Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kelechi & Marley
I tugged at the hem of my shirt as I pressed Marley’s doorbell for the seventh time, my mouth dry despite chugging an entire bottle of water just minutes ago.
I think my unusual thirst was my body’s quiet warning, a physical premonition that arrived before my mind could catch up, already preparing me for the wreck I would become the moment I faced her.
Pulling out my phone, I used the black screen as a mirror, checking if I looked remotely presentable. I had landed in Mapleridge barely an hour ago, dropped my luggage at my dorm, and rushed straight here without even stopping to shower or change. I probably looked as exhausted as I felt.
I knew where Marley usually hid her spare key when I came to visit, but that was before. Now I wasn’t sure if it would still be there, or if using it would cross some invisible line we’d drawn between us. We weren’t together anymore, after all.
Leaning against the door, I forced myself to breathe.
You’ve survived worse than this, Kelechi.
My hand trembled as I lifted the doormat by her front steps. The key was still there, exactly where she’d always kept it. My heart lurched. Had she left it, hoping I would come back? Or had she simply forgotten about it?
Stop overthinking everything.
The key turned easily in the lock. The moment I stepped inside, her scent wrapped around me like a familiar embrace, and tears stung my eyes.
God, I had missed her.
I’d missed this place, this feeling of being somewhere I belonged.
“Marley?” My voice echoed in the quiet house.
No answer.
I set my bag on the kitchen counter and wandered toward her bedroom, each step feeling heavier than the last. The room was carefully arranged the way she always kept it. Her wardrobe doors stood slightly ajar, and when I opened them wider, the full force of her scent hit me.
Without thinking, I grabbed the nearest shirt and pressed it to my face, inhaling deeply as I made my way to the bed.
The past thirty-two hours crashed over me all at once.
The wedding I had walked away from.
My father’s slap.
My mother’s tears.
The hotel room where I’d spent the night, staring at the ceiling, replaying every word.
The 7 a.m. flight, followed by eleven gruelling hours in the air with two layovers. Twenty-three hours of travel that had left me hollow and exhausted.
But none of that compared to the fear eating at me now.
What if she didn’t want me back?
What if I’d waited too long, hurt her too deeply?
During our fight, she’d treated me like I didn’t exist. Never looked my way in class. Bolted the moment lectures ended. Left me scrambling to catch up only to watch her disappear around corners.
It felt like hatred.
Fresh tears spilled down my cheeks.
What was I even doing here?
Maybe I should leave before she came home and found me like this, broken and desperate in her bedroom, clutching her clothes like some pathetic—
But I couldn’t move.
My legs gave out, and I sank onto her mattress, still holding her shirt against my chest. The exhaustion I’d been fighting for over a day finally won, pulling me under.
I curled up on top of her comforter, surrounded by everything that smelled like her, and let sleep take me away from all the ways I had ruined everything that mattered.
MARLEY
The moment I stepped through my front door, I knew something was different.
Off.
The air itself felt unusual.
I closed the door slowly and moved into the sitting room, my eyes scanning automatically for anything out of place.
Then I saw a handbag sitting on my kitchen counter.
My heart slammed against my ribs as recognition hit me.
I knew that bag.
I’d watched her dig through it countless times, searching for lip balm or her keys or those gummy bears she always carried.
It was devastatingly familiar.
She was here.
But how was that even possible?
Her wedding was on the thirteenth, and that was only five days away.
My keys clattered to the floor as my heart began to thump. I nearly flung my backpack across the room in my haste to get to my bedroom.
I’d been at the café just thirty minutes away, trying to lose myself in research and studies. Anything to keep my mind occupied and away from thoughts of her walking down an aisle towards someone else.
The bedroom door was already open by the time I got there.
And as I stepped inside, a strangled sound caught in my throat.
She was sprawled across my bed with one of my shirts clutched in her hands. She’d curled herself into a tight ball, her face buried in the fabric.
The sight nearly brought me to my knees. I pressed my hand to my jaw, moving closer on unsteady legs.
Was I dreaming?
Hallucinating?
My eyes drank her in desperately, cataloguing every detail.
Her hair was different. It looked like she was wearing a straight wig over her natural hair. Dark shadows ringed her eyes, deeper than I’d ever seen. There was something that looked like a healing cut at the corner of her mouth. She looked thinner. Fragile in a way that made my chest ache.
