Escape from Mr. Whitman (Emma and Theodore) novel Chapter 88

“I’m not packing it. Do as you like.” With that, she opened the door and left.

She didn’t even bother having breakfast at home. Instead, she grabbed a cup of coffee and a buttered croissant from a café, and after finishing them, she hailed a cab to the hospital. Once her Meridian Therapy session was over, she heard her phone ringing. Glancing at the screen, she saw it was Theodore.

She answered, and his anxious voice came through. “Emma, where did I put a brown file folder?”

“I have no idea,” she replied calmly.

“I left it in the side pocket of my suitcase. Did you move it somewhere?” Theodore sounded even more desperate. “I need it for a meeting. It’s starting any minute.”

Emma thanked the doctor, slung her bag over her shoulder, and walked out of the exam room. Only then did she reply, unhurried, “The suitcase? I didn’t touch it. I don’t

know.”

“You didn’t-” Theodore’s voice was stunned. She heard him hurry to the foyer, and then, sure enough, he found his suitcase exactly where he’d left it. “My suitcase is right here in the entryway. Didn’t you see it?”

“Oh, I saw it.” Emma stepped out of the hospital and, instead of calling a cab, began to stroll leisurely down the street.

“So you didn’t pack it?” Theodore’s surprise was even more obvious now.

“No, I didn’t. Why should I?” she thought, but kept that part to herself.

“Where are you? Why do I hear music?” he pressed, voice tight with urgency.

“I’m out shopping,” she said, just as she passed a coffee shop with outdoor seating. The music drifting from the open patio was what he’d heard.

“You’re shopping? How are you shopping?”

She walked inside. The barista, dressed in crisp black, welcomed her with a polite. smile and showed her to a table.

“What? Are you saying I can’t go shopping just because I have a limp?”

On the other end, Theodore fell silent. After a long pause, he asked, “Why didn’t you pack my suitcase?”

1/2

10:52

Chapter 88

Was he really going to fight with her over a suitcase?

“I just didn’t feel like it.” She sat down and perused the menu.

The menu was handwritten, the letters neat and pretty, decorated with cute little doodles that made her smile. Still, Theodore’s relentless chatter buzzed in her ear, growing more and more aggravating.

“Emma, you’re still mad about what happened on the plane. Why are you so angry these days? You just can’t get along with Cici, can you? She-”

Emma ended the call abruptly. She didn’t want to hear it.

She didn’t want to hear him say “Cici.” She didn’t want to hear his voice at all.

She ordered a sweet cappuccino and a slice of passionfruit lemon cake.

When the tangy cake melted on her tongue, a memory surfaced–one evening in her sophomore year, walking from the dorm to class, she’d seen Theodore in his school uniform, standing beneath a camphor tree at dusk. He was playing a tune on a leaf, the kind that was all the rage back then.

In that moment, his silhouette was painted in her memory–a vibrant, fleeting vision, a bittersweet nostalgia that tasted like passionfruit and lemon.

Back then, she’d have to pass right by him on her way to the dorm. She never knew if she should break the spell of that golden hour.

But he noticed her first, tossed the leaf aside, and said coolly, “If you’re going, then go.”

Looking around to make sure he was talking to her, her heart had pounded in her chest. His voice, as clear and pure as the song he’d coaxed from the leaf, sounded

like a mountain stream.

That flutter in her heart had been real.

And now, not loving him anymore–that was real, too,

Yes, Theodore, I don’t love you anymore.

Turns out, love and indifference both happen in an instant.

Thinking back, she almost wished things between her and Theodore had ended right then and there.

212