Chapter Twenty-Two: What He Left in Boxes
1429 Words
Harper
I returned to the storage unit six days after the funeral.
I told myself I was only going to return the key.
The facility had a small metal box near the office where customers could leave payments and documents after hours. I could have placed it inside an envelope, dropped it through the slot, and driven away.
Instead, I entered the gate code.
I needed to see the boxes one more time.
Maybe grief had made me misunderstand what I’d found. Maybe there were clothes beneath the Christmas decorations or apartment documents hidden under the family photographs.
Maybe Gavin had still been preparing to leave.
The unit door was already open.
Cole stood inside with his back to me.
He wore jeans and a gray sweatshirt instead of his uniform. A cardboard box rested at his feet, and Gavin’s wedding photograph was in his hands.
I stopped.
Cole turned.
His expression hardened immediately.
“What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“Natalie asked me to clear the unit.”
Of course she had.
His wife could send someone to collect every piece of his life.
I couldn’t even leave flowers without permission.
Cole placed the photograph inside the box.
“How did you get through the gate?”
I held up the key.
“Gavin gave it to me.”
His eyes dropped to it.
“When?”
“The week before he died.”
“Why?”
“He said he had started moving his things out of the house.”
Cole looked around at the old camping equipment and dusty decorations.
The silence that followed felt humiliating.
“I know,” I said.
“You know what?”
“That he lied.”
Cole’s jaw tightened.
“He told me these boxes were proof he was leaving.”
“And you believed four boxes in a storage unit meant he was abandoning his family?”
“I didn’t see them until after he died.”
“That didn’t answer my question.”
I stepped inside.
“I didn’t come here to argue with you.”
“You shouldn’t have come at all.”
“I’m returning the key.”
“Then give it to me.”
I closed my fingers around it.
Cole held out his hand.
“It belongs to Natalie now.”
The words shouldn’t have hurt. They were legally true.
Everything Gavin owned belonged to his wife.
His truck.
His clothes.
His photographs.
Even the lies he had told me became part of the life she inherited.
I placed the key in Cole’s palm.
“There. Now you can tell her I didn’t steal anything.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“You thought it.”
“I didn’t know why you were here.”
“You always assume the worst.”
“You haven’t given me many reasons not to.”
I laughed without humor.
“You found out your best friend had been lying to everyone, but somehow I’m still the easiest person to blame.”
“He isn’t here to blame.”
“So you decided to punish me for both of us?”
Cole’s face darkened.
“You think this is punishment?”
“You stopped me from attending his funeral. You tried to throw away the only place I had to say goodbye. Now you’re looking at me like I broke into his grave.”
“I didn’t throw away your flowers.”
The answer stopped me.
I looked at him.
Cole turned toward another box as though the admission meant nothing.
“They were still there yesterday,” he said.
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why didn’t you throw them away?”
He pulled a stack of books from the box.
“Because they were flowers, Harper. Don’t turn it into something else.”
I hated the warmth that tried to form inside my chest.
It meant nothing.
He had left flowers on a table. That wasn’t kindness. It wasn’t forgiveness.
It certainly wasn’t understanding.
I crouched beside the open box nearest me.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Helping.”
“No.”
“You want to stay here alone for hours?”
“Yes.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“You should be an expert on unhealthy choices.”
I looked up sharply.
Cole’s expression didn’t change.
“You really can’t stop, can you?”
“Stop what?”
“Reminding me what I did.”
“Has it been long enough for you to forget?”
“It hasn’t been long enough for me to breathe.”
The words came out louder than I intended.
Cole went still.
I looked down before he could see my eyes filling.
“I wake up and forget for half a second,” I said. “Then I see his shirt or his toothbrush, and it happens again. So no, Cole. I haven’t forgotten that he was married. I haven’t forgotten his children. I haven’t forgotten what I helped him do.”
He said nothing.
“I just haven’t stopped loving him either.”
I reached into the box and removed another photograph.
Gavin stood in front of a Christmas tree with Sophie on his shoulders and Eli wrapped around one leg. Natalie leaned against him, laughing.
The date printed in the corner was from five months ago.
A month after Gavin had told me he no longer spent time with his wife unless the children forced them into the same room.
My hand began to shake.
Cole took the photograph from me.
“You don’t need to look at these.”
“Why? Because now you’ve decided to protect me?”
“No. Because staring at proof won’t change anything.”
“It changes what I remember.”
He placed it facedown.
“What did he tell you?”
“That the marriage had been over for years.”
Cole released a slow breath.
“He and Natalie had problems.”
“But?”
“I wasn’t inside their marriage.”
“That never stopped you from judging me.”
His gaze met mine.
“No. It didn’t.”
It wasn’t an apology.
Still, it was the first time he admitted he might not know everything.
Cole reached into the final box and removed a plastic bag containing small personal items.
A watch.
Loose coins.
An old wallet.
A key ring.
He studied one of the keys before holding it toward me.
“Do you recognize this?”
My chest tightened.
It was the spare key to my apartment.
“I gave it to him.”
Cole placed it in my hand.
The metal was cold.
“He kept it in his locker,” he said. “There are a few other things there that might be yours.”
“What things?”
“I don’t know. A book. Some photographs.”
Photographs of us.
My face burned at the thought of Cole seeing them.
“When can I get them?”
“I’ll bring them.”
“I can go to the station.”
“No.”
“Still afraid I’ll contaminate the building?”
“Natalie has been coming by with the kids.”
His answer cut through my anger.
“All right.”
Cole picked up another box.
“I’ll drop them off tomorrow.”
He waited.
I realized he needed my address.
I took an old receipt from my purse, wrote it down, and handed it to him.
His eyes moved over the apartment number.
“Seven o’clock,” I said.
“I’ll leave the bag outside.”
“You don’t have to avoid speaking to me.”
“I’m not avoiding you.”
“You’re planning to place my memories outside my door and run.”
Cole lifted the box.
“Not everything is about you, Harper.”
“No. Most things seem to be about Natalie.”
His expression turned cold.
“She lost her husband.”
“So did I.”
“You lost someone else’s husband.”
The cruelty of it silenced me.
Cole seemed to regret it.
But he didn’t take it back.
He carried the box toward the exit.
I stood alone among the remnants of Gavin’s real life, holding the key to an apartment he would never enter again.
Cole stopped at the doorway.
“Seven,” he said without turning.
Then he left me with the photographs.
And every reason I should have hated the man inside them.
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