Chapter 25 March 15, 2025
-Corbyn-
The drive to London had been uneventful. Corbyn’s knuckles, though, had remained white on the steering wheel for most of the journey. He’d made this trip countless times since the accident, but not for a social visit.
Sadie sat beside him and, as if sensing his emotional discomfort, would find ways to distract him whenever the tightening in his chest grew overwhelming.
She would comment on landmarks or ask questions about the book.
At one point, she had even reached for his left hand, threading her fingers through his, and sent his pulse into a different kind of frenzy.
Ellie’s hospital offered a sanctuary of sorts.
In the private wing where she worked, Corbyn’s shoulders finally relaxed.
Here, no one stared; scars were expected instead of being seen as an anomaly.
When Ellie snipped the last stitch from Sadie’s arm and pronounced her healing “textbook perfect,” Corbyn had exhaled fully for the first time in days.
That relief evaporated in Covent Garden’s early evening bustle.
He noticed every stare, every whisper. Corbyn found himself performing a dance he’d mastered years ago: angling his damaged profile toward brick walls and shadowed corners, presenting the unmarred side of his face to the world.
They’d spent the afternoon exploring Ellie’s carefully curated slice of the city.
Sadie had been enchanted by it all, her delight infectious, and it made him wish he’d been the one to make the effort despite his discomfort.
Corbyn watched his sister as she pointed out landmarks, noting how animated she’d become. This was Ellie in her element. She was confident, knowledgeable, and genuinely happy in a way that had nothing to do with anyone else’s validation.
“She’s really come into her own here,” he murmured, watching Ellie’s confident stride as she moved ahead to check the gallery hours.
Sadie nodded. Their shoulders brushed as they walked close enough that he caught the faint scent of her citrusy shampoo. “It suits her,” she said. “The energy of it all. Visiting London as a teenager made me fall in love with the idea of living in a city.”
Corbyn’s heart stuttered in his chest, but he remained silent.
She’d mentioned her school trip to London once before, specifically that she had been in the city on New Year’s Eve.
He had also been in London on that day in 2009.
It had been his first holiday season in the city, and he had just purchased his flat, where he spent a great deal of time working.
After weeks of locking himself away, a group of his friends from university had convinced him to come to their party, and so, he had found himself riding the Underground in the middle of rush hour.
“I’d never experienced anything like the public transportation here before,” she continued, completely lost in her own memory.
“I grew up in a small town, and the closest city was hours away. Now, after living in New York for so long, it no longer fazes me, but being surrounded by so many people on New Year’s Eve… I felt so out of my depth.”
“Must have been quite an experience,” he managed, when the pause in their conversation started to stretch too long.
He told himself there was no way this woman next to him had been on the same train car that day.
That she couldn’t possibly be the beautiful redhead whom he had forced himself to believe would never be more than a memory.
It was simply a coincidence, her stormy gray eyes, the jolt he felt when they touched… it couldn’t possibly be her.
“It was,” Sadie agreed, already moving on as Ellie gestured toward their restaurant. “And one I never forgot.”
They settled into a corner table at Rules, Ellie insisting on celebrating Sadie’s successful recovery at a historic location. The dining room was warm and intimate, all dark wood paneling and soft lighting that made Sadie’s eyes gleam like silver.
“This place has been here since 1798,” Ellie announced, perusing the wine list. “Dickens used to eat here. So did H.G. Wells, Evelyn Waugh…”
Corbyn rolled his eyes, exchanging a look with Sadie. Ellie was doing what she did best, meddling. Despite that, he found himself relaxing as the evening went on. The wine helped, as did watching Sadie’s genuine enjoyment of Ellie’s company.
“So,” Ellie said, settling back in her chair with her second glass of wine. “I think it’s time for some properly embarrassing stories about my dear brother. Sadie, you need to know what you’re dealing with.”
“Ellie,” Corbyn warned, but his sister ignored him completely.
