Tempting /A Jordan Knight fanfic ✔️

49

Chapter 49: Heartless

"Are you sure you don't just wanna text her or... email or something?"

"No, Mel's old-fashioned. I'll just stick the letter under her welcome mat and we can get going."

Gabe was unconvinced but held his tongue as I stepped out of my packed down car, apology letter in hand.

Dropping this letter off was the last thing I had to do before I said goodbye to Chicago and the whirlwind of a life I'd created and destroyed here.

I broke my lease, packed my car full of everything I owned, and just over six months later, was in the exact same spot I arrived in.

Same house. Same car. Same broken-heart.

At least this go around, I was running away with a better purpose. In situations like this, it was best to remove the infection rather than waste time trying to find a cure for it. If you cut out the thing that made everyone sick, everyone could heal.

In this equation, I was cutting myself out of everyone's life that I loved and hoped it was enough to start the healing.

Which is what brought me to Mel's.

She still didn't want to see me, and I really couldn't blame her. So, the plan was to slip this letter underneath her doormat and then leave her life until when and if she wanted me back in it.

My heart was traced into every word in that letter and a few actual tears, too. I didn't expect her to forgive me after reading it, but I definitely had some foolish hope that she'd be able to feel my heart and the residue of my tears on the pages, and that it would remind her how much I loved her.

I turned back around to see Gabe through the window, and he gave me an encouraging thumbs up. Blowing out a curt breath, I nodded and spun back to the house, quickly slipping the letter beneath the welcoming mat, and padded back down the porch to my car.

Just as my toes met the last step, the grind of a door pushing open sounded off behind me.

The surprise of the noise whipped me back around, and the punch of guilt was instantaneous as our stares met.

Her eyes were hollowed in, surrounded by rings of red that went so deep, they looked chiseled in. And the hatred she held in them was still so palpable, the burn of it reached out and touched me even in this below freezing weather.

"I didn't think you were home," I offered as an excuse.

Mel didn't respond, but she didn't turn to go back inside either. She remained as stiff as the air between us with her arms crossed, holding her wool sweater in place.

"I was just dropping off a letter and then—" I gestured back to my car awkwardly, nodding mindlessly for no good reason at all. Mel's eyes drifted back to my car.

"You running away again?" she asked, her voice cold and dry.

"I'm moving back to New York. I got a job offer so..." I glanced down, fiddling with the frayed ends of my scarf. "I think it's probably better for everyone if I go back."

I waited with oxygen cramped in my lungs for Mel's response. Eventually, I had to let the breath go, my shoulders sinking beneath defeat.

"Um..." I stood there like an idiot, twisting my fingers together and pulling on each one until they popped. "I know you don't want to talk to me, so I wrote it all down in a letter."

Mel's stare dropped to the folded up papers sticking out from the mat under her feet.

"It says pretty much everything I want you to know about... everything. You don't have to read it now or, uh, ever I guess?" An uncomfortable laugh escaped past my lips, ill-timed and bursting with remorse. "But you have it if you're ever curious."