Chapter 2 Decisive
“Nicole Harwick, have you lost your mind?!
“Wyatt just woke up, and you’re already talking about divorce? Are you seeing some other man behind his back?
“You shameless little tramp!”
I had barely gotten home when Wyatt’s sister, Heidi Ospen, found out I was divorcing him, and immediately called to scream at me.
All these years, because of Wyatt, I’d swallowed my pride and tolerated her. Now, her voice droned on and on over the phone. “You’ve been with Wyatt for so many years and now you want to act like some young person and get divorced?
“At your age, do you really think you can start over?
“I never liked you, not even before you got together with Wyatt.
“Uneducated, just a country nobody.
“If Wyatt hadn’t been soft–hearted and settled for you, do you really think you-”
Click.
I hung up. I didn’t even bother blocking her–I just deleted her number.
I never answer calls from strangers anyway.
It didn’t take long for Damian to find out about the divorce.
His calls came one after another.
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07:16
Chapter 2 Decisive
I glanced at the screen and let it ring.
I packed my suitcase alone in the house.
All these years while Wyatt was sick, I managed the home just fine by myself.
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But after decades of living here, I realized there was hardly anything that truly belonged to me.
Pots and pans, laundry detergent, shoe brushes–things I once called mine, I left them all behind.
I only packed a few changes of clothes and my savings book.
There was 15,000 dollars in that account–my life savings, scraped together from years of hard work.
Once the house was tidied up, I found a little diner down the street and ordered a bowl of chicken pasta soup.
Suddenly, a message popped up from Damian.
It was a photo.
Wyatt sat in a wheelchair, cuddling with Ezra. Damian and Laurel were there, even Cody and Faye.
Six of them, huddled close around a big
smiling for the camera.
lable in a restaurant,
Damian’s caption read, “Celebrating Dad’s discharge and new beginning.”
I turned off my phone and finished my meal.
When I stepped out of the restaurant, the sunset outside was blazing red. I stood there, lost in thought, staring at the sky.
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07.16
Chapter 2 Decisive
It struck me that I hadn’t watched a sunset in over a decade.
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Even when Wyatt was in a coma, he needed constant care–turning him over to prevent bedsores, washing him, scrubbing his clothes by hand.
I never had a moment’s rest.
But as I watched the sun go down, I felt everything fall away.
I finally accepted that I’d wasted 30 years on someone who never loved
- me.
That night, I didn’t go home. Instead, I checked into a fancy hotel nearby.
After years of sleeping on that narrow, hard cot in the hospital, the softness of the king–sized bed felt almost foreign.
It took me a long time to fall asleep.
In the middle of the night, my phone started ringing off the hook.
I glanced at the screen–it was Wyatt.
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