13. Riley #3
He tightened his grip on the handle, lifting the bag against his side. The movement pulled the jacket near his collarbone. He winced briefly before shifting the weight away from the bandage.
Yesterday, Riley would have stepped toward him.
She would already have been reaching for the tape.
Today, she turned around.
The loft door stood a few steps above her. Riley fixed her attention on the seam beside the frame and stepped up one tread, putting her back to the gravel lot. She could manage his voice. Looking at him was becoming harder.
Behind her, the bag brushed his leg again.
“I meant what I said about the shop,” Graham said. “None of that was fake.”
Riley kept her hand on the railing. “And you’re still leaving.”
“Yes.”
There was no point asking anything else.
The word landed cleaner than every excuse he could have offered.
Riley faced the door and forced her voice to stay level. “Hatred takes effort. You’re a stranger to me now. Clear the stairs.”
For several seconds, the only sound came from the lot below. His footsteps crunched as he took a step backward.
She did not turn.
If she looked at him now, she would remember his body under the cast-iron rig.
The blood on his shirt. The way he’d stood still while she pressed the bandage into place.
She would start searching his face for some last reason to stop him, and she had already humiliated herself enough for one morning.
He took another step backward.
“I’m going to fix what I broke.”
Riley stared at the closed door.
No answer.
His voice came from farther back in the lot.
“I love you, Riley.”
Riley kept her eyes on the loft door.
Gravel shifted behind her as Graham crossed the lot. Each step carried him farther from the stairs, but she refused to turn and give him one last look to take onto the plane. His declaration remained between them, unanswered.
“Riley.”
Her fingers curled around the railing.
“Go, Graham.”
A pause followed.
“I’m going.”
The footsteps resumed.
Riley fixed her attention on a narrow line where the door met the siding. The paint had chipped near the bottom corner, exposing an older layer beneath it. She studied that stupid mark as if repairing it belonged at the top of her morning list.
Anything was better than watching him leave.
The car’s trunk opened behind her.
The bag landed inside with a muffled thud, then the lid shut.
Don’t turn around.
She had watched him leave too many times already. Hotel doors. Arena tunnels. Black cars waiting outside sponsor dinners. Every departure had arrived wrapped in the same promise that later would belong to them.
Later had eaten years.
Graham opened the driver’s door.
Riley stayed facing the loft.
He pulled the door shut again.
For a moment, nothing moved.
Some miserable part of her waited for the door to reopen. Graham could still climb out. He could cross the gravel, come back to the stairs, and tell her New York could survive without him.
The engine started.
Its low growl put an end to that foolish possibility.
Riley pressed her lips together and kept her hand on the railing.
She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her turn at the first sound.
If he wanted the airport, the gala, Nicolle, and whatever corporate emergency required his presence, he could have them without carrying another image of Riley watching him go.
The tires began grinding across the gravel.
Only then did she turn.
The car rolled toward the road, leaving a faint trail of dust. Graham never stopped. The brake lights didn’t flare. No door opened.
He reached the end of the lot and turned toward the highway.
Riley descended one step before catching herself.
There was nowhere she intended to follow him.
The car gathered speed along the coastal road. Morning light flashed across the rear window before distance reduced it to a black shape between the marsh grass and the trees.
The tears came once there was no chance he could look back and see them.
Riley let them.
She was tired of treating every piece of grief like something Graham might use to bargain his way back inside. No one stood beneath the stairs now. There was nobody left to fool.
Both hands settled over her stomach.
The baby kicked hard against her palm.
Riley looked down.
“Okay, baby.”
She felt another nudge, smaller this time.
For months, every choice had come back to this. The loft. The shop. The work that paid her own bills. A life where her daughter would never have to stand behind glass and wait for somebody important to finish performing for strangers.
Down the road, the car’s taillights became two red points.
Graham had always been leaving for something. A game. A sponsor dinner. A media tour. Another obligation that supposedly protected their future while taking him farther away from the people it was meant to include.
This time she wasn’t waiting for the return trip.
The taillights disappeared around the bend.
Riley rested both hands over the baby and stared at the empty road.
“Goodbye, Graham.”
You wanted the noise. Now drown in it.
We are finished.