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Chapter 2

Author: Violet Tome
Rhys talked tough, but on the drive home, he floored it.

He was sure I'd already beaten him back. He could picture me sitting on the couch with my arms crossed, refusing to speak. He'd toss out a couple of half-hearted apologies when he walked in, and the whole thing would blow over.

But when he opened the front door, the apartment was pitch-black.

That annoyed him. Then his phone buzzed, and he grabbed it, a flicker of anticipation crossing his face. It died the second he saw the name.

It was from Daphne. "All settled in and about to sleep. Did Wren ever get back to you?"

He typed back one-handed. "Not yet. She probably checked into a hotel near the airport."

"Maybe you should go look for her? It's really late for a woman to be out alone."

He huffed out a quiet laugh. "She's a grown woman. She'll be fine."

He walked into the bedroom. On the nightstand sat a framed photo of us from our third anniversary.

His gaze lingered on it for a moment, and I hovered right beside him, thinking he was finally remembering. After midnight tonight, it would be five years.

But the only thing that lingered was his irritation. He pulled open the closet, grabbed a change of clothes, and disappeared into the bathroom. Water thundered against the tiles.

He never noticed that the bottom drawer of the closet hadn't shut all the way. The corner of a pink gift box peeked through the gap.

That was supposed to be his anniversary surprise at midnight. Inside was a pregnancy checkup result and a tiny pair of baby shoes I'd spent weeks picking out.

If the plane hadn't gone down, I would have put that box in his hands tonight. Instead, the baby and I had both burned to nothing, scattered somewhere across the sky.

The water stopped. Rhys came out in his robe and checked his phone on the balcony. There was still nothing from me. He tried calling, but no one picked up.

The irritation crept back in, and he fired off another string of messages.

"Wren, I don't have the patience for this whole running-away act."

"I'm taking Daphne to that breakfast spot near the airport for breakfast tomorrow. Come meet us there."

"And don't make me go door to door through every hotel near the terminal looking for you. That's embarrassing for both of us."

He tossed his phone onto the patio chair, went back inside, and got into bed. I stared at those messages, sitting there unanswered, and felt nothing but sadness wash over me.

That breakfast spot near the airport was my favorite restaurant, 12 miles from downtown. I'd asked him to go with me on a weekend so many times. He always said it was too far out of the way and not worth the drive.

Now Daphne wanted to go, and suddenly 12 miles was nothing.

Rhys lay in bed and turned off the light. In the dark, his breathing slowly steadied.

He slept soundly, still believing that when the sun came up tomorrow, everything would go back to normal.

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  • My Final Flight: Too Late for Him to Come   Chapter 10

    It was three years later.Autumn wind swept the fallen leaves from the base of the headstone. Rhys stood in front of it in an old suit, brushing the dust off the stone with a small broom. He'd lost a lot of weight, and streaks of gray ran through his hair."Wren, little one, I'm here."He laid a bouquet of bellflowers and a small stuffed tiger toy against the stone."That breakfast place near the airport closed down today. The owner said he was getting too old to keep it going." He leaned against the headstone and talked like someone was listening."I bought the recipe off him. I'll make it for you at home from now on, okay?"No one answered.In the three years since my death, he'd resigned from the company and sold every share he owned. He used the money to start an aviation safety foundation. His life had shrunk down to cooking at home, going to the airport to wait for me, and coming here to talk to me.Daphne was getting married. The groom was someone wealthy her family had

  • My Final Flight: Too Late for Him to Come   Chapter 9

    The next day, Rhys took the urn to the cemetery.He bought the best plot in the entire grounds, the one that caught the most sun. On the day of the burial, a thin rain was falling.Rhys didn't use an umbrella. He knelt in the mud and lowered the urn into the grave himself, placing the tiny pair of baby shoes in beside it.The dirt went in one handful at a time, slowly swallowing the only thing he had left of us.I floated above and watched him sit in front of the headstone all night. The rain soaked him through, and by the time he finally lifted his hand from the photo on the stone, he had nothing left.After he came home from Southridge Cemetery, it was like he'd left his soul behind at the grave. He stopped falling apart, stopped breaking down, and eventually stopped crying altogether. Instead, he settled into a routine so rigid that it bordered on ritual.Every day at 7:30 am, he'd get up and go to the kitchen. He'd fry two eggs and set one plate down at the empty seat across

