She Walked Up To Me On The Beach After Three Years Of No Contact… And I Knew Why She Was There.

“All right,” Drew said. “Consider it done.

Where are you headed?”

“You don’t need to know that yet.”

There was a beat of silence, then his voice softened. “You okay?”

I looked at my reflection in the truck’s side mirror. Same face, different eyes.

“I will be by dawn.”

I was checked into a motel in New Hampshire under James Hartford. The room had wallpaper from 1987 and a mattress that groaned when I sat on it. The view was a parking lot and a Dunkin’ Donuts.

I lay on the bed fully clothed, staring at the water-stained ceiling, and thought about Oliver. The kid didn’t ask for any of this. Didn’t ask for his mother to be who she was.

Didn’t ask for me to walk away. But I couldn’t stay. Not for him.

Not for anyone. Because if I stayed, I’d become the kind of man who accepts betrayal just to keep the furniture arrangement intact. I pulled out the flip phone and typed a message I’d never send.

I’m sorry, kid. You deserved better than all of us. Then I deleted it and turned off the phone.

The motel room had a coffee maker that sputtered like it was dying. I made a cup anyway. Sat on the edge of the bed and opened my laptop.

Drew had sent an encrypted email at 6:23 a.m. with a single line:

Documents filed. The clock is ticking.

That meant Samantha would find out by noon—maybe sooner if she tried to access any of our accounts. The joint checking, the savings, the investment portfolio tied to the hotel management company. All of it locked behind clauses she’d signed nine years ago and probably never read.

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