My Fiancé Took His Ex to Tahoe Every Year for 5 Years—So I Canceled Our Wedding and Disappeared
Chapter 4
At 11:40 that night, I was sitting at the airport when Lucas began calling.
I ignored the first three calls.
Then the messages arrived.
Where are you?
What are these papers?
Why is the house canceled?
Nora, did you cancel the wedding?
Finally:
Is this seriously because of Emma?
I replied with one word.
No.
He called immediately.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m leaving.”
“You canceled the house?”
“Yes.”
“The wedding?”
“Yes.”
“Without talking to me?”
I almost laughed.
“I talked to you for five years.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means I asked you to travel with me. I asked you to remember my birthday. I asked you to participate in our wedding. I asked you to take one good picture of me.”
Silence.
“Every time,” I continued, “you told me next time.”
“That isn’t a reason to destroy our life.”
“Emma never had to wait for next time.”
“There is nothing going on with Emma!”
“I don’t care whether you slept with her.”
He went completely quiet.
“I mean it, Lucas. I don’t care.”
“Then what is this?”
“It’s finding out you weren’t bad at romance.”
“What?”
“You weren’t too practical to plan things. You weren’t incapable of remembering birthdays. You weren’t bad at photographs. You weren’t somebody who didn’t care about details.”
My boarding group was announced.
I stood.
“You just didn’t do those things with me.”
“That’s insane.”
“You’re right. You’re marrying me.”
“Yes!”
“You chose me for the practical life. Mortgage payments. Wedding spreadsheets. Retirement accounts. She got the parts of you that were excited to be alive.”
“That’s not true.”
“She got Tahoe every year.”
“We traveled.”
“We drove to your cousin’s graduation.”
“Nora—”
“She got photographs you took because you wanted to remember her. She got gifts you planned months ahead. She got your mother. She left shoes in our home for a secret trip I knew nothing about.”
“It wasn’t secret.”
“Then why didn’t I know?”
Silence.
“She knew your opinions about our house before I did.”
More silence.
Then Lucas changed tactics.
“Fine. I won’t go to Tahoe with her anymore.”
I closed my eyes.
“I’ll tell Mom to stop involving Emma.”
“Lucas.”
“We’ll travel. Anywhere you want.”
“Lucas.”
“I can fix this.”
“You’re trying to fix Tahoe.”
“What else am I supposed to fix?”
“The part where I had to leave before you cared.”
His breathing changed.
“I cared.”
“You cared enough to assume I’d stay.”
“Nora, please come home.”
“No.”
“We need to talk face to face.”
I looked toward the gate.
“No more next time.”
Then I hung up.
For two weeks, Lucas sent messages every day.
I can move to Portland.
We can buy another house.
We’ll travel.
I’ll plan your birthday.
I’ll do this right.
I didn’t answer.
Every message was an answer to a question I had asked years earlier.
That was exactly why they meant nothing now.
A month later, I began my new job in Portland.
My apartment was small. Half my boxes remained unopened. My kitchen barely had enough counter space to make coffee and toast at the same time.
I loved it.
And sometimes I hated it.
One evening, I found one of Lucas’s old sweatshirts in a box and sat on the bathroom floor crying into it.
I missed the man who had driven me to the airport when my father was sick.
I missed finding dinner in the refrigerator.
I missed the familiar weight of him sleeping beside me.
Leaving someone does not erase the good they did.
It means the good is no longer enough to make the rest livable.
Then, five weeks after I left, Lucas texted.
I’m in Portland.
A second message followed.
I know I don’t have the right to show up. If you don’t want to see me, I’ll leave tonight.
I stared at the screen for ten minutes.
Then I sent him the name of a coffee shop.
Twenty minutes.
He was already there.
