All Chapters of Seven Years Together, I'm the Fool: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

10 Chapters

Chapter 1

"Wow, Micah, your girlfriend's voice is incredible. She's absolutely crazy about you."The operations manager sitting next to Micah Brennan was the first to break the dead silence in the private dining room.Micah's hand jerked so hard that he nearly dropped his phone onto the table. He fumbled for the red button on the screen, but his fingertip was shaking too badly. It took him two tries to end the call."She was just… My girlfriend likes to mess around with pet names."Micah kept his head down, his voice thin and hollow. He wouldn't look anywhere near me."Oh, come on! There's nothing to be shy about. We're all adults here." Jenny Harris from HR said it with a laugh, but her eyes kept darting between Micah and me.I picked up the glass of water beside me and took a small sip. It had gone completely cold, sliding down my throat and settling into my stomach with a familiar dull ache."Yeah. That's nice." I set the glass down and glanced at Micah's white-knuckled grip on the t

Chapter 2

The apartment was pitch-black when I walked through the front door.I didn't turn on the lights. I just felt my way to the couch and sat down.The darkness felt safe. At least I didn't have to look at all those familiar things.At 2:00 am, the electronic lock on the front door beeped open. Audrey walked in, coupled with the smell of wine and the chill of the night air. She flipped on the living room light and froze for a second when she saw me on the couch."Why are you sitting in the dark? You're still up?"She was already stepping out of her heels as she tossed the question out like an afterthought."Couldn't sleep." I watched her hang her trench coat on the rack by the door. "How did things go in Aldenberg?"My voice came out low and flat. Audrey's hands stalled for half a second."It went fine, just back-to-back meetings all day. I'm exhausted."She walked over and started to lean against me out of habit. I tilted my head and shifted back half an inch, just enough to pull

Chapter 3

The next morning, the mood in the conference room was off. Everyone could feel it.Audrey sat at the head of the table, flipping through the quarterly report. Micah was at the far end, wearing a sharply tailored suit and a gleaming five-figure watch on his wrist. He looked like he owned the place."I've made a few changes to the core project assignments for next quarter." Audrey closed the report and swept her gaze across the room."The clean energy deal that Evan's been running will be handed over to Micah," she declared.The room went quiet.I had been on that deal for three solid months. I had lost count of how many all-nighters I pulled and how many times I drank myself sick at client dinners just to get them to sign.It was days away from closing, and the commission was practically mine. Yet Audrey waved it away with a single sentence."Ms. Sinclair, that's not really how this works." Ben couldn't take it and spoke up, even though it would clearly cost him. "Micah is still

Chapter 4

Audrey clearly hadn't expected me to change the subject so abruptly. She blinked, then walked over to her desk and opened her calendar."Next Wednesday? I have an executive meeting in the morning, but the afternoon's open so far." She looked up, a trace of curiosity in her eyes. "Why? What's going on?"My hands were in my coat pockets, and my fingers traced the edge of a pill bottle without thinking. "I need to go to Ridgemont General. There's a form that requires a family member's signature."Legally, she wasn't my family. But in my heart, she had been the only family I had.Audrey's expression relaxed, and something close to amusement crossed her face. "The hospital? So you're finally going in to get that stomach polyp removed?"She still thought I was the same Evan Caldwell from last year, the one whose checkup came back with nothing worse than mild gastritis."Sure, I'll go with you Wednesday afternoon." She agreed without hesitation, as if it were the smallest promise in t

Chapter 5

Audrey's eyes locked on those words. The living room was deathly quiet. Her fingers tightened around the report without her realizing it, the paper crinkling under her grip."Stage IV gastric adenocarcinoma…" she murmured under her breath before letting out a sharp laugh."Evan Caldwell, you really will try anything to pressure me into marrying you. This is a new low, even for you."She tossed the report back onto the coffee table, her voice dripping with scorn. In her mind, I would always be the man who would stoop to anything to keep her.She pulled out her phone and dialed my number from muscle memory. All she got was an automated voice telling her the phone had been switched off.The amusement on her face faded a little.She walked to the bedroom door and shoved it open. The closet was half-open. A few of my clothes were missing, but every designer watch and tie she had ever bought me was lined up exactly where it had always been. Even the car keys on top of the drawer

