I stop just outside the doorway.
Inside, Caleb stands near the circulation desk while London faces him with her chin lifted stubbornly.
“You disappeared,” he snaps.
“No.” She shakes her head sharply. “I left.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It is when the person you’re leaving refuses to listen.”
Something fierce and proud unfurls in my chest.
Caleb scoffs. “London, come on. You’ve had your little adventure. It’s time to come home.”
“I am home.”
“Oh, please. This is your home?”
“Yes.”
You’re being dramatic.”
She flinches. Then straightens her shoulders and takes on a set jaw.
“No,” she says more firmly this time. “You just liked calling me dramatic anytime I had feelings you didn’t want to deal with.”
His jaw tightens.
“You’re really throwing away five years together?”
“No,” she says quietly. “I freed myself from a lifetime of being with someone who made my life miserable for five years.”
Silence fills the room.
Heavy. Tense.
Then Caleb gestures around the library sharply.
“So what? This is your life now? Playing small-town librarian and postal worker?”
London laughs softly.
And for the first time since I arrived, she doesn’t sound hurt.
She sounds done.
“You still don’t get it,” she says. “I like this life.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No,” she says firmly. “What’s ridiculous is how long I spent letting you convince me I needed your permission to be happy.”
That’s my girl.
Caleb stares at her like he genuinely doesn’t recognize the woman standing in front of him anymore.
Maybe he doesn’t.