Chapter 45 Marriage

Chapter 45 Marriage
For a brief second, she just stared. Her mind felt slow, foggy, like it was wading through water. Then she noticed something small—something that made her chest tighten even more.
She had already changed his contact name.
Not Strange Man anymore.
Just Leo.
Her thumb hovered above the screen. Part of her wanted to let it ring. Part of her wanted to throw the phone across the room. Her heart was beating too fast, too loud.
She answered.
“Hello?” she said softly, forcing her voice to stay steady.
Silence filled the line.
For a moment, she wondered if the call had dropped, if maybe it was a mistake. She pulled the phone slightly away from her ear, about to check the screen—
Then she heard it.
A low, quiet chuckle.
Leo’s voice came through warm and familiar. “Are you home? Just wanted to check on you.”
Olive didn’t answer right away. She couldn’t. Her eyes were still fixed on the letter.
“Olive? Are you there?”
His words reached her as if from a great distance, swallowed beneath the sound of her own heartbeat thundering in her ears.
“Hey — yes. I’m sorry, what did you say?” She shook her head, forcing herself back to the present.
A beat of silence. She could almost feel Leo’s worry stretching through the line.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, his voice dropping low with concern. “Nothing happened today, did it?"
"I’m actually really tired,” Olive said, the words coming out steadier than she felt. “I think I’m going to sleep.”
A quiet breath on the other end. She pictured Leo pressing his lips together, swallowing whatever else he wanted to say.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Rest well. Goodnight, Olive.”
“You too.”
She ended the call before the silence could stretch into something she couldn’t fill.
For a long moment she just stood there, the screen of her phone going dark in her hand. Then her eyes drifted back to the letter on the table — still there, still waiting, as if it had all the patience in the world.
She picked it up again.
Who are you?
The question rose quietly in her chest, almost a whisper, as though the paper itself might answer if she asked gently enough. No name. No return address. Nothing to hold onto.
But one thing had settled in her mind, cold and certain — whoever had sent this, it wasn’t Leo. She knew his handwriting, knew the way he chose his words. This wasn’t him.
Which meant someone else knew. Someone who had reasons of their own — someone who wanted Leo gone, or worse, wanted her to be the one to push him away.
Morning came, but it brought no rest with it.
Olive had spent the night staring at the ceiling, the letter’s words cycling through her mind like a warning she couldn’t silence. She knew it in her bones — danger was close, closer than she wanted to admit. And whatever she was walking into, she couldn’t let her family follow her there.
She pulled herself out of bed on what felt like sheer will alone, gathering the last of her energy the way one gathers scattered coins — slowly, carefully, because there wasn’t enough to waste.
When she stepped out of her room, the smell of breakfast had already settled into the house. Her mother moved quietly around the kitchen, the way she always had — unhurried, sure-handed, like mornings were the one thing she had fully mastered. The moment her eyes found Olive, her face softened.
“Come eat. Chris already finished — he left early.”
Olive nodded, drifting toward the table. On her way, her gaze snagged on the things piled just outside the door — bags, boxes, odds and ends left out too long, now heavy with last night’s rain.
“Why haven’t those been thrown out yet?”
Her mother glanced over her shoulder with a small smile. “I keep thinking I’ll find a use for them still.”
Olive said nothing to that. She sat down, wrapping both hands around a glass of water, and let the quiet of the kitchen settle around her. But the question she had carried all night — the one she’d turned over and over in the dark — was already rising to the surface.
“Mom.” She kept her eyes on the table. “What if I married Leo?”
A beat.
“Would that be okay with you?”
Carolina froze.
Her eyes stayed on Olive, wide and searching, caught somewhere between surprise and disbelief. For a moment she didn’t move, spatula still in hand, as if the question had simply stopped her mid-thought.
Then she laughed — a short, uncertain sound.
“Is this a joke?” she asked, tilting her head. “This early in the morning, Olive, really?”
But Olive didn’t smile. Didn’t flinch. She kept her gaze low, her expression still and unreadable, and the laughter died quietly in her mother’s throat.
Carolina set down the spatula.
“Why?” Her voice had shifted — softer now, careful. “Do you actually want to get married?” She paused, studying her daughter’s face. “You just came out of a breakup. What’s the rush?”
The words landed gently, but they landed.
Olive stared at the table. Her mother wasn’t wrong — she knew that. If anyone found out she had already tied herself to someone she barely knew, someone who still felt like a stranger standing just outside the light, the questions would never stop. The doubt would be deafening.
She swallowed it all back down.
“Just asking,” she said quietly.
Nothing more.Nothing less.