COLE

Meeting with Arlene had gone much worse than I expected. I wasn’t expecting her to go in for a hug and hand me flowers, but I might’ve underestimated how deep her disdain for me ran, and that was a wake-up call.

As promised, I picked up my things and left the house after I thanked her father for his hospitality and told him I was leaving. He seemed genuinely surprised that I wanted to go, but behind all that, I could see that he was relieved.

Perhaps he hoped that if I left, Arlene would return home—but I doubted that. Mirela was still there, and if there was anyone...