Michelle sat across the room from them. She was basically only pretending to read a magazine, since there was no way she could actually concentrate on anything at that moment. She stole a glance over at her fiancé and their child, and suddenly, everything fell into place in her mind. Her eyes filled with tears, and she stood up abruptly and left the room. She was not going to let him see her cry. Not again. When she got to her room, she collapsed on the bed and started to sob. This was a total nightmare. Her relationship was falling apart.
She must have cried for at least an hour because all of a sudden, there was a tap on the door. “I’m taking Katie to her doctor’s appointment. I’ll be back later.” There was no hint of any sort of emotion in Nick’s voice. That said it all for Michelle.
As soon as she heard the back door close, she grabbed a suitcase from the closet and randomly threw clothes in it. If she was good, she could be out of there before he got back. It took her only twenty minutes to pack. When she finished, she took her things downstairs and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. This was it.
Nick returned an hour later to an empty house. “Michelle?” he called. Katelin began to cry. “Shhhh, it’s okay, princess,” he whispered, patting her back lightly.
He got to the kitchen and saw a note sitting on the table. “Michelle?” he shouted again as he picked it up.
Nickolas~
I’m sorry. I couldn’t do it anymore. I saw you with Katelin today and I figured everything out. You’re not with me because you love me. You’re with me because it’s convenient, because I’m the mother of your child, because it would make you look bad to your fans if you weren’t. Because of this, I’ve decided to do you a favor. I’m going to free you, as painful as it may be for me. I refuse to force you to go through with this marriage.
By the time you read this, I will be somewhere else, somewhere out of this city, on my way to somewhere far away from here. Don’t try to find me; if you succeed, I will just move again and start over.
I left Katelin with you because, even though I love her as much as I love you, I know how special she is and I can’t do that to you. I can’t hurt you like that. Please know that I love you and Katelin more than anything in the world, and, no matter where I end up, I will always be thinking of you.
~Michelle Kristen Rudolph
It was all Nick could do to not to drop his daughter as he finished reading it. He managed to pull out a chair and sit down before the tears started. She left. She was gone. What was he going to do? He reached for the phone and dialed Laura’s number.
“Hello?”
“Laura, it’s Nick,” he said tearfully.
“Nick, are you all right? Is Michelle okay?”
“She’s gone. She left. She left while I took Katie to the doctor.” He briefly explained the note and hung his head. “Do you know where she could have gone?”
“No, I don’t. She…she never called me to tell me she was leaving.”
“What do I do?”
“Maybe she’ll come back, sweetie. This was probably just an impulsive thing.”
“I hope so.”
“Don’t worry. Give it a few days. Once, she didn’t want to go back to boarding school, so she ran away from me. She came back when she ran out of the potato chips she had thrown into her bag.”
“I hope so.”
“Don’t worry,” Laura repeated reassuringly.