“Did he tell you about his brief career as a teenage detective?” she asked, her eyes sparkling with mischief.
“You wouldn’t dare,” Corbyn said, though he was fighting a smile.
“Oh, I absolutely would. Picture this, Sadie—fifteen-year-old Corbyn, convinced that our elderly neighbor Mrs. Pemberton was running some sort of criminal enterprise because she had too many visitors and received mysterious packages.”
“And was she?” Sadie asked, already chuckling into her wine glass.
“She was teaching piano lessons and ordering sheet music through the post,” Ellie finished triumphantly. “Meanwhile, our budding Sherlock Holmes spent three weeks taking detailed notes about her ‘suspicious activities’ and even followed the postman to see if he was involved in the conspiracy.”
“I was being thorough,” Corbyn protested, his cheeks warming. “And her lesson schedule was unusually irregular.”
“Because she taught school children in the evenings,” Ellie pointed out. “Which you would have discovered if you’d simply asked instead of launching a full surveillance operation.”
Sadie burst into delighted laughter. Corbyn felt warmth spreading through his chest at the sound, and he was sure it had little to do with the wine.
“Well, that certainly explains your choice of writing genre,” she said, grinning at Corbyn. “You’ve been plotting mysteries since you were fifteen.”
“I prefer to think of it as early research,” Corbyn replied with mock dignity, which only made both women laugh harder, Sadie’s smile causing a flutter in his chest. “And I think that’s enough stories, Eleanor.”
Ellie narrowed her eyes in his direction, and he couldn’t stop the satisfied smirk that formed on his lips. As much as he detested her old nickname for him, he knew she hated the use of her full name even more.
“Do you have any siblings, Sadie?” Ellie asked, turning her attention away from Corbyn. “Any annoying older brothers back home?”
“A younger one, actually,” Sadie said, although there was fondness in her eyes. “My little brother Lucas definitely kept me on my toes. I’m five years older than him, so keeping him out of trouble fell to me a lot of the time.”
Taking a sip of his wine, Corbyn saw the soft look on Sadie’s face while she talked about her brother. It was clear the siblings had been close growing up, much like he and Ellie.
“He’s also the reason I go by Sadie,” she continued, pausing to sip her own wine. “He couldn’t pronounce Alessandra when he was little, and it came out sounding like Alesadie, which my parents shortened to Sadie, and… it stuck.”
Corbyn froze with his wine glass halfway to his lips.
Alessandra. His fingers went numb against the stem.
The restaurant’s chatter faded to a dull hum as blood rushed to his ears.
That name was confirmation of something he hadn’t dared to allow himself to hope for.
Fifteen years of wondering about the girl with gray eyes and red hair on the Underground, and here she sat across from him, laughing with his sister.
His chest tightened as memories crystallized: her hand brushing his on the metal pole, that electric current he’d never felt with anyone else, the way her smile had started in just one corner of her mouth exactly as it did now.
Ellie was watching him with growing concern, her own glass suspended in midair as she took in his expression.
Sadie noticed the sudden tension immediately, her gaze moving between the siblings with growing confusion.
“Is everything alright?”
“Fine,” Corbyn said quickly, his voice rough. He cleared his throat, setting the glass back on the table. “Just… surprised you have such an unusual name. Alessandra’s beautiful.”
“It’s Italian,” Sadie explained slowly, still looking puzzled. “My grandmother was very insistent about preserving family traditions, even though that side of my family had been in America for three generations by then.”
“How lovely,” Ellie managed, though her voice sounded strained. “Family traditions are important.”
Corbyn was only half listening as the conversation continued. His mind was reeling, trying to remember all the signs he had ignored. When Sadie excused herself to visit the loo, Ellie immediately leaned across the table.
“Corbyn?” she whispered urgently. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. What just happened?”
