Every time, he’d just laugh and carry her around.
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Chapter 13
+20 Bonus
His friends used to tease him—said Lena act more like his girlfriend. At drinking parties, they’d joke, “Come on, man, you sure
you never had a thing for her?”
His answer was always the same. No.
That twelve–year gap? Too big. To him, she was just a kid.
Besides, his heart had always belonged to Nicole. From the moment he first saw her, he knew–she was the only girl he’d ever
marry.
As for those other feelings Lena sometimes stirred in him? He never thought much of them.
But now, standing in this hollowed–out house, he found himself drifting toward Lena’s old bedroom.
It looked exactly the same. Frozen in time. As if she might pop out any second, laughing, trying to scare him.
Andrew stopped at the doorway. Just stood there. Then, slowly, he stepped inside.
He didn’t do much—just walked, retracing old steps, brushing past things she left behind.
Eventually, he reached her desk and pulled open a drawer.
Once, it had been filled with her deepest, most unguarded love for him.
Now? Empty.
For a second, he pictured it–Lena tearing up her love letters, shredding her sketches of him, erasing every last trace of her
feelings.
Her voice echoed in his head, over and over-
“I won’t like you anymore…”
A sharp, gut–wrenching pain slammed into his chest.
He doubled over.
His fingers gripped the drawer so hard his knuckles went white.
When the pain finally eased, something else took its place.
Something unfamiliar.
Just as he was about to figure out what it was, Kenny burst in, breathless.
“We found Ms. Clermont!”
