Chapter 8 - An Unexpected Arrival
Maya pulled the phone out, expecting a text from her frantic mother or another missed call from Zoe’s worried sister. Instead, the caller ID flashed a local number she didn't recognize, accompanied by an urgent notification from her building’s security app downstairs.
"Who is it?" Zoe asked, noticing the pale horror washing over Maya’s face.
"I don't know," Maya whispered, answering the call with a trembling thumb. "Hello?"
"Maya?" a man’s voice asked through the receiver, deep and steady, but unmistakably urgent. "Are you at Isaiah’s place?"
Maya froze, her breath catching in her throat. "Who is this? How do you know where I am?"
"It's Corey," the voice said, the line crackling with static. "I'm downstairs in the lobby. Arthur wouldn't let me up without verification, but I told him I was your fiancé's... well, your old fiancé's replacement. He let me through the side service elevator."
Zoe’s eyes went wide. She grabbed Maya’s arm, her fingernails digging through the fabric of the denim jacket. "Corey is downstairs? In this building? Right now?"
"What are you doing here, Corey?" Maya demanded into the phone, ignoring Zoe’s silent freak-out. "You hung up on me twenty minutes ago! You told me to figure my own life out!"
"I did," Corey replied, the sound of an elevator chime echoing in the background through his phone speaker. "And then I realized you were standing alone in a wedding dress in the middle of the city with a ruined life and no parachute. I booked a red-eye flight the second we hung up. I landed three hours ago, Maya. I've been driving around your block waiting for a sign."
"You booked a flight?" Maya’s voice rose in disbelief. "Corey, are you out of your mind? I am standing in an empty apartment because the man I was supposed to marry packed his entire life into boxes and walked out of my life forever!"
"Then let him walk!" Corey’s voice boomed through the speaker, carrying a fierce, reckless passion that Maya hadn't heard in three years. "He wasn't the right one if he left that easily! I'm on the twenty-second floor right now, Maya. The elevator doors are opening. Look down the hallway."
May you like
Maya dropped the phone to her side, turned on her heel, and stared down the long, empty corridor toward the elevators. The doors were sliding open with a soft, metallic ping.
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