“I’ve met her before,” he said quietly, his voice barely audible. Ellie’s eyes narrowed in confusion, so he continued, “Fifteen years ago, I had just graduated from university, and I was living here in the city. I was on my way to a party and I met an American girl on the Tube named Alessandra.”
“Wait, isn’t that the girl you prattled on about in your journal?” Ellie breathed, her eyes bright with amazement. “This isn’t a coincidence, Corbyn. This is fate. You have to tell her!”
“You read my journal?” Corbyn’s eyes narrowed, his whisper gaining a bit of an edge. Between his sister and Edie, he had no hope of ever keeping anything a secret.
“Of course I did, I’m your sister,” Ellie responded, waving it off like it was the most natural thing in the world for her to have done. “You’ve been pining for her ever since. You have to tell her.”
“Firstly, I don’t pine,” Corbyn said desperately, glancing toward the direction Sadie had gone. “Secondly, she just ended a relationship with a man who would use anything at his disposal to manipulate her feelings. What if she thinks that’s what I’m trying to do?”
“Or maybe she’ll see how it explains everything,” Ellie countered. “You two are perfect together. And tonight, watching you two…” She shook her head, leaning forward, and she enunciated each word, “You have to tell her.”
“When the time is right,” Corbyn said firmly. “If there is a right time. This is too important to handle poorly.”
Ellie studied his face, and he could see her trying to formulate her next argument, but Sadie reappeared at the table. She slipped back into her seat with a smile that made Corbyn’s pulse thrum with a mix of longing and fear.
They finished dinner as the restaurant began to empty around them, conversation flowing easily once more.
As they gathered their coats and stepped out into the crisp London evening, Corbyn found himself hyperaware of every glance Sadie cast his direction.
There were several times she even started to say something before changing her mind.
“This has been perfect,” Sadie said finally as they approached the garage where Corbyn had parked the car. “Thank you, Ellie. For everything. I feel like I’ve seen a completely different side of London.”
“And of my brother, I hope,” Ellie replied with a meaningful look at Corbyn that had him wanting to hide. “He’s actually quite sweet when he puts his mind to it.”
“I’m learning that,” Sadie said softly.
His thoughts swung between Ellie’s insistence about fate and his own mounting terror, as they continued to walk.
What if telling Sadie about their past connection destroyed the careful trust they’d built?
What if she thought he’d been manipulating her all along, using some romantic fantasy to influence their working relationship?
But he also couldn’t help but think, what if Ellie was right? What if Sadie also remembered that night and that connection? And what might happen if she had spent the last fifteen years chasing that memory, too?
They were just turning the corner toward the garage elevator when the crash happened.
Corbyn’s body registered the sound before his mind could process it—that sickening crunch of metal folding against metal.
A delivery van had collided with a street vendor’s cart at the intersection ahead.
The cart spun wildly, its contents scattering across the pavement.
Then came the hiss, the whoosh, and suddenly the night split open with fire.
Brilliant orange flames shot skyward. Four years collapsed into nothing.
Corbyn was back there again—trapped in the twisted wreckage, left hand crushed between the steering wheel and dashboard as fire licked at the edges of his peripheral vision.
The smell of his own burning flesh filled his nostrils.
Someone was screaming. Was it him? Was it the vendor? He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.
“Corbyn?” Sadie’s voice seemed to come from very far away.
Suddenly, he was fleeing, both from the sight and the memories as his feet carried him down the nearest alley.
His chest constricted, breathing shallow, and the world spun out of focus.
Behind him, he could hear Sadie calling his name, but the sound of the fire crackling in the distance kept his feet moving.
The alley was dark and narrow, lined with overflowing bins and the back entrances to shops. Corbyn pressed his hands against the brick wall, trying to let the feel of the roughness against his skin ground him as he fought to breathe.
Footsteps echoed behind him in the alley, growing closer, but he couldn’t bring himself to look up. He couldn’t face the concern he knew he’d see. He couldn’t explain why the accident had reduced him to this trembling wreck of a man.