Kelechi.
A mess of contradictions warred inside me, each one sharp enough to draw blood.
Relief that she was real, that she was here.
That she was breathing. Fury at whatever had put those shadows under her eyes and that wound on her lip.
Rage that burned white-hot because how dare she show up now, when I’d finally started to build walls around the hole she’d left in my chest?
Hope I tried desperately to crush before it could take root.
Because hoping was what had nearly destroyed me the first time.
And love.
God, so much love it felt like drowning.
Like every defence I’d started building, crumbling to dust the moment I saw her face.
I turned away before it swallowed me.
My legs shook as I made my way to the armchair in the corner of the room. I collapsed into it and folded my arms tightly across my chest, as though I could physically restrain myself.
She looked so peaceful lying there.
And apparently, I still hadn’t outgrown the habit of letting her sleep undisturbed.
Even when my world was spinning off its axis.
I checked the clock on my nightstand.
Seven-thirty p.m.
How long had she been here?
How long had she been sleeping in my bed while I sat in that café, trying to forget her?
Time moved slowly as I watched her.
At some point, she began to stir. Her skirt rode up slightly, revealing the smooth curve of her thighs.
I dragged my eyes away quickly, heat flooding my cheeks.
Damn it. I was still hopelessly, pathetically attracted to this woman.
I forced myself to take a steadying breath and looked back just as she sat up, rubbing her eyes like a sleepy child.
I watched her slowly become aware of where she was.
Watched the confusion clear from her face.
And then—
“Jesus Christ!” she yelped, scrambling upright as she spotted my silhouette in the dim evening light.
She stood quickly and walked toward me, her movements uncertain.
“Marley,” she said.
And my name on her lips made my heart race.
Every instinct I had screamed at me to stand up. To pull her into my arms. To bury my face in her neck and breathe her in until I could convince myself she was real.
But then reality crashed back as I remembered our fight.
Her engagement.
The wedding that was supposed to happen in five days.
And I forced myself to remain seated.
“What are you doing here?”
The words came out harsher than I wanted it to, edged with weeks of hurt and confusion and sleepless nights.
But I couldn’t seem to control my voice any more than I could control the way my pulse hammered at the sight of her.
“I came to talk to you,” she said, her voice barely audible.
“About what?” I gripped the arms of my chair. “Oh, wait, do you need my congratulations? Let me guess. The wedding planning got stressful, so you thought you’d come get a quick ego boost from your old fling before the big day?”
She flinched like I’d struck her.
Part of me felt satisfied seeing her hurt.
The other part wanted to take it back immediately.
“I’m not getting married,” she said.
“What?”
“I called off the wedding. I’m not marrying him.”
I stared at her for a long moment, my heart hammering.
“So what? You got cold feet and decided to come running to me for comfort? Planning to go back to him once you’ve worked through your little crisis?”
“No, Marley, it’s not like that—”
“Then what is it like?” I stood abruptly, needing distance from her. “You want me when it’s convenient. When you’re scared or confused. But the moment real life calls, you disappear.”
Tears streamed down her face.
“That’s not fair.”
“Fair?” I laughed bitterly. “Really?”
“I know I hurt you—”
“You don’t know the half of it, Do you know how devastated I’ve been ever since you left? Do you know I failed two assignments because I couldn’t concentrate? Do you know how many times Atlas had to drag me out of bed because I couldn’t see the point in getting up?”
She was crying harder now, her whole body shaking. “Baby, please, I’m so sorry—”
“Sorry doesn’t fix weeks of pain. Sorry doesn’t undo the nights I stayed awake replaying every conversation we had, trying to figure out how I lost you.”
“You didn’t lose me. You never lost me.” She took a step closer. “Every day away from you felt like I was dying.”
“Then why?” The question that had been eating at me finally broke free. “Why did you leave at first?”
“Because I was scared.” She dropped to her knees right there in front of me, in the middle of my bedroom, her hands pressed together. “Because I spent my whole life being what everyone else needed me to be, and when it came time to choose what I wanted, I panicked.”
Something about seeing her on her knees made my anger falter.
“Get up. You don’t need to—”