Chapter 37 #2
A memory surfaced—one that had shaken me only a couple of weeks earlier.
I had been standing in a coffee shop waiting for drinks for the children and Geeta when a woman screamed, “Jeremy!” My entire body had locked.
I couldn’t breathe. It couldn’t be him—I had seen his body with my own eyes.
Still, my heart had pounded violently as I turned, only to see a little boy walk up to the woman and take her hand.
He had glanced at me and smiled. I had forced a smile back, even though my hands had been shaking, before grabbing the drinks and rushing back to the car, my fingers trembling against the steering wheel as I drove away.
“Hi,” Malaika murmured drowsily, her voice soft and thick from the medication. Her eyelids fluttered slightly as she tried to focus on me. “Are you my angel?”
My heart squeezed.
The morphine was probably making her say things she didn’t fully understand.
“Hi,” I said gently. “No, I’m not your angel.” I reached out and brushed my fingers lightly through her hair. “But I am here to help you. I’m here to give you the blood that you need.”
Her small face relaxed as she listened.
“I promise you,” I continued softly, “when you wake up later, you’ll be as good as new. Strong like before.”
As I spoke, I removed my sunglasses and adjusted the scarf wrapped around my head.
The scarf slipped.
Before I could stop it, it fell just enough to reveal my face.
Malaika blinked slowly. Then her eyes widened with sudden recognition.
“I remember you,” she whispered weakly. “You are my angel.”
The words struck straight into my chest like an arrow finding its mark.
“You saved me from the bad man before… in the forest.”
Quickly, I pulled the scarf back into place and slipped my sunglasses on again just as the anesthesiologist returned to the room.
I stepped aside quietly as he prepared the injection.
Within seconds, Malaika’s eyes closed completely. She was unconscious.
I leaned down and kissed her forehead. Then I straightened and took one last look at both beds, whispering a silent prