Page 21 of Angel's Fantasy

My brow furrowed as I read the handwritten note, and then tears started to well up in my eyes for what had to have been the hundredth time that day.

Calvin -

If you’re reading this, I hope it means that you’ve made it home and are recovering from your heart attack. We’ve had our differences and our ups and downs, but I’ve always considered you a friend.

You can rest assured that I have done my very best to take care of your daughter over these past few weeks, and I know it might seem hard to believe, but I really do care for her.

A lot.

She’ll be staying with you again, though, and I wish you both only happiness. As far as I’m concerned, all of our former debts are cleared out—paid in full.

I never meant for things to end up like this between us, old friend, and I hope someday we can get back to the way things used to be.

I’ll be sending a check in the mail to your address soon. It should be enough to cover Bella’s tuition for the next year until she graduates, and there should also be a little bit left over for the two of you. Go spend some quality time together. Eat a good meal. It’s on me.

I don’t want or need anything in return, and I’ll be gone for a while anyway, so don’t even try to thank me.

Get better soon, friend.

Much love,

Angel

By the time I got to the bottom of the letter, my eyes were so blurry with tears that I could barely read it, and I was already out the door and halfway across the courtyard before the last words registered in my brain.

I’ll be gone for a while…

Gone?

For the second time in less than ten minutes, I stood lost and confused in the middle of the courtyard.

I looked up at his darkened windows and shook my head. He couldn’t be gone. Not yet. Not until I could talk to him, could thank him, could tell him how much he meant to me.

Maybe he was still in there somewhere, sleeping or packing or… something.

All of the aches and pains in my body were temporarily forgotten as I broke into a run to his front door. Please be home. Please let me see you.

I knocked on his door and waited, but there was no answer. I still had the spare key he’d given me the first day I stayed with him, but… was it right to use it?

Did that count as breaking in?

“Fuck it,” I said, digging the key out and unlocking the door before I could talk myself out of it.

But I didn’t even have to go through the whole place to tell that he was already gone. Just standing in the foyer, I could sense that he wasn’t there. The place felt empty. Cold. Lifeless.

With nothing more to do, I walked back outside and closed and locked the door behind me. All of the day’s aches and pains came back with full force as I slumped against his doorframe.

I couldn’t even cry anymore—not after the day I’d had.

Every tear I could muster had already been shed, and now I was just… there.

Alone.

Tired.

Broken.

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