He Stole My Wedding, I Walked Away

Chapter 2

"June? How did you fall asleep again? Get up and eat. Dad's heading out first—he's running late."

A sharp, familiar voice rang in my ears.

I slowly opened my eyes and saw a broad figure standing before me.

'I knew that silhouette better than anyone.'

'Dad.' The father who had died of cirrhosis with ascites when I was twenty-one.

"Dad?"

He turned and looked at me with a smile.

"Awake? Then hurry up and eat, or you'll be late for school. I'm taking off now. Be careful."

I watched as he grabbed his hard hat from the table and walked out the door.

I looked around—I was in our old house.

A thousand guesses swirled in my mind until it finally hit me: I've been reborn.

I had come back to this day—the day I turned eighteen.

'How wonderful. There was still time for everything.'

Dad could get checked up in time, receive treatment, and wouldn't die of end-stage liver cancer.

'And Edward? Our story would end here.'

Back in my room, I opened the drawer.

Inside were the love letters I'd written for a whole year—three hundred and sixty-five of them.

I had written one every single day, always intending to give them to him.

But my cowardice made me hesitate, again and again.

I had saved them all for a year and never once handed them over.

When I saw them now, I laughed.

The calendar on the wall showed the tenth.

Tomorrow was the day I had finally worked up the courage to give those letters to Edward in my past life.

That same day, I burned all of them.

I watched as each page turned to ash, my face completely blank.

'Let it go.'

'The cost of falling in love was too high—I couldn't afford it anymore.'