When I Went Home

In Hollow Creek, there was an old custom: if you turned thirty and still were not married, the community chair would arrange for you to come home and meet potential matches.

When I told Marcus about it, he laughed coldly.

“What kind of backwoods tradition is that supposed to be?

“Constance, I said I would marry you, and I will. But pressuring me is something else.”

Then he took out the ring and casually handed it to Hannah.

She accepted it with a blush.

“I was going to propose,” he said. “But since you want to act like this, maybe we should cool off for a while.”

The ring I had waited years for was handed to someone else like it meant nothing.

For a moment, I just stood there, stunned.

Marcus walked out of my office with an easy confidence, the corner of his mouth lifted in a victorious smile.

Hannah held the ring out to me.

I did not take it.

“Keep it,” I said. “Wasn’t it meant for you anyway?

“You wear it. It suits you.”

Her face went pale.

I showed her to the door.

Before closing it, I said, “Tell Mr. Vale that he and I are done.”

By the time Marcus Vale came home from work that night, I had already packed two large suitcases.

He stopped short when he saw them.

"Why did you come home without waiting for me?"

There it was again.

He had a way of turning the page all by himself, as if nothing had happened, and then expecting me to step down from whatever anger I had and keep playing the role of the loving girlfriend.

But I did not want to play along anymore.

"Didn't your little assistant pass along my message?"

His brow tightened at once, as if I had touched a nerve.

"I'm trying to talk to you properly. Do you have to be sarcastic?"

"Hannah is from your hometown. You're the one who asked me to bring her into the company. Why are you acting like this now?"

He was not wrong.

Hannah Price was from the same mountain community as me. The community chair back home had always told those of us who left for the city to look out for one another.

So when she graduated and could not find work, I brought her into our company.

At first, she was sweet and obedient, and I was happy to mentor her.

Then I began noticing the way she looked at Marcus.

I knew that look well.

Back in school, Marcus had been the kind of man girls stared at from across hallways. I had seen countless women look at him that way.

But Marcus had never looked back.

So I treated Hannah's crush as a young woman's passing fantasy and did not make a fuss.

Then her mistakes at work became more frequent.

Once, after I corrected her in passing, she did not argue. She simply stood there crying while I spoke.