They Canceled My Ticket I Canceled Them Chapter 28
“No one forced you.”
Marcus stared at the screen, silent.
Then Daniel seemed to remember something. He opened the shared travel app on his own phone.
The old itineraries were archived, but the change logs were still there.
Under my canceled Moab ticket, the account name and timestamp of the person who made the change were clearly displayed.
Daniel’s name.
That day, he had taken my confirmation number and assumed he had the right to choose my destination for me.
Daniel’s hand began to shake.
“I just wanted her to stay with the group.”
Tyler looked at him.
“That’s exactly what you said three years ago.”
“And what about you? Who came up with that stupid ‘test’ on the island?”
Tyler’s face went pale.
With me gone, they could no longer push all the responsibility onto the one who had “always guessed wrong.”
Every decision had a sender. Every action had a name attached.
The realtor knocked twice on the open door.
“Everyone, the buyers will be here in fifteen minutes. If you can’t keep your voices down, I’ll have to cancel the showing.”
Marcus slowly sank into a chair.
He looked around the living room.
Madison’s wool blanket was gone. The coffee table was bare. The pictures had been taken down, leaving pale rectangles on the walls.
The apartment was finally as empty as it had been the day I left.
But only now did he admit that it wasn’t just the closet that had been emptied.
“If we had just told her we were going to Seattle that day…” Marcus said, his voice low.
Daniel cut him off.
“She didn’t leave because of one trip.”
No one in the room said another word.
It had taken them three years to guess the simplest answer of all.