Page 120 of Code of Heart

“How…how is he?” she whispered, her voice wobbly.

Grace and Ivy exchanged loaded glances before Grace finally answered.

“You want the truth?”

Aurelia nodded quickly. Lies had no place in her life anymore.

Grace drew in a deep breath. “He’s…not doing well. He knows he made the biggest mistake of his life—one he’ll regret forever. And he’s realizing he has demons of his own to deal with…things he’s never faced or acknowledged. Things that broke him beforethis even happened. He says he needs to fix himself, so this…so something like this never happens again.”

The admission cut her open all over again. Charles’s words echoed through her mind like a cruel reminder.

Everyone comes with baggage, Aurelia. But sometimes…it’s the way we carry it that makes all the difference. Don’t let fear choose for you. And don’t shut the door before he’s even had the chance to fight for you.

“I don’t care what issues he’s working through,” Ivy snapped, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “He should have listened to you first. End of story.”

Grace sighed heavily, shaking her head. “I’m not excusing what he did, Ivy. But I understand why he reacted the way he did. That doesn’t make it right…but at least he’s not pretending it’s okay. He knows how badly he screwed up. And he’s trying to figure out why—so he never does it again to anyone else.”

To anyone else.

The words hit Aurelia like a gut punch.

Anyone else.

She couldn’t explain why, but the thought of Levi simply accepting the divorce…walking away from her without a fight…It carved out another delicate piece of her soul.

Aurelia had demanded this ending, but now, staring into that dark abyss of finality, she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to handle it. The tears came in a violent rush, wracking sobs tearing from her throat and stealing the breath from her lungs. Each one sent fire lancing through her ribs, the bruised bone flaring with pain no medication could fully numb.

Ivy and Grace sat on either side of her, rubbing her back in comfort as she cried it all out.

When the storm of grief finally passed, and her breathing evened out into shallow, shaky breaths, she lifted her tear-swollen eyes to them.

“Do you…Do you think I should talk to him?” she asked, her voice barely audible. “Hear him out?”

Another glance of an unspoken conversation passed between them.

This time, it was Ivy who answered, her tone gentler than before.

“Even though I’m mad as hell at him…I think you owe it to yourself to listen. Give yourself the closure he couldn’t give you that night. Then…you decide what you want. No one else.”

Grace nodded slowly, her expression muted and understanding.

Aurelia inhaled a long, unsteady breath, her mind and heart caught in a war she didn’t know how to end.

For the first time all weekend, she wondered if she was truly ready to let him go.

The next day, it was Owen who showed up at her door, completely unexpected, uninvited, and…exactly what she needed.

He stayed the entire day and long into the night, camped out on her couch with takeout containers piled high and a marathon of POLmArK TV romances playing back-to-back.

Of all Levi’s friends, she felt safest with Owen. She couldn’t quite explain why, especially considering how their friendship had started, but in that moment, she was secretly grateful beyond words that he refused to leave her alone.

Between the inevitable waves of tears, Owen managed to coax out reluctant smiles…and even a few real laughs. At one point, he turned to her, utterly serious, and declared, “Mark my words, Aurelia. One day, I’m going to be in a POLmArK movie.”

She blinked at him, caught off guard. “You? In these?” She gestured at the screen where a rugged small-town lumberjack was dramatically confessing his love to a woman in the middle of a banana tree farm.

“I don’t care if it’s as an extra walking through a background farmer’s market scene,” he said solemnly. “It counts. And it’s going to happen.”

Aurelia let out a weak laugh, her ribs protesting even that small movement. “Why do you love these ridiculous movies so much?”