  • My Final Flight: Too Late for Him to Come   Chapter 8

    The doorbell rang the next morning. Rhys was still on the floor, in the exact same position he'd been in all night. His eyes were raw and bloodshot, and the pregnancy report was crumpled in his fist.The doorbell kept ringing. He pressed his palm flat against the floor and pushed himself up, his legs tingling with numbness.He opened the door. Daphne stood on the other side, holding a thermos."Rhys, your phone's been going straight to voicemail. I got worried, so I came to check on you. I brought you some chicken soup."She walked in like it was the most natural thing in the world, then stopped short when she saw the chaos inside. Every drawer had been pulled out and the contents thrown across the floor."What happened in here?"Rhys stared at her, his expression ice-cold. "What are you doing here?"His voice was so hoarse that it barely sounded human. The coldness caught Daphne off guard, and she bit her lip, looking stung."Why do you look like this? Where's Wren? Is she sti

  • My Final Flight: Too Late for Him to Come   Chapter 7

    Rhys picked up the medical report with shaking hands. It was a pregnancy test, dated two weeks ago.He remembered the day. It was Daphne's birthday, and he'd taken her to an amusement park to watch the fireworks show. While he was doing that, I'd been at the hospital alone.He lifted the tiny pair of baby shoes, and it finally hit him what I'd meant by the big surprise. I was carrying his child. I'd switched to that late-night flight just so I could tell him on our anniversary.I'd crossed the sky full of hope, desperate to get back to him. And he hadn't just ignored that hope over and over again.Every single time I needed him the most, he'd chosen someone else without a shred of hesitation. He'd even accused me of throwing a tantrum. When I'd sent him what was practically a cry for help, the only thing he could be bothered to type back was that he had to go pick up Daphne.It all came flooding back to him, my 86 flights in our five years of marriage.Every time I was about to l

  • My Final Flight: Too Late for Him to Come   Chapter 6

    Rhys's hand reached out, trembling, hovering over the body bag as if he wanted to hold whoever was inside. But it froze in midair, and he couldn't bring himself to let it fall."Mr. Callahan, I'm very sorry. We need you to sign the release form. Given the extent of the damage, regulations require that cremation be arranged as soon as possible."The officer let out a heavy breath and placed the paperwork in front of him."Cremation." Rhys repeated the word like he didn't understand it.I used to flinch at thunder and curl up shaking against his chest. I'd burned alive at 30 thousand feet, completely alone, and now they were going to push me into a furnace and do it all over again.He clenched his jaw so hard that it looked like it might crack. His tears fell onto the release form, bleeding through the ink. The same hand that signed multimillion-dollar contracts without a second thought couldn't even hold the pen steady now.He scratched out his name in jagged, trembling letters th

  • My Final Flight: Too Late for Him to Come   Chapter 5

    Rhys went still for a moment, then let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh. "No. You're joking. She wouldn't have been on that flight.""Mr. Callahan, I need you to watch your tone. We've cross-referenced the airline's passenger manifest. There is no mistake." The officer's voice cut through the noise of the restaurant."The search and rescue team recovered a female body from the core wreckage zone. The remains are severely damaged, and facial identification is not possible. We need you to come to the city forensic center as soon as possible for verification and to claim her personal effects."The voice on the other end kept going, but Rhys had stopped hearing it. He sat frozen with the phone still pressed to his ear, staring blankly at the empty seat across from him, the one no one would ever sit in again.He had no idea how he made it to the forensic center. The rain had finally broken, hammering down in sheets. His wipers slashed back and forth across the windshield but couldn't cle

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