Her Fiancé's Father's Obsession

CHAPTER 12

Jane

I don't remember deciding to go to my apartment.

I don't remember standing up from that wall or starting to walk, but somehow my feet carried me there, through streets that blurred together through my tears, past people who didn't look at me and didn't see the way I was falling apart.

The walk took forever and no time at all.

When I turned onto my street, I saw the garbage bags and boxes immediately. My belongings had been piled haphazardly on the sidewalk outside my building like trash waiting to be collected.

I stopped walking instantly, my heart sinking low in my chest.

He said end of the day tomorrow. He said I had time, but of course he lied. Of course Hudson would take even that small mercy away from me.

He would make sure I had no time to plan, no chance to arrange anything, no opportunity to salvage even this one piece of my life with any dignity.

My legs started moving again, carrying me toward the pile of my life discarded on the street. A homeless man was rifling through one of the boxes, pulling out a sweater I had bought last winter.

He looked up when I approached, our eyes meeting for a brief moment before he grabbed the sweater and hurried away.

I didn't bother to stop him. What was the point?

I knelt beside the bags and boxes, my hands shaking as I opened one. My clothes spilled out, some still on hangers, most just shoved in carelessly.

Another bag held shoes, all jumbled together. A box contained books and picture frames, several of which had shattered glass.

Everything I owned had been treated like garbage. I tried the building entrance out of some stupid desperate hope, typing in my passcode with trembling fingers.

The light flashed red. Denied. I tried again. Red. Again. Red. Of course it was changed.

A sob tore from my throat and I pressed my forehead against the glass door, my whole body shaking. I couldn't get in.

I couldn't even access the mailroom to check if there was anything important. I couldn't retrieve anything they might have missed.

This was it. This was everything I had left in the world, dumped on a sidewalk in trash bags.

"You need to move this," A voice behind me made me turn. The building super stood there, arms crossed, his face neutral. "Can't leave it blocking the sidewalk."

"Steve said I had until tomorrow." I whispered.

"Plans changed. You need to move it now."

He turned and walked back inside, the door locking behind him with a decisive click.

I stood there staring at the pile, trying to calculate what I could possibly carry. I had no car. I had no friend with a car I could call.

I had no storage unit to rent. There was nowhere to take any of it even if I could move it all.

I started sorting through the bags with numb hands, pulling out essentials. Clothes. Toiletries. My laptop. Some documents.

I found a rolling suitcase in one of the boxes and started cramming things inside, not caring about organization. I was just trying to fit in as much as possible.

Two bags was all I could manage. One large rolling suitcase and a duffel bag slung over my shoulder.

Everything else, my books, my kitchenware, my furniture that was probably still inside the apartment, my winter clothes, my photo albums, my college textbooks, my entire life had to be left behind.

It had to be left for someone else to take. For the trash collectors to haul away. For the city to swallow like I never existed at all.

I looked back at the pile one last time, tears streaming down my face, and then I turned and walked away. I couldn't bear to watch someone else pick through it. To claim pieces of my life for their own.

The suitcase wheel caught on a crack in the sidewalk and I nearly fell, my weak legs barely catching me.

I had barely eaten today and my stomach cramped with hunger, but I had no appetite. The thought of food made me nauseous.

I walked without direction, just pulling my luggage behind me, the duffel bag strap digging into my shoulder. I didn't know where I was going. I didn't have anywhere to go.

My phone buzzed with a text. For a pathetic moment I thought maybe it was Hudson. Maybe he had changed his mind.

It was from a number I didn't recognize. Just two words: "Good riddance."

One of Hudson's friends, probably. Or one of our mutual acquaintances who had already heard the story, Hudson's version where I was the villain and he was the victim.

More texts started coming in from different numbers. All strangers.

"You don't deserve him."

"Hope you're happy now."

"Slut."

I turned my phone off and shoved it in my pocket.

The suitcase felt heavier with every block. My shoulder ached. My feet hurt in Julius's too-large shoes. I was pulling everything I owned through streets I had walked a thousand times before, but which now felt foreign and hostile.

I found a bench in a small park and collapsed onto it, abandoning the luggage beside me. The duffel bag slid off my shoulder and hit the ground with a dull thud.

I should do something. Maybe make a plan. Look for shelters or cheap motels or something, anything.

But I couldn't move. I could barely breathe past the crushing weight of everything that had happened.

Hudson. Maribel. My family. My job. My home.

Gone. All of it was gone in less than a day.

I had other friends once, before Hudson. Before he slowly and carefully isolated me from them with comments about how they were bad influences and how they didn't understand our relationship.

How I should focus on us instead of wasting time with people who didn't matter and I let him.

I let him cut them out one by one until Maribel was all I had left, and he had approved of Maribel because she told him how lucky I was, how I should appreciate him more and how I should try harder to be what he needed.

Now I understood why.

There was no one to call. No one would answer even if I did. I burned those bridges myself, following Hudson's lead, believing his version of reality where I was the problem and he was trying to fix me.

The sun moved across the sky and I sat there, staring at nothing. People walked past. Families. Couples. Groups of friends laughing together. The world kept turning like mine hadn't just ended.

My stomach cramped again, a sharp pain that made me double over. I needed food and water. I needed so many things I couldn't have.

I had my debit card in my wallet, that two thousand dollars in savings that had to last until I could figure out what came next. But what came next?

No job. No references. Hudson would poison any attempt I made to get hired anywhere in my field. No home. No one.

The sun began to sink lower, painting the sky in shades of orange and gold. It was beautiful, but also mocking.

I needed to move and find somewhere to sleep tonight. But where? A motel would eat through my savings.

A shelter required going through intake, answering questions and being seen in the worst moment of my life by strangers who would judge me and pity me.

I couldn't. I just couldn't.

The first drops of rain hit my face. I looked up at the darkening sky, watching the clouds roll in. Of course it would rain now. I had such bad luck.

The drops came faster and harder. Within seconds, it was a downpour, soaking through Julius's sweatshirt and plastering my hair to my face.

I should grab my luggage, run for cover and protect what little I had left, but I couldn't make myself move.

Let it rain. Let it soak me through. Let it wash me away entirely. Maybe that would be easier than trying to figure out how to survive this.

I closed my eyes, tilted my face up to the rain, and let myself cry. Let the rain and tears mix together until I couldn't tell which was which anymore.

This was my life now. Sitting alone on a bench in the rain with nowhere to go and no one who cared.

The sound of a car pulling up barely registered through the rain and my sobs. Footsteps approached but I didn't open my eyes. I didn't care who it was or what they wanted.

"Jane?"

That voice. I knew that voice. I opened my eyes instantly.

Julius stood in front of me, rain soaking through his expensive clothes, his grey eyes wide with slight panic as he took in my state.

I was drenched, shaking and surrounded by my luggage.