He Erased Me From The Photo I Erased Him From My Life Chapter 23
The night the retraction went up, Sloane stood outside Owen’s apartment, pressing the doorbell again and again.
Owen opened the door but blocked the entrance.
“Are you satisfied now?” she demanded, her eyes red and swollen. “Cal’s family won’t answer my calls. My own friends are questioning me. Everyone thinks I’m a liar.”
“You posted those words and photos yourself.”
“If you hadn’t suddenly abandoned us, would I have needed to?”
She braced a hand against the doorframe, trying to push her way inside as she always had before.
Owen didn’t budge.
“Where’s Lucy?”
“At home.”
“Then go home and be with her.”
Sloane stared at him as if seeing him for the first time.
“You were never like this before.”
“Before, I would leave Natalie when she needed me just to fix your garage door. I left her standing alone at the marriage license counter because you refused to call a cab.”
Owen’s voice was dangerously quiet.
“You knew I would always choose you. So every time, you pushed a little further.”
“You were willing to do it!”
“Yes.”
His simple agreement stopped her cold.
“That’s why I don’t get to blame this all on you,” he said. “But you don’t get to keep hiding behind Cal and Lucy, either.”
The righteous indignation in Sloane’s eyes slowly drained away, replaced by a cold sneer.
“Natalie never belonged with us. The first time we all had dinner, she didn’t even know what kind of whiskey Cal liked. And with the wedding menu, all she cared about was herself. I just wanted her to understand that twenty years of history isn’t something you can just replace.”
Owen looked at her.
The overturned bowl of barbecue sauce. The deliberately opened envelope. Every perfectly timed tear she had ever cried. It all clicked into place.
“So you succeeded,” he said.
Sloane’s mouth twitched.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She didn’t replace you.”
Owen’s hand tightened on the doorknob.
“She just gave up on me.”
He shut the door in her face.
She immediately punched in the entry code, but the lock buzzed with an error.
Owen had already changed it.
Inside, he stood with his back against the door for a moment before walking into the bedroom.
The engagement ring still sat on the nightstand.
He had never put it away, as if its presence alone might someday bring Natalie back for it.
But she hadn’t even bothered to open his apology letter.
She certainly wasn’t coming back for a ring she had already discarded.
He picked up the ring, placed it back in its velvet box, shut the lid, and locked it in the bottom drawer of his dresser.
It was a choice he had made far, far too late.
There was no one outside the door anymore.
And inside, there would never again be anyone waiting for him.