9. Nadia
9
NADIA
Nothing had changed, and yet everything had changed as I stared out the window at Artistic Horizons. To the naked eye, there was no visible difference in what I saw. The birch and oak trees that lined the streets, the window boxes on storefronts filled with bright blue pansies and orange marigolds that bloomed in the winter, the historic Georgian architecture of the downtown district, and the Ferris wheel that was visible on the pier two miles away all looked exactly the same, but it felt different. Just knowing he was in a ten-mile radius electrified the atmosphere on a cellular level. Callum's presence supercharged the atoms in the air.
Less than twelve hours had passed since I’d learned of Callum Knight’s return, and my heart was still racing, palms were sweating, and my head was spinning. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck had been standing up since he’d walked into my classroom with Principal Lewis. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw his face, and goosebumps rose on my arms. I felt like I was dizzy, like I couldn’t breathe, like I was going to pass out.
My phone buzzed with a text, snapping me out of my internal meltdown, and my world stopped spinning. I glanced down at my phone on the table, and my shoulders fell in disappointment when I saw the message was from Reagan. My subconscious reaction revealed to me that, without running it by my head, my heart had hoped it was Callum calling me. Which made no sense because I didn’t even think he had my phone number.
I took a deep, cleansing breath and attempted to recalibrate myself as I read the message.
Reagan: Just wanted to give you a head’s-up that your ex Callum is in town. I just had a meeting with him. I didn’t recognize him at first, but he reminded me that we knew each other.
I immediately started to text back and ask what he’d said. I wanted every detail, every word, verbatim, just like I’d grilled Amos after the pick-up was complete. But I stopped myself. Callum was engaged. It might be one of the longest engagements in history. But that might be what works for them. For all I knew, they were Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell-ing it. And not only that, he had a family.
Instead of acting on my impulse, I liked the text and put the phone down out of respect for his son.
I wasn’t sure what I’d done to deserve the cruel punishment of having Callum’s son in my class. It wasn’t like I could pretend he wasn’t related to him. Matty was the clone of his father. The spitting image. His Mini-Me. He had his nose, his eyes, his smile, an identical dimple on his right cheek, and his mannerisms. His head tilted to the right when he concentrated. He scrunched his nose like he was about to sneeze right before he yawned. He was left-handed. Most importantly, though, he had his laugh. I forgot how much I’d missed Callum’s laugh until I heard it when I took the class out for first recess and Luna and Matty played tag. The second the sound hit my ear; a flood of memories came rushing back to me.
It was as if a dam broke on everything I’d kept at bay for the past ten years. All the evenings we’d spent on the beach, slow dancing at sunset. All the days we’d spent hanging out on the pier eating junk food and pretending we were tourists. All the bike rides we took by the canals. All the hours we aimlessly walked around the downtown arts district just to kill time. All the nights we posted up on the grass hill beside the drive-in movies and watched the screen even though we couldn’t hear the dialog. All the midnight make out sessions we’d had at the caves when we’d camped overnight to watch the sunrise. All the stars we stared at from the roof of the cabana hut during Callum’s teenage lifeguarding days. All the meaning less fights. All the meaning ful make-ups.
Whenever I’d imagined Callum coming back to town, he’d been single in the scenario. Sure, I knew the engaged version existed on an academic level. Of course, I did. No matter how much I’d tried to bury my head in the sand when it came to Callum’s personal life or life in general, I still heard things. But hearing something I could choose to ignore and live in denial of and having the reality shoved in my face were two entirely different things.
“Nadia?”
I blinked and found Ashley standing in front of me with an expectant expression on her face, holding papers in her hand. “Sorry, what?”
“Is everything okay?” Genuine concern laced her voice.
“Yeah. Why?”
“You just seem a little…distracted.”
As much as I typically loved spilling all the tea of my personal life, the newest plot twist in the reality soap opera Days of my Romantic Disaster Life was not something I wanted to share. It was too raw, too real.
“No,” I quickly assured her, trying to put all my drama on the back burner and focus on the job at hand.
I was so happy for my friend. All of her dreams were coming true. She was starting Artistic Horizons, her non-profit program for kids, to help them, whether it be reaching their full potential or dealing with trauma through art. She’d asked me to come aboard as her program manager. I jumped at the opportunity, not only because I wanted to support my friend but also because a part-time job in addition to my teacher’s salary was the only way my 100+ year old house was going to get repaired.
“Are you sure? You can start tomorrow.”
“I want to be here. I’m okay. I promise.”
The questioning glimmer in her eyes told me she wasn’t entirely convinced, but thankfully she moved on. She handed me the papers. “Kira, the high school counselor, dropped these off earlier. It’s a list of students she thinks will benefit from the program. One in particular has priority placement. Her enrollment info is marked red.”
“Oh, okay.”
We’d color-coded our files. And when I say ‘we,’ I mean Daphne, who was the organized, Type A Miranda in our SATC friend squad. Since relocating to Firefly last summer, she’d not only stepped in as partner to her family’s moonshine business, she’d also helped out a lot of local businesses with marketing and strategies. So, of course, she’d come on board to help out in any way she could with Ashley’s nonprofit.
Determined to put all thoughts of Callum Knight out of my mind and get my head in the game, I turned my full attention to the paperwork Ashley had just handed me, and what was the first thing I read? The new student I was processing was… Chloe Marsh, Callum’s half-sister. His son was in my class at school, and now his half-sister was going to be coming to classes at the studio where I worked part-time.
“Chloe’s mom just passed away,” Ashley explained. “Did you know her? Her name was Danielle Marsh.”
