He Erased Me From The Photo I Erased Him From My Life Chapter 04
By the time the cab pulled up to our apartment building, it was past noon.
The moment I opened the door, I heard a drawer slide shut in the study.
Sloane emerged, holding a blue file folder.
When she saw me, she froze.
“What are you doing back so soon?”
“This is my home,” I said, my eyes fixed on her. “Why are you here?”
“Owen forgot a file, so he asked me to come grab it.” She gave the folder in her hand a little shake, her tone as casual as if she owned the place. “He gave me the door code.”
I walked past her and into the study.
The manila envelope was open.
My mother’s property papers were spread across the desk, a dark coffee stain soaking the upper right corner and bleeding into the signature line. The notary’s seal had blurred, and the two most critical pages had been torn from their binding, the rip slicing straight through my mother’s signature.
I reached down and picked up the documents. The soaked pages nearly disintegrated in my fingers.
“Did you do this?”
Sloane hugged the file folder to her chest.
“I accidentally knocked over my coffee. I tried to pick the papers up to wipe them off, but they were so wet, and they just… tore.”
“They were in an envelope.”
“I thought it was the file Owen needed.”
“So you opened it?”
Her eyes immediately turned red.
“I already said I was sorry. Do you have to interrogate me like this?”
I didn’t look at her again. I just called Owen.
He answered on the second ring. “Nat?”
“Sloane destroyed my mother’s notarized property papers. The signature and the seal are ruined. There’s no way I can mail them today.”
Silence stretched for a few seconds. Then I heard Sloane’s suppressed sobbing in the background.
At some point, she had followed me out of the study.
“Owen, I really didn’t mean to…”
His voice instantly softened as he murmured a few comforting words to her before turning his attention back to me.
“She was just trying to help me get something.”
“She opened my private mail.”
“It was an accident. Can’t you just get another copy?”
“My mother’s hands shake so badly she can barely hold a pen. Getting this notarized again will delay the closing on her house. That money is for her medical care.”
Owen’s voice went cold.
“You shouldn’t be upsetting a grieving mother like this. Sloane already feels terrible. Don’t make it sound like she did it on purpose just to hurt you.”
I looked at the torn signature on the ruined document and hung up.
Ten minutes later, Sloane left.
A moment after that, her Instagram story popped up on my phone.
The photo showed her on a park bench, holding Lucy, while Owen’s hand rested protectively on Lucy’s shoulder.
The caption read:
“Thank God for Uncle Owen. He makes us feel a little less alone.”
I closed the app and picked up our shared iPad, planning to scan what was left of the papers and email our real estate lawyer to see if there was any way to salvage the situation.
But the Mail app opened automatically to an unread message.
The sender was The Peninsula Chicago.
The subject line: How was your stay?
I tapped it open.
The reservation had been made three months ago.
At the time, Owen had told me Sloane was having a trauma response while dealing with Cal’s estate and that he was going with her to see a lawyer.
Booked by: Owen Mercer.
Additional guest: Sloane Avery.
Room type: Executive Suite, one king bed.
I stared at those two names until the screen went dark.
When I lit it up again, my eyes caught the DoorDash icon next to the Mail app.
In the order history, there was a Walgreens delivery from 10:43 p.m. that night.
The address was The Peninsula, and the room number matched the hotel confirmation exactly.
I tapped to see the details.
Order: one box of emergency contraception, one box of Durex thin condoms.
Delivery note: Please leave at the door. Do not knock.
That same night, Sloane had posted a photo of herself supposedly in an emergency room, an IV in her arm.
“PTSD episode. Thank God someone was here for me.”
The hotel.
The additional guest.
The pharmacy order.
The fake ER post.
So that night, Owen hadn’t been taking care of his dead friend’s grieving widow.
I screenshotted everything, emailed it to myself, and backed it all up to the cloud.
Then I shut off the iPad, went into the bedroom, and pulled out my suitcase.
Clothes, documents, my laptop, my mother’s medical records.
Only the things that belonged to me.
I didn’t call Owen.
I didn’t ask him why.
The answer was already written across a dozen digital receipts.
After packing the last of my things, I took off my engagement ring and set it in the center of the nightstand.
The pale silver band flashed once under the light.
I closed the suitcase and dragged it out of the apartment.
The door clicked shut behind me.
I didn’t look back.