”
His hand fell.
Wendy carried the bag past him. He followed her through the bright hall and down the stairs, but he didn’t touch her. In the foyer, the polished stone felt cold under her thin shoes. Her keys waited in the bowl by the door. She took them and put on her coat.
Hunter stood several feet away. Without the stage, the lights, or the people who handled every problem before it reached him, he looked like the young man from the broken truck – only this time, Wendy couldn’t make the disaster into a joke.
“I didn’t give our life to her,” he said.
Wendy put her hand on the door. “If the song was mine, why was I the last to hear it?”
He had no answer.
She left.
Her car was parked in the row of vehicles chosen for premieres, meetings, and photographs.
She put the travel bag in the trunk herself.
Hunter remained inside the open front door while she backed down the drive.
He didn’t come after her. The estate gates opened, and Wendy drove through them, and didn’t look in the mirror until they’d closed behind her.
Los Angeles spread around her in white signs, red brake lights, and hard pools of light under the overpasses. Even before dawn, cars filled the wider roads. She kept both hands on the wheel and followed the route north.
Her phone vibrated in her coat pocket several times, close together. She didn’t reach for it.
The city thinned. The highway darkened along the coast, and the hills became black shapes beyond the glass.
Wendy cracked the window. Cold air touched her face and kept her alert.
Each mile put more distance between her and him, but her body still expected Hunter to appear beside her and finish the conversation with the right words.
There were no right words. Not yet.
By the time she reached Aria Springs, a pale line had formed above the eastern hills.
Wendy drove through the quiet edge of town and followed the familiar road toward her parents’ estate.
The guesthouse lights were on. Her mother opened the door before Wendy had taken the bag from the trunk, and her father stood behind her, with one hand braced on the frame.
Her mother came down the steps. “Give me the bag.”
“I can carry it.”
“I know.” Her mother’s voice was gentle. “Give it to me anyway.”
Wendy let go.
Inside the guesthouse, clean sheets covered the bed, water waited on the kitchen counter, and an extra phone charger lay beside it. Her parents had prepared everything she might’ve needed.
Her father touched her shoulder. “We’re at the main house. Any hour.”
“Thank you.”
Her mother studied her face. “Do you want me to stay?”
Wendy looked at the travel bag. One bag, a green binder, and a life she couldn’t name yet.
“I need to be alone for a while.”
Her parents left without arguing. Wendy locked the door, pulled out her phone, and found eleven missed calls from Hunter. His messages began with explanations, shifted into apologies, and ended with a plea for her to tell him she was safe.
She typed, “I’m safe. I need you not to contact me.” She sent it before she could soften the boundary. Then she blocked his number.
The silence that followed wasn’t peace. She didn’t know what it was.
Wendy left the bag where her mother had set it, took her keys, and drove back up the winding road to the Aria Springs overlook. She’d stopped there as a teenager when the town felt too small, and again at twenty, when leaving for Los Angeles had felt like the beginning of everything.
Now dawn spread over the valley in quiet bands of gray and gold. From the stone wall, she could see the road descending toward her parents’ land. Beyond it, the hills hid Vesper Hill, still waiting in whatever future remained possible.
Her ring caught the early light when she rested both hands on the wall. She hadn’t ended the marriage. She hadn’t solved anything. She still loved Hunter enough that her whole body ached with it. But when Wendy turned back toward her parents’ estate, she felt the first thin edge of relief.
She was no longer waiting for Hunter to decide that her pain mattered.