Chapter 16
Jul 18, 2025
Landon’s POV
She had been my wife for five years. And yet, standing across the street from her now, I felt like I didn’t know her at all. It wasn’t just the way the sun hit her face or how calm she looked as she flipped through the stack of paperbacks outside the bookstore.
It was something else. Something deeper. Maybe this was the first time I’d really seen her.
Hair twisted into a loose knot, wearing a plain summer dress that skimmed her knees, and one hand resting gently over a barely-there baby bump, she looked like a different person.
Lighter, softer, and free.
Not just free in the way people look when they leave the city for a weekend. No. She looked like someone who had finally laid down a weight she’d been carrying for too long.
It hit me all at once. She was glowing, and it gutted me.
My breath caught as I watched her from the sidewalk. She hadn’t seen me yet. I didn’t need to see her face to know it was her. I recognized her in the shape of her shoulders, the slow, thoughtful way she turned the pages of a book, the stillness she carried like it was earned.
This wasn’t the Emery I left behind in the chaos of our old life. This was someone new. Or maybe she had always been like this, and I had just been too blind to notice.
I pulled out my phone and texted the investigator. You were right. It’s her. Thank you.
The reply came almost immediately. Glad she’s safe.
Safe. That word hit harder than I expected. I stayed frozen on the spot, too afraid to move. I didn’t know if I had the right to go to her. I wasn’t sure I ever really did.
But then she turned around, and our eyes met across the street.
For a second, time slowed. Not in the dramatic way movies tend to show it, but in a quiet, heavy kind of pause. A stillness that forces you to feel everything at once.
She didn’t smile, she didn’t cry, and she didn’t look surprised. Her face was unreadable.
I stepped forward, unable to help myself. “Emery.”
She didn’t blink, she simply turned and started walking in the other direction.
I hesitated before following her, not out of pride but fear, fear of what she might say, or worse, what she wouldn’t.
“Emery, please-”
Her voice came fast and sharp. “Shut your mouth.”
The words stopped me cold. She still hadn’t looked back.
“You never spoke when I begged,” she continued. “You don’t get to speak now.”
I quickened my steps to catch up, the weight in my chest getting heavier with every word. “Just hear me out.”
She let out a dry laugh, low and humorless. “You wanted me to hear you? That’s rich, Landon. I begged for help. I begged you to stand up to your mother. I begged for you to protect me from the way they treated me in that house. And all you did was look away.”
There was nothing I could say to defend myself, not without sounding like a coward. Because that’s what I had been.
She finally stopped and faced me. Her eyes were calm, but the anger in them was unmistakable.
“You left me to rot in that family like I was nothing. So don’t show up now, acting like you care.”
My voice came out quiet. “I do care.”
She didn’t soften. “No, you don’t. You care that I’m gone. You care that you lost control. That’s not the same thing.”
“I didn’t know you were pregnant.”
“Of course you didn’t. You never paid attention to anything that mattered.”
Her words were like punches I knew I deserved. But I still took a step closer. “Emery, please. Let me explain.”
She shook her head slowly, her expression flat. “There’s nothing you could say now that would undo the damage. I’m building something new, something peaceful. And I won’t let you ruin that, not again.”
Then she turned around and walked away, her pace steady. I didn’t follow. I couldn’t. I stood there and watched until she disappeared into the narrow street beside the bookstore.
But I wasn’t leaving.
Not when I’d just seen her hand on her stomach. Not when I finally understood what it meant to lose something real. Maybe I had failed her before, maybe I didn’t deserve another chance, but I was going to try.
Not just for her, but for the child she was carrying. My child.
She told me to leave her alone. And maybe I should. But I’ve done enough of that already. I’m not leaving until I find a way to make this right.
