The Story She Left Behind Novels & Stories

I tell her that I'll come back later to pick her up. Before leaving, I ask the maid to assist her with packing and then head to the hotel. It's time to face the beast, and it won't be easy. I arrive and go up quickly. I take a deep breath before opening the door, and as soon as I do, disappointment overwhelms me. She left me. I sit on the bed, unable to believe that she left without even letting me explain. She said she loved me, and at the first problem, she abandoned me. That devil of a woman had me wrapped around her finger, and now she's gone.

Without a backward glance, without allowing herself a moment of tenderness or doubt, she left the child behind—an unbearable sacrifice she bore alone, locked away in the quiet chambers of her heart. She couldn't stop imagining how fully grown she would be now. When she'd heard her grandmother had died, Leah felt insanely at peace knowing there was no one to link her to the daughter she'd abandoned in a small town. It was a huge relief. But now, the thoughts were back or perhaps, they had always been there. Leah sighed deeply, cursing Mallory for reopening old wounds she thought had healed with the past decades. The loud ring of her cellphone sounding from her purse pulled her out of her thou

"Had she?" "Child, she was an omega running barefoot through wild territory with a gash on her arm and no pack behind her. She had suffered plenty. She just didn't call it suffering because she had been doing it so long it felt like breathing." Something hot pressed against the backs of my eyes. I blinked it away. "She left after three days. Said she had to go somewhere. Had to find someone. She wouldn't tell me who or where." His hands tightened on the walking stick. "But before she left, she sat right where you're sitting and asked me one question."

This time, I'll fix that spoiled personality of hers once and for all. Everyone burst into laughter, raising their glasses in celebration of a victory that had not even come yet. However, they did not know. Tens of thousands of feet above them, a plane was carrying the girl they had broken far away, across oceans and borders. There was no longer a pampered Whitney Xander, only the reborn Mrs. Quinn.

“Then start anywhere, Adrian. Because whatever this is… it’s already tearing us apart...again.” He finally turned toward her, and the look in his eyes made her stomach twist. There was exhaustion there — not just from the past few days, but from years of carrying a weight alone. He closed the laptop slowly and rubbed his temples, exhaling. “You deserve the truth. All of it.” Elena folded her arms, bracing herself. “Then tell me.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the floor like he was staring into something he couldn’t escape. “Five years ago, I didn’t leave because I wanted to. I left because I was forced to.”

Then, he leaned in and kissed me. Elias stood there watching us, his face drained of all color. Only then did he finally realize that he had completely lost me. His legs gave out, and he collapsed onto the sand. … After we returned, both families met to discuss the wedding arrangements. During that time, I learned that Winnie had gone back to her hometown with her mother to a small regional town. My father still hadn't let her off the hook—he sent people regularly to demand repayment. She now had to work constantly just to repay the massive debt the Whites had "accumulated" from years of expenses, but I no longer cared to ask about it.

It was always going to be a transaction, and I had been paying into a debt that was never going to clear. I pressed my hand flat against my stomach. Six weeks. Maybe seven. Nothing showed yet, nothing felt different except the tiredness that had been sitting behind my eyes for the past two weeks that I had put down to stress. But it was real. It was there. And it was mine in a way that nothing in this house had ever been mine. "We are leaving," I said, out loud, to the empty bathroom, to the small life that could not yet hear me. "I do not know exactly how yet. But we are leaving, and we are not coming back, and I am going to build something that is ours."

She sat down on a bench beneath the pergola, and I joined her quietly. A long pause followed before she finally turned to me. “I’m going to tell you everything,” she said. “From the beginning—why I left Alex, how I met Lucian, who that girl Brittany really is... all of it.” I nodded. “I’m listening.” And I did. I listened as she unpacked every detail—her heartbreak, the risks, the moments of hope, the love, the fear, the confusion. When she was done, I just sat there, stunned.

It seemed like it was around that time that Jasmine, the girl who used to smile so much, stopped smiling. She had asked him to do five final things with her. The first thing: go to the charity gala with her. But instead, he bought the painting she wanted and gave it to Jennifer. The second thing: go to Zaryen with her. But right before boarding the plane, he abandoned her to meet Jennifer, who had just returned to the country. The third thing: stay with her. He reluctantly agreed, but he struggled to hold back his frustration and secretly cursed her in his mind.

Little did he know that I had taken Ayden and left for foreign shores a decade ago, back to the stronghold of our family. Derick, lost and searching, was instead found by Jasmine. 10 years had turned Jasmine into a shell of her former self, robbed of her fertility and plagued by a severe mental disorder. Once she found Derick again, she would not let go. From lovers to sworn enemies, they lost everything and lived only to torment each other. Soon after, tragedy struck in Derick's home: a shooting that left both dead. Rumor had it that Jasmine, in a fit of madness, decided if she was going down, Derick was going too.