One Last Call Before Goodbye Chapter 07
The autumn wind swirled the fallen leaves, sweeping them beneath Marshall and Darlene’s feet in a small circle, holding them together.
Then the wind scattered the leaves apart.
Marshall’s Adam’s apple bobbed, his throat tight. “Alright. I’m going.”
Darlene pressed her pale lips into a thin line, unable to say a single word. She was terrified that the moment she opened her mouth, every facade she had built would come crumbling down.
Only when his figure had vanished from sight did she finally let out the breath she’d been holding.
She doubled over, coughing so violently it felt like her throat might tear open.
Her vision blurred gradually. She stumbled into a cab, and when she collapsed into the back seat, even her fingertips were trembling.
Gasping, she forced the words out one by one. “Sir… Dolphin Lane. Number 15.”
The driver started the car and pulled into traffic.
Darlene sagged against the seat. Her body slumped to one side and then went completely still.
In the rearview mirror, the driver caught sight of her bloodless face and bluish lips. He panicked. “Ma’am? Ma’am! Wake up!”
But Darlene’s eyes stayed shut. She felt her consciousness drifting further and further away, his shouts growing fainter and fainter.
Until there was nothing but endless darkness.
***
A week later. The presidential suite at the Crown Hotel.
Marshall stood before the floor-to-ceiling window. The autumn scenery outside was bleak, desolate, much like his own state of mind.
Seated on the sofa, Tabitha glanced at him. He clearly looked distracted.
“I only let you stay in New York for work. Not so you could let your mind wander back to Darlene. Enough. The project here is wrapping up. We head back to D.C. tomorrow.”
Marshall’s hands, hanging at his sides, tightened. “I know.”
“Put some effort into things with Cathy once you’re back. Don’t be so cold to her.” Tabitha flipped through a magazine, her tone pressing. “You’re twenty-seven. It’s time to get married.”
He lowered his eyes, a shadow settling over his gaze.
Of course, he knew. But whenever he thought of Darlene, of those days with her, he just couldn’t bring himself to move on with a clear conscience.
Darlene was his softest spot. The wound that never healed. It ached at the slightest touch, and the thought of letting it go for good was something he could never bear.
He rubbed his fingertips together, his voice thick with resistance. “We’ll see.”
“We’ll see?” Tabitha’s head snapped up, her voice rising. “How long are you going to drag this out?”
“Mom, I don’t want to get into this right now.” A flicker of impatience crossed his face.
Tabitha was seething. Nothing she said got through to him.
“What, you don’t want to date? Or you still haven’t gotten over Darlene?
“You think I don’t know? You came to New York this time without telling me because of her.”
Marshall’s body went rigid. The panic of being found out was tangled with a surge of helplessness, churning deep in his chest.
“Five years. It’s been five years,” Tabitha continued, mockery dripping from her voice, her face cold. “She’s long since moved on. You’re the only one still stuck in the past, refusing to accept reality. You really think she’s coming back?”
Marshall wanted to snap back, to say he didn’t care whether Darlene came back or not.
She’d abandoned him so heartlessly back then. He should hate her for it.
He clenched his jaw, his face ashen. “Mom, that’s enough.”
“No, it’s not!” Tabitha hurled the magazine onto the coffee table. “You and her—it is never going to happen. Not in this lifetime!”
Marshall didn’t argue. He slammed the door and stormed out, as if fleeing those words—”Never going to happen.”
He drove aimlessly through the streets. After he’d lost track of how long he’d been behind the wheel, he found himself pulling into an alley off Dolphin Lane. Staring at the familiar street, he felt a sharp pain twist in his chest. Darlene lived here.
He got out of the car before he even realized it. His feet carried him on autopilot, all the way to her house, until he stood below, his gaze fixed on that second-floor window he knew so well.
The alley was quiet. The idle chatter of a few elderly women sitting under a tree drifted clearly to his ears.
“That girl on the second floor… I feel so bad for her. She and her sister have had no one but each other for years. And now there’s only one left…”
“They say she died of stomach cancer. She was so young. Fate is so cruel, isn’t it?”
“She’s been crying at home these past few days. Just heartbreaking, really.”
Stomach cancer? Dead?
Marshall stood rooted to the spot, motionless. His mind went completely blank.
Louise—Darlene’s older sister, who had always been so warm to him—was dead?
What about Darlene? How shattered must she be right now?
Growing up, she had leaned on Louise so heavily. Louise had been everything to her. Was she in that room right now, crying her eyes out?
The suffocating feeling in his chest swelled and swelled. He practically stumbled as he bolted up the stairs.
He rushed to the door and pounded on it, his voice raw with barely contained panic and urgency.
“Darlene! Darlene! Open the door!”
With a creak, the door swung open.
But it wasn’t the face he had longed for day and night. It was Louise standing there, eyes red, face streaked with tears.