The Last Time I Cried Your Name novel Chapter 34

Petty gave a small nod and stepped out of the hospital room.

As the elevator doors slid shut, Laura appeared at the end of the hallway, her caregiver pushing her wheelchair. She stared at the glowing red numbers above the elevator, lost in thought.

Once outside the hospital, Petty drove with no real destination in mind. She just needed to clear her head. Honestly, she didn’t have to rely on Nash for help with going abroad. The White family or the Green family could just as easily pull some strings for her. In Cabinda, maybe even all over the country, those two families had power in almost every area.

If Adelaide stepped in, everything would be sorted out in an instant. But Petty didn’t want her grandmother to find out. If she did, she would definitely try to stop her. Petty hadn’t even figured out how to bring up the divorce with Franco yet.

Hans was out of the question too. He’d never let her go to a place like that. He’d probably threaten to end their friendship again. He was always pulling that card. She was getting too old for that kind of drama.

If she could just keep this from all of them, then when the time came, they wouldn’t be able to stop her. Two months. That was all she needed.

She wondered how long Franco would take to get back to her so they could go to the civil affairs office. There was still that thirty-day waiting period for divorces. But honestly, Franco probably wanted out even more than she did. She didn’t need to worry about it.

So Petty just kept driving, drifting through the streets she’d known her whole life. The city was familiar, comforting and overwhelming at the same time. She let out a long sigh. She’d been born in Cabinda, raised here. The idea of leaving everything behind for three years, maybe longer, made her chest ache with a kind of quiet sadness.

Without even realizing it, she found herself in The Glades. It was the neighborhood where she used to live with her parents. After the Lane family lost everything, her father had to sell the house.

She’d come back a few years ago to see it, and it was empty then. No one had lived there. That house was filled with memories of her childhood, her parents, all the good things. The walls still had her old drawings, messy handprints, little stickers she’d stuck everywhere. Her dad had built a treehouse for her in the backyard, just to make her smile. The three of them had decorated it together. Her mom had even woven a hammock by hand and hung it under the treehouse. She remembered lying against her mom, listening to her stories while her dad pushed the hammock gently back and forth.

Most days, just thinking about those little moments was enough to warm her up inside. But today, no matter how hard she tried, her heart felt empty. Nothing could fill it.

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