Chapter 57: Before I Let You Go
The days that followed the massage were different.
Not dramatically—Ethan didn't suddenly become a different man, didn't shower her with declarations or try to close the distance she'd kept so carefully. But something had shifted. Something had softened.
He brought her tea without being asked. Left books he thought she might like by her easel. Sat beside her in the evenings, not speaking, just present. When she painted, he watched—not hovering, not evaluating, just... watching. As if her hands moving across canvas was something beautiful, something worth seeing.
She caught herself watching him back.
The way his hair fell across his forehead when he was tired. The way his green eyes crinkled when he smiled—really smiled, not the practiced expression he wore for business. The way his hands moved when he talked, expressive and alive.
She was cataloguing him.
Memorizing him.
Storing him away for a future where he wouldn't be there.
---
She'd made her decision.
The money was nearly enough. The gallery had promised to sell her remaining paintings on consignment. Margaret had offered her a place to stay—"for as long as you need, child"—until she found her feet.
She would leave in a week.
Maybe two.
Before spring came. Before the snow melted and Edinburgh became a different city, a different life, a different future without her in it.
But first—
First, she wanted to feel something.
She wanted to know what it was like to be cared for. To be prioritized. To be the thing someone chose, not because they had to, not because they felt guilty, but because they wanted to.
Even if it wasn't real.
Even if it was sympathy.
Even if he was only doing it because she was there, because she was convenient, because his mother had told him to try.
She wanted it anyway.
Desperately. Hungrily. The way a starving person wants bread, even knowing it might be stale.
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She wanted to feel it. Just once. Just before she left.
What it was like to be cared for. To be prioritized. To be the center of someone's attention, even if it was borrowed time, even if it wasn't real.
She knew it wasn't love. Whatever he felt for her was guilt wrapped in kindness, responsibility dressed as affection. He'd loved Ava. He'd kissed Veronica. He would find someone better eventually—someone who could speak, who could laugh, who could be the wife he deserved.
But right now, he was here. Right now, he was looking at her like she mattered. And she was starving for it.
She would take what she could get. Even if it broke her later.
---
He took her to dinner that night.
A small restaurant tucked in a close off the Royal Mile, candles flickering on every table, the kind of place where couples sat close and spoke in low voices. Ethan had reserved the corner table—private, intimate, with a view of the street below.
He pulled out her chair. Helped her with her coat. Ordered for her in his perfect French, remembering her preferences from their disastrous first lunch with Ava.
She watched him across the table and let herself pretend.
Pretend they were a normal couple. Pretend he'd always been this man. Pretend the past hadn't happened, that the letter hadn't been written, that he hadn't chosen Ava and kissed Veronica and made her feel like she was nothing.
Pretend that this—this attention, this care—was love.
---
He talked during dinner.
About his work—the smartphone deal, the plans for expansion, the future he was building. About his father—slowly improving, the doctors optimistic. About David—writing letters asking about her, sending his best.
She listened, nodded, smiled when she was supposed to smile.
But her mind was elsewhere.
She was cataloging everything. The way his eyes crinkled when he laughed. The way he reached across the table to touch her hand without thinking. The way he remembered she preferred honey in her tea, cream in her coffee, chocolate after meals.
She was storing these moments like treasures, hoarding them against the cold future when she would be alone.
---
After dinner, they walked.
Edinburgh glittered around them—street lamps casting pools of gold on the cobblestones, the castle illuminated on its rocky throne, the winter air sharp and clean. Ethan held her hand, his fingers laced through hers, his thumb tracing circles on her skin.
She wanted to cry.
This was what she'd wanted her whole life. To be his partner. His priority. The person he chose first, above everything.
When they were children, he'd promised her that. Under the greenhouse glass, in the golden afternoon light, he'd said she was important. To him. To the world.
She'd believed him.
She'd built her whole life around that belief.
And then he'd chosen Ava.
He'd written that letter.
He'd told her she deserved to suffer.
---
She stopped walking.
Ethan turned, concern flickering in his green eyes. "What's wrong?"
She looked at him—really looked. At the boy who had become a man, at the lover who had become a stranger, at the husband who was holding her hand like she mattered.
She wanted to ask him.
Why Ava? After promising me forever, why did you choose her?
Was it really my karma? Did I deserve to suffer? Did you mean those words you wrote?
Do you love me now? Or is this just guilt?
She wanted to scream the questions, wanted to force him to answer, wanted to finally understand why she had been so easy to leave behind.
But she didn't.
Because she was scared. Terrified that his answers would hurt more than the silence. That he would say he'd never loved her. That the letter was what he really felt. That this—the dinners, the touches, the care—was just obligation, not desire.
She couldn't bear it.
So she smiled, squeezed his hand, and kept walking.
---
They returned to the apartment.
The fire was lit, the rooms warm, the city quiet outside. Serene stood in the drawing room, suddenly uncertain. The night had been perfect—too perfect. A dream she'd wake from.
Ethan moved past her, pouring two glasses of wine.
"One glass," he said, offering it to her. "For warmth."
She took it, their fingers brushing.
They sat together on the couch, close but not touching, the firelight playing over their faces. She sipped her wine, letting the warmth spread through her chest, and tried to memorize everything.
The way the light caught his jaw.
The way his hand rested near hers on the cushion.
The way he looked at her when he thought she wasn't watching.
---
That night, she wrote in her journal.
Tomorrow, I leave.
Not because I want to. Because I have to. Because if I stay any longer, I'll lose myself completely. I'll start believing that this—his attention, his care—is love. And when he realizes he deserves someone better, someone whole, it will destroy me.
I wanted to ask him tonight. Why Ava? Why Veronica? Why was I never enough?
But I couldn't. Because I'm terrified his answer will confirm everything I've always believed—that I was born to be left behind. That love was never meant for someone like me.
His mother was right. I don't love Clive. I loved the way he treated me. The attention. The priority. Because no one else ever gave me that.
But Ethan—Ethan was different. He was the boy who promised me forever in the greenhouse. The boy who made me believe I mattered. And even after everything—the letter, the betrayal, the years of silence—my pathetic heart is still stuck on him.
I want to hold him. Just once. I want to sleep in his arms and pretend we're the people we promised to be. But he doesn't want that. He touches me like a responsibility, looks at me like a problem to solve. Everything he does is guilt wrapped as affection. Kindness. Obligation.
He will never love me the way I want him to.
So I'll leave. Without explanation. Without goodbye. The way he left me.
Maybe then, I'll finally be free.
---
She closed the journal and lay back, staring at the ceiling.
Tomorrow, she would go to the station. Buy a ticket. Disappear.
But tonight, she let herself imagine a different ending. One where she walked to the drawing room, took his hand, led him to the bedroom. One where he held her, touched her, loved her the way she'd always wanted.
One where she didn't have to be alone.
She closed her eyes and let herself dream.
---
In the drawing room, Ethan sat by the dying fire, staring at the door that separated them.
He wanted to go to her. Wanted to cross the hallway, open her door, tell her everything he couldn't say. That he loved her. That he'd always loved her. That every day since the greenhouse, every moment of every year, she was the only one.
But he didn't have the right.
He'd hurt her too much. Failed her too many times. Whatever he felt, whatever he wanted, she deserved better than him.
So he sat in the darkness, alone, and let her go.
Even before she left, he was already losing her.
And he didn't know how to stop it.
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