20. Chapter 20
Cate
Present
Ilet my fingers slide down the front of my shirt until they reached the gold chain I kept around my neck. I gave it a slight tug and pulled it free.
At the end of the chain, the ring caught the light as it surfaced - small, worn smooth at the edges. John’s ring.
I rolled it between my fingers absently, the metal warmed by my skin. There had to be something I missed. People didn’t just disappear. They went places. They left trails. They could be traced, tracked, found.
What if he was still out there somewhere?
I slipped the ring over my finger. It looked impossibly small next to the one Trevor had given me - delicate, almost fragile by comparison. Yet if I had to choose between the two…
It would’ve been this one. Every time.
Amy reached over and covered my hand with hers. “Wow,” she said softly. “I can’t believe you still have that.”
The ring warmed beneath my skin, and for one disorienting second, I could smell him.
Cedar and clean cotton.
Not sharp. Not overpowering. Just steady. Familiar. Like coming home without realizing you’d been lost.
I want to keep choosing you. Every day. Even when it’s hard.
I smiled and pulled my hand back, curling my fingers into my palm. “I couldn’t get rid of it.” My throat tightened as I swallowed past the ache. “It felt like erasing him.”
A crease formed between her brows. “What does Trevor say about you wearing John’s ring around your neck?”
I shook my head. “He doesn’t know.” I hesitated, then added, “I think he’d understand. I just… don’t want to explain it.”
“But,” Amy said carefully, “he’s your fiancé. You shouldn’t be keeping secrets from him.”
I leaned back and huffed out a breath. “Seriously? You mean to tell me you’ve never kept anything from Jim?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it.
“Exactly,” I said gently. “It’s not like Trevor has anything to worry about. I think it’s pretty clear John’s not coming back.”
The words tasted wrong the moment I said them.
I twisted the ring around my finger, a nervous habit I’d never quite broken. With the wedding so close, memories kept surfacing uninvited - soft, insistent, impossible to shut out.
I loved Trevor.
But loving him had never erased the fact that I loved John too.
“Do you remember when I told you about us?” I asked quietly.
Amy nodded. “How could I forget? I’ve never seen Trevor so happy.”
“I meant John.”
Her expression shifted, subtle, but immediate.
I closed my fingers around the ring again, the metal pressing into my skin like a reminder. “He said we had time,” I murmured. “All the time we needed.”
The silence between us stretched.
Amy’s voice was gentle when she finally spoke. “Cate…”
“He believed it,” I said, staring down at my hand. “That there was no rush. No expiration date. That love didn’t have to be hurried or proven or protected from the clock.”
I swallowed hard.
“And maybe that’s why I still don’t know how to accept that he’s just… gone.”
Amy didn’t argue this time.
She just reached for my hand again and held it.