Chapter 20
Clinton didn’t remember how many bottles he emptied that night. Whiskey. Gin. A half-finished bottle of Chloe’s favorite white wine he’d found buried in the back of the cellar, the one she’d brought home once, saying they should save it for a celebration that never came.
He drank until the world blurred, until the roaring in his head drowned out her voice, the one that had once whispered I love you when they lay tangled in sheets he’d ruined with his lies.
—
The night he’d watched her walk away from him in that hospital room, something cracked in him that she’d see he was sorry, that he couldn’t put back together. He told himself it would pass that she’d come back like she always did.
But she didn’t.
So he lingered in the shadows instead. He told himself he wasn’t pathetic – just protective. That if he couldn’t hold her, he’d stand guard from afar. But the truth was, he couldn’t let her go. No1
even now.
—
When Chloe was discharged, she went right back to her café the same place Clinton had once called pointless, a waste of money, a hobby for bored wives. Now he stood outside its window on the other side of the street like a beggar, watching her laugh with customers, wiping down tables just the way she used to clean up his messes.
He remembered the way her eyes had glowed when she first told him she wanted this. “A coffee shop. Small, but mine. Somewhere warm.” He’d shrugged it off, too busy to care. Why serve coffee when you could serve my guests at parties instead? he’d told her once. He still saw her face that day – the way her smile fell, the light snuffed out in one careless sentence.
–
Now, standing there with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, he wanted to claw that moment out of his memory
to rewrite it, to tell her, Yes, Chloe. Build it. I’ll be there every morning, waiting for you to open the door.
But it was too late.
He followed her even when he told himself not to. When the dress fittings started, he lingered in the corner of the bridal shop across the street, hidden behind tinted windows like a coward. He saw her twirl in white lace, laughing at something Nathan said. Clinton’s nails dug into his palms until they bled, but he didn’t look away.
He’d once imagined her in a wedding gown. But not like this, not with someone else kneeling to press a kiss to her knuckles, not with someone else lifting her veil just to brush his lips across ner temple like she was something fragile and holy.
He could have turned around. He could have walked away.
He didn’t.
When they checked into the hotel for the final wedding rehearsal, a small, private gathering for close friends, Clinton followed. He booked a room on the same floor, the bitterness of it sour on his tongue.
He stood in the hallway outside the ballroom at first, listening to the music drifting through the crack of the door. Her laugh cut through him every time light, unburdened, free in a way it had
never been with him.
–
But he needed more. He slipped outside, found the low stone ledge beneath their window, and climbed up like a boy trying to peek at a world he didn’t belong to anymore.
–
He found them there Chloe and Nathan. He watched her in her simple rehearsal gown, the silk hugging her body as she leaned into Nathan’s chest. They were dancing, bare feet on the carpet, wine glasses abandoned on the table. Chloe tipped her head back when Nathan bent to kiss her throat, and Clinton felt his chest cave in.
–
It should have been him. It was him once his hands on her waist, his mouth on her neck, his name the only one she ever said in the dark. But now, from the shadows, he was nobody. Just a ghost watching a life that could never be his again.
When they stumbled toward the bed, giggling like they were seventeen and drunk on each other, Clinton almost turned away. Almost. But he stayed rooted there, forehead pressed to the cold glass, watching Chloe tug Nathan down with her, her fingers weaving into his hair.
—
He didn’t move until it was done until the lights inside went dark, leaving only the shape of them tangled together. That’s when the tears finally came, silent and endless, sliding down his Face until the cold glass turned into a blur.
He didn’t hear Carlos approach until the old man’s cane tapped against the ledge behind him. Clinton didn’t look back. He couldn’t bear to see the pity in his grandfather’s eyes.
Carlos sighed, the sound heavy with decades of unspoken truths. “I warned you about this. I told you once, Clinton, you can’t keep someone in a cage and expect them to stay beautiful.”
Clinton’s shoulders shook, his breath catching on a sob that he tried to swallow. “I loved her, Grandfather.”
Carlos rested a hand on his grandson’s shoulder. “I know. But you loved her wrong. And now, you have to let her go.”
Clinton pressed his palm flat against the window, wishing it would open, wishing he could reach hrough it and pull her back to him just one more time.
‘I can’t,” he whispered. “I don’t know how.”
You will,” Carlos said softly. “Or you’ll spend the rest of your life haunting her happiness. Is that what you want for her?”
nside, Chloe stirred, shifting in Nathan’s arms. Even half-asleep, she smiled smile she used to hide from Clinton. Now she didn’t have to.
–
that soft, secret
Clinton closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he saw what his grandfather had always <nown: She was gone. And this time, loving her meant staying gone too.
Carlos squeezed his shoulder once before turning to leave. “Come down from here, Clinton. It’s time.”
As the window faded into his shadow, Clinton whispered a goodbye that Chloe would never hear – and for the first time, he meant it.