Ashley moved to town a couple of years ago. Since she didn’t grow up here, she didn’t know about the scandal that rocked Firefly Island surrounding Danielle Marsh.
“Not that well. I knew who she was.”
“It’s so sad. I guess Chloe’s dad died ten years ago from a heart attack, and now her mom from kidney failure. She’d been on dialysis for years, so it hasn’t been easy for her. I heard that her half-brother moved back to town and has temporary custody of her. Did you know him?”
Oh boy. It seemed as though I was going to have to let her in on my soap opera storyline after all.
“Yeah, I actually thought I saw him the other night at the bar.”
Ashley’s eyes widened. “On New Year’s Eve?”
“Yeah.”
“Was it right before midnight?” Ashley questioned.
“It was. How did you know that?”
“That was him?!” She pointed at me accusatorily.
“What was him?” I lifted my hands in mock surrender.
“I saw you staring across the room like you’d seen a ghost right before the countdown. All the color drained from your face.”
I had seen a ghost. A Ghost of Exes Past. “You saw that?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” I had no clue she’d noticed my reaction to him. “I thought that I was seeing things. I chalked it up to alcohol. I figured he was a liquor-induced mirage because my dating life has been as dry as a desert, but I was wrong. I wasn’t dreaming, or drunk, or having an early midlife crisis. Well, I was drunk, but the fact that I would have failed a breathalyzer test had nothing to do with what I saw.”
“So, who is he? What’s the story? I want to know everything.”
“His name is Callum Knight. He’s an MMA fighter. He grew up in Firefly. He was my childhood sweetheart. We dated on and off for almost ten years until my last semester of college. The plan was after I graduated, we were supposed to get married, but during winter break, things got…complicated.”
“You were going to get married? ”
“We weren’t technically engaged, but that was the plan.”
“What happened?”
“It’s complicated.”
Her eyes sparked with intrigue and excitement. “I love complicated.”
I took a deep breath. “His dad, who also happened to be the mayor of Firefly, died, and when his lawyer came to go over his will, Callum and his mom found out he’d been having an affair with his secretary, and he had another child with her. That child was Chloe.”
Ashley’s jaw dropped. “What?!”
“Yeah. Small town. Anyway, that same day, I went home and found out my mom was sick. All those years of smoking a pack a day caught up with her, and she had COPD as well as some other issues. She needed care, which was something I couldn’t afford to pay for, so I knew I had to move back home. Callum had left college after his freshman year to pursue his MMA career, and it was taking off. He had just gone pro; I knew if he moved home, his career would have been over before it started. Plus, he never wanted to live here, even when we were kids, even before finding out about his dad’s infidelity.
“I knew I had to stay and take care of my mom and that she could be sick for years, which was what it ended up happening. If Callum knew why I was staying, he would have given up his career and moved back to be with me. There would be no way I would have been able to talk him out of it. If Callum wants to do something, he does it. If he doesn’t want to do it, he won’t. And if he moved back, he would have hated every second of it. So, I broke up with him. Well, technically, we were already broken up, but I made sure we stayed broken up.”
“You were broken up? Why?”
“Pfft.” I let out a small huff of air. “That time… I don’t remember. Honestly, we broke up so much.”
“You did?”
My chin dipped in a decisive nod. “Soo, he left, and I haven’t seen him since.”
“Wait, you haven’t seen him since then?”
“No. Not till I saw him at the bar, which I thought was fake, and then I saw him again this morning.”
“You saw him this morning?”
“His son is in my class.”
“Do you think that anything might happen between you two?” Ashley’s tone was hopeful, almost giddy. She rubbed her hands together. “Any rekindling?”
“No.” I turned my attention back to the computer.
“Why not?”
“He’s engaged to Felicity Grant.”
“The influencer?”
“Yep.”
“Wait, is she Matty’s mom?” she correctly surmised.
I nodded.
“She’s gorgeous .”
“I know,” I agreed.
I hadn’t come right out and said I still had feelings for Callum all these years later, but my expression must have given me away because she immediately apologized.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to?—”
I looked up from the screen. “No, she is.”
“Did you see her, too? This morning, did you talk to her?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Callum dropped Matty off and picked him up. I haven’t heard if she’s in town or not, but I think she takes a lot of brand trips.”
I didn’t follow her, but I followed other influencers that she was friends with, and she was tagged in a ton of trips that they went on together. In fact, if I wasn’t mistaken, I thought I’d seen her tagged in Bali just a couple of days ago. I considered myself one of the least judgmental people I knew. As long as you weren’t hurting someone, do whatever you want. But every time I saw her jet-setting for weeks, sometimes months, at a time, I wondered when she was with her son. Of course, I knew you couldn’t believe everything you saw online, but unless she was being photoshopped into those photos, and videos, then she was jet-setting more than she was home.
“Wait, what’s his last name?” she asked.
“Whose?”
“The son’s.”
“Knight,” I told her.
“Is his son named Matthew?”
I nodded.
She grabbed the stack of papers she’d just handed me and pulled one out. “He’s also applying to be in the program. He moved from Arizona, so the school thought it would be good for him to deal with relocating.”
Great, so now I was going to have Callum’s clone in my class at school and after school. Which thankfully, he was a great kid. I couldn’t ask for a better-behaved, kinder, sweeter boy. It was just that he was a walking visual and auditory reminder of the biggest regret of my life.
I would love to think this was some sort of sign, that it was the universe’s wink-wink-nudge-nudge, indicating we were going to be back together, but that would be impossible since Callum was engaged to his baby mama/Instagram model. And then there was the fact that he probably still hated me. So yeah, there was that too.