Page 39 of The Vow Thief

“Matt?”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice rough.“I’m on the road.”

A pause, then Tyler’s tone softened.“Got it. You just now leaving?”

“Yeah.”

“How are you holding up?”

Matt gave a small, humorless laugh.“Holding might be generous.”

“I figured.” Tyler’s voice was low and steady, the kind of calm that didn’t ask for details.“I’ll be there tomorrow night. I already talked to the office, cleared my schedule for a couple of days.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, I do. You shouldn’t start this alone. We’ll grab dinner, set up your place, hit the beach. You can even cry if you need to, I won’t judge.”

Matt managed a quiet laugh through the exhaustion.“You always know when to say the right stupid thing.”

“That’s my gift,” Tyler said.“Text me when you stop for gas so I know you’re not driving off a bridge.”

“Deal.”

“Hey, Matt?”

“Yeah?”

“Charleston is going to be great. Even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.”

Matt didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

When he finally hung up, the car was quiet again. He sat there another minute, watching the house in the rearview mirror until it disappeared behind the curve of the street. He brought up his road trip playlist and pressed play on No Rest for the Wicked by Cage the Elephant. Then he shifted into drive, rolled down the window, and let the cold air rush in. It didn’t fix anything, but it felt like breath.

By the time he hit the highway, his playlist rolled intoDo I Wanna Knowby the Arctic Monkeys. He tightened his grip on the wheel and whispered under his breath, half to himself, half to the ghost of what he’d left behind.

"Don’t screw this up, Taylor."

And then he drove.

Chapter 19 - Sarah's Home

Sarah's POV

The couch still held the shape of him.

I didn’t notice it at first. I walked past, picked up a stray sock from the floor, then closed the blinds halfway. But when I finally sat down, I felt the faint dip where he used to sit. The cushion had memory, even if I was trying not to.

The house was spotless, but it felt wrong. Every clean surface reminded me something messy was missing.

It was all too neat, too composed, the kind of order people create when they can’t control anything else.

The divorce papers were signed, filed, and would soon be official. Matt was on the road to Charleston, chasing a future I had stopped believing in. The kids had quietly cried themselves to sleep, and I had spent the past hour convincing myself that this was the right thing. That letting him go was saving both of us.

But now, sitting here in the quiet, my body ached with the kind of loneliness that logic doesn’t fix.

I stared at my phone for a long time before I opened the messages.

Texts from my parents, my sister, and various friends stared back at me.