Romance

Returned To Sender

by Forest Isle

Nathan Caldwell has a rule: anything he lends out has to be returned personally.So every item his ex-girlfriend left behind when she moved out, he returned himself.An old umbrella meant a three-hour drive.A book meant taking half a day off work.An earring meant a flight out of state.It's been five years.She still hasn't finished collecting what she left at my house.Then my mother is hospitalized after an asthma attack.I'm stuck working late, so I ask Nathan to stay with her overnight and keep an eye on her oxygen monitor.He says yes.At two in the morning, he takes a phone call and leaves. He doesn't come back until the next day."Camille said she forgot a pair of glasses at our place," he tells me. "I dropped them off."I look at the alarm button on the oxygen monitor that nobody ever pressed.In his rules, whatever someone else leaves behind always comes first.My mother's life doesn't even rate as a stop on the way.Fine. If he can't let her go, I'll let him go back to her.

Loading your library and reading data…