Chapter 6

The nurse's words slammed into Audrey like a sledgehammer. A high-pitched ringing filled her ears, and the edges of her vision started to double."Say that again. What do you mean, stage IV?" Her voice came out bone-dry.The nurse frowned and angled the screen slightly toward her. "Stage IV gastric adenocarcinoma with extensive abdominal metastasis. Are you a family member? With a case this serious, how did you not know?"Audrey stared at my name on the screen. In that moment, the composure and certainty she had always prided herself on cracked wide open."Was he alone when he came in?" She could hear her own voice trembling as it echoed down the corridor."He was." A young doctor passing by stopped to answer. "I was in the office that day. He was a tall guy with a forehead covered in cold sweat from the pain, but he didn't make a sound the whole time."The doctor shook his head, something between admiration and pity in his voice. "I asked him where his family was. He said he did

Chapter 7

Grant set down his pen and slowly looked up. He took in the woman standing before him, her eyes bloodshot and her hair disheveled, and let out a cold, humorless laugh."That's quite the devoted girlfriend act, Ms. Sinclair. Who's it for?"He stood up and met her eyes without flinching. "Where Evan is has nothing to do with you.""I'm his fiancee." Audrey ground the words out through clenched teeth."Fiancee?" Grant snatched a stack of scrap drafts off his desk and threw them straight at her face. The papers scattered across the floor, and the edge of one caught her cheek, leaving a thin line of blood."You don't get to use that word, Audrey Sinclair."Grant's voice was shaking with barely contained fury. "He spent an entire year eating nothing but cold bread with you, and it wrecked his stomach for good. You remember what you told him back then? You said you'd give him a good life someday."He was nearly shouting now. "And then you gave that good life to some fresh-out-of-coll

Chapter 8

"Evan, come back with me. Please."Audrey was on her knees beside the bed, both hands locked around my cold fingers. Her voice was wrecked beyond recognition, and her tears hit the white sheets, spreading into dark circles."I already fired Micah. All the company shares have been transferred to your name. I've reached out to the best oncologists in the world. We can go to Valcourt or Linden Bay. I've contacted the best oncologists in the world. They can fix this. I know they can!"She was throwing out everything she thought could fix this, causing the words to tumble over each other.I let her hold my hand. I didn't struggle. I didn't even change the rhythm of my breathing. The sea breeze drifted in through the window and lifted the hair from my forehead."Audrey." I finally spoke, my voice low, rough, and perfectly calm. "You're blocking my view of the sunset."Audrey's entire body went rigid. She looked up at me, disbelief written across her face. The eyes that used to look onl

Chapter 9

Audrey's plan to buy me more time fell apart in the end. After the elite team of oncologists she hired from across the globe reviewed my charts and scans, every single one of them shook their head."Ms. Sinclair, his organs are in full systemic failure." The attending physician stood outside my room, his voice heavy. "Any aggressive intervention at this point would only cause him more suffering. You should start making arrangements. It's only a matter of time."Audrey slid down the cold wall until she was sitting on the floor. She pressed both hands over her face, choking back a sob.She had a fortune worth hundreds of millions, had the kind of power that could make or break careers with a phone call, but none of it could buy me even one more day.Inside the room, my waking hours were shrinking. Most of the time, I was lost in a deep, unresponsive sleep.Audrey didn't leave my bedside for a second. She dabbed warm water over my cracked lips again and again, her touch impossibly ge

Chapter 10

My funeral was a small, quiet affair. That was Grant's doing."Evan hated noise when he was alive. We shouldn't let a bunch of people who never gave a damn about him ruin his peace."Grant held my portrait and stared coldly at Audrey, who was standing in front of the headstone.She was dressed in black and had lost so much weight that she was almost unrecognizable. Her eyes were sunken, and the face that had once been striking was hollow with exhaustion.A thin drizzle was falling from a grey sky. She didn't have an umbrella, letting the cold rain run down her hair and into her collar.She couldn't take her eyes off my name carved into the stone. She knew I would never answer to her voice again."You can leave now."Grant set a bouquet of white lilies in front of the stone and turned to dismiss her.Audrey didn't argue. She slowly crouched down, her fingers trembling as they traced the cold engraving on the stone."Evan, I got Micah put away." Her voice was barely a murmur. "F

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