Chapter 77: HE’S ACTUALLY… LETTING ME GO?

MIA

He woke me up gently, which made me smile involuntarily.

Surprisingly, things have been somewhat good between us lately. We had even gone to see a movie a few days ago and I almost forgot who he was.

Almost.

“Today's the day," he said.

I opened my eyes and looked at the ceiling for a moment before I remembered what today was. Then I sat up and looked at him sitting on the edge of the bed where he looked tired.

"You're actually giving me the choice," I said.

"I promised I would."

"You've promised things before."

"I know." He sounded apologetic. "This one I'm keeping."

I got up as he left the room and then walked to the bathroom where I stared at myself in the mirror for a while. I realized I looked thinner than before, my eyes a it more suken but other than that, I still looked way better than when I had come out from down there.

I wasn't thinking because he wasn't taking care of me, but because I had been plagued thinking of how i was going to make my plan solid.

I had tried calling Lin a while back but her number wasn't connecting. As for Yuna, it seems she had changed her number which made me wonder if she did that because of me or Dante's threat.

I really missed her but for now, I had no other way to contacting her. I had tried social media but remembered that one of her accounts got banned after she fought a cyber bully who had her account reported for harassment.

Typical social media, always fault the victim but never the culprit.

For now, I would have to think properly about how I was going to get in contact with either of them.

I also had some memory cards I had found in his office, lined up in my bra because they had key evidence of more Mafia related issues that Dante didn't even know I had access to.

I spent the day moving around the apartment just touching things I was going to miss. He may have been ultimately bad but he still made this space feel so special to me.

I sat on the bed in my room for an hour after that.

Then I walked to the front door, put my hand on it and stood there.

I walked away.

Was I going crazy? How could I possibly long for all this?

Evening came and I sat on the couch while Dante sat beside me and neither of us spoke for a while, just staring at the city moving beneath us.

I was a bit nervous about what he was going to say. I had no hopes of him actually fully going through with his desk on letting me go.

"I know what you're thinking," he said.

"What am I thinking?"

"That this is a trick. That I'll say you can go and then not let you. That the choice isn't real." He looked at his hands. "That I've done it before and I'll do it again."

"Have I ever been wrong about you?"

He was quiet for a moment.

"No," he said. "You haven't."

Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope and set it on the cushion between us.

I looked at it.

"Open it," he said.

I picked it up and opened it then went through it slowly. There was a passport with my photo and a name I didn't recognize, a bank card and a document showing an account balance that would last years if I was careful. As well as a plane ticket for tomorrow evening, one way, to a city I'd mentioned once in passing a few months ago when we were still just neighbors and I'd talked about places I'd always wanted to live and he'd actually listened.

"It's real," I said.

"It's real."

I looked at the ticket, the name on the passport and the account number and  thought about Lin waiting for me, hoping I wasn't dead and then about Yuna somewhere out there, in search of me.

What about all the planning I had done?

Why was he being so sweet now? After everything he had done to me? Why was he playing with me like this?

"Why?" I said.

He took a breath. "Because watching you disappear in that room was worse than anything I'd ever done to anyone else, and I've done things." He looked at the envelope in my hands. "I told myself I was protecting you and that it was love." He shook his head. "But I destroyed you. And destroying you destroyed me. And I love you enough to let you go even though letting you go is the thing I built my entire life around never doing."

I started crying which was embarrassing, because the man sitting next to me who had kidnapped me, frightened me and taken months of my life was also the man who had just handed me a plane ticket to a dream city with a fat bank account and meant every word he said about loving me.

I started to realize that he actually did love me but just expressed it wrongly.

I knew he would never actually stop stalking me but this still touched my heart.

He pulled me against him and I let him as we sat there on the couch where we had a lot of good memories like our first kiss. The Dante that I knew.

I had the evidence, the exit and everything I'd come back for.

Tomorrow I would decide what to do with all of it.

Tonight I just sat there and let myself feel the love he had for me.