Chapter 63
“Click!”
Lester had already taken the shot.
Amelia realized she’d missed it. “Shit, sorry–wasn’t looking at the camera. Take another one?”
“Hell yeah!” Lester said excitedly.
Amelia turned back to the camera and smiled.
“Click!”
The instant camera captured Lester, Charlotte, and masked Amelia in that moment.
Amelia watched Lester pull out the photo and hand it over.
She signed “Elena” on it.
After wrapping that up, Amelia looked back toward where Nathan had been standing.
He and Vivian were already gone.
The spot was totally empty.
Amelia paused for a beat, then looked away, but caught Arthur’s stare in the process.
He just watched her without saying anything. After catching her gaze, he looked away and pushed his siblings to leave.
Amelia didn’t say anything either, just followed Louie to their ride.
The car crawled forward. Since recording had gone smooth today, they were wrapping early.
Amelia’s health was way better than before–at least she wasn’t as wrecked as she’d been.
She stripped off her makeup and mask in the car, then changed clothes.
Remembering what the detective had said about her car being fixed, she mentioned it to Louie and bailed partway.
She wanted to grab her car, then hit up her place.
After all those hospital days, she needed to go home for a bit.
Louie didn’t fight it, just dropped her near the dealership.
Amelia watched the car disappear before slowly walking into the shop.
After dealing with paperwork, Amelia got her wheels back.
Sitting behind the wheel again felt weird as hell.
Last time she’d driven this car felt like a lifetime ago.
But it had only been 10 days.
Amelia bit her lip, pushed down the strange feeling, fired up the engine, and hit the city streets.
Evening was settling in–peak rush hour chaos.
Yellow streetlights were already blazing, cars ahead had their lights on, everything looked crazy busy.
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Chapter 63
The radio was quietly playing some Adele track, occasionally cut by traffic japdates.
After spending forever bedridden in the hospital, seeing and hearing all this de Amelia feel totally disconnected.
Like someone who’d been floating in space, forgetting what actual life felt lik
Amelia eyed the traffic on the overpass ahead, shoved down the weird vibes, and focused on driving.
Meanwhile, in traffic below the overpass, a Bentley was creeping along.
Nathan sat in back, staring out the window.
Vivian was next to him, glued to her phone, texting someone.
Nathan watched the traffic crawl by.
This city had stayed just as fucked with traffic all these years.
The scene of the masked woman posing with the Wessex siblings kept replaying in his head..
He couldn’t figure out why he was so fixated on that masked woman.
She was obviously Louie’s girl.
Maybe because whenever he saw that woman, he thought of Amelia.
Red light ahead–the driver smoothly hit the brakes.
Maybe because of this pause, Nathan’s mind drifted to Amelia again.
Remembered that 12–hour ferry escape from the Sates.
They’d made it to shore safely.
Their people had been waiting at the dock.
No drama, no crazy danger.
Just her looking up at him with those eyes.
Smiling, trusting, rock–solid.
Those eyes had been full of nothing but him.
Sitting in the car now, Nathan suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe.
He cracked the window, trying to get some air.
But the suffocating feeling wouldn’t quit.
His heart felt like someone was crushing it in their fist. It fucking hurt.
Music drifted from a car stuck at the same red light–Adele song “When We Were Young” about memories and youth.
The dock after they’d landed that day had been gray and overcast too.
The ocean, fresh from snow, had this brutal, icy beauty. She’d held his hand so fight then.
He suddenly started missing her hard.
“Nathan, everyone online is going crazy over this pendant you got me,” Vivian voice cut in.
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Chapter 63
Nathan snapped back to reality, looking at Vivian. The pendant around her nerk was catching all the light.
“Yeah,” he said. “Looks good on you”
“Right? 1 totally think so too.” Vivian beamed even brighter.
Nathan’s gaze dropped, jaw tightening.
Vivian had less than six months left.
This was on him. He’d fucked Vivian over.
He was already divorcing Amelia anyway.
Everything could wait until after those six months.
At least lately Amelia had chilled out some. Even when she was pissed, she wasn’t throwing tantrums anymore. That was something.
The music from the other car faded, the light went green, and the Bentley rolled forward, heading somewhere else entirely.
Up on the overpass, Amelia drove in the complete opposite direction from Nathan.
They headed toward different corners of the city.
Finally, Amelia made it back to her rental building’s parking garage.
Parked, killed the engine, grabbed her bag from the back, then automatically reached into the little side compartment to check for anything she might’ve forgotten.
She hadn’t expected to find shit, but her fingers hit a small bag.
Frowning, Amelia pulled it out.
The second she opened it; her hand froze.
Sitting there quietly were her pills.
The meds she’d gotten from the therapist.
Back when her baby was still alive.
Back when she hadn’t understood how much the baby mattered, when she’d planned to start the pills after the abortion.
But then the baby was gone, she’d been stuck in the hospital, the car was getting fixed, and the pills had just sat in this compartment until now, showing up again.
Amelia hesitated, then reached out and grabbed one of the pill boxes.
She tried to open the packaging, but her hands suddenly had zero strength, couldn’t tear it open.
Tears hit the pill box as delayed grief slammed into her.
It had been 10 days since losing the baby. That day in the hospital when she’d found out the baby was gone, she’d fallen into this numb void–not thinking about anything, feeling nothing, just existing.
Until this moment, these pills were like a knife cutting through that numb bubble, dragging her back into this world that hurt so fucking much.
Tears soaked the pill box.
This was the first time she’d cried since everything happened.
She was absolutely destroyed.
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Chapter 64
