Harper’s next words made me almost drop my own phone.
“They both drove off and left her there.”
“I told him to sleep in his car,” Harper said. “He ruined your life for a pathological, garbage human being, and he finally realized what he threw away. He cried and said, ‘I deserve this, don’t I?’ And I said, ‘Yep, you really do, buddy.’”
I thought that was the end of it, that I could finally move on, knowing that karma had gotten them both, but two weeks after the Anniversary Cabin Disaster, I received a letter.
It was from Camden.
I debated burning it, but my curiosity won out. I tore it open.
Oakley, I know I can’t fix anything, and I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I need you to know the truth before someone else tells you. I got a DNA test after everything happened.
The baby… she isn’t mine. She never was. I am sorry.
Camden.
I took his pathetic letter, folded it neatly, and slid it into a drawer beside my ultrasound photo from that life that was never meant to be.
This time, it was Elise’s mother. I almost didn’t answer it, but for some reason, I did.
And she told me something that made me sit down so fast I nearly missed the chair. Elise had abandoned the baby with her mother and left town.
No forwarding address, no goodbye, nothing. She was just gone.
“And the baby, Oakley,” her mother whispered, her voice tired and sad.
“This little girl looks nothing like Camden. Nothing like that Rick fellow, either.”
Which means there might have been a third man.
A third lie. A third betrayal.
He knows my whole story.
Sometimes people ask if I’m glad karma hit them so hard, but honestly, I’m just glad to be free of the toxic relationships I thought were built on love.
