Love Is Blind, I’m Not Chapter 07

When I took the paper from his hand, Harris’s fingers curled inward slightly.

He turned and walked toward the car. “I’m giving you two days.”

I stood watching the taillights vanish. I returned to my rental apartment and packed two suitcases.

One held my belongings; the other held Dad’s ashes and a few mementos.

I sat by the window as the sun climbed higher, its light stinging my eyes.

I pulled out my phone and called my landlord to terminate the lease. He’d heard what happened to my father and was kind enough to refund my deposit on the spot.

I thanked him and headed to my workplace.

The resignation paperwork was processed quickly. Grief and goodbyes have a way of simplifying everything.

At two thirty that afternoon, I stood inside the station’s waiting hall.

Crowds swarmed all around. I found a quiet corner and called Nicole.

“Nicole, I’ve resigned. I’m going back to my hometown.”

Nicole was surprised, but she didn’t press for details.

“Going home sounds good. The air is cleaner, less pressure. We’ll stay in touch, okay?”

I watched the red indicator light blinking above the gate, my throat tight and raw.

I couldn’t tell Nicole I’d accepted fifty thousand dollars from her fiancé, in exchange for vanishing forever.

I said softly, “Nicole, congratulations on your engagement. I’m glad I got to know you.”

“Aw, we don’t need to be so formal!”

“No. I just came to say goodbye. My train is boarding. I have to go.”

“Alright. Safe travels.”

After hanging up, I sat frozen for a long time. I pulled out my SIM card, tossed it into a nearby trash bin, and followed the crowd onto the train.

All the hidden truth, all the years of hurt and humiliation, I buried them in Blackthorn.

I would never come back to this city.

……

The moment the train pulled out of the station, Harris received his assistant’s report.

“Mr. Parker. Ms. Carlisle has boarded the train for her hometown.”

Harris replied flatly, “Mm.” A weight lifted from his shoulders.

No longer would he and Nicole have this scheming, bothersome woman standing between them. No more pathetic games designed to provoke him.

In a lighter mood, he walked into the living room, just as Nicole called to him.

“Harris, come quick and look.”

“Felicity sent me that catalog we talked about. There’s even a photo of you inside! She took it beautifully.”

“She must have been in a hurry to comfort me that night and forgot it was there.”

Harris halted, a familiar irritation stirring in his chest.

Still, he spoke patiently to Nicole. “Nicole, I don’t care for Felicity. Don’t bring her up to me.”

Nicole’s shoulders drooped as she set the photo down. “She hasn’t bothered you at all since we got together. You’re so unfairly hard on her.”

“Funny enough, she told me a few days ago not to mention you around her either. You two are on the same page.”

Harris’s head ached. Nicole was wonderful, but whenever Felicity was brought up, she grew defensive, refusing to hear a bad word about her friend.

He raised both hands in surrender. “Fine. I won’t say anything more.”

Nicole let it rest.

That evening, Harris dropped Nicole off at her home. When he returned, the catalog still sat on the coffee table.

Harris wrinkled his nose in distaste and stepped over to put it away.

But when he glanced down, all the blood in his body seemed to freeze instantly.

A loose photo lay beside the catalog: a profile shot of him in a wheelchair during his blindness, taken in the hospital garden. The camera angle was from directly behind and beside him, the spot where someone would stand pushing a wheelchair.

Harris remembered Nicole saying Felicity had taken this photo.

But Felicity had never visited him in the hospital during those two years of blindness. How could she have taken it?

Staring at the photograph, he called Nicole at once.

“Harris? What’s wrong?”

“Is that photo from the catalog really taken by Felicity?”

“Yes. It came with the catalog she sent me.”

“That can’t be. Felicity never visited the hospital when I lost my sight. Did you take it and send it to her while you were caring for me?”

“When did I care for you? I only visited you once, on the day you were discharged.”

Panic seized Harris. “But you knew exactly where to press to ease my stomach pain. You knew how much milk to put in the oatmeal…”

Nicole’s confused words hit him like a physical blow.

“But Felicity taught me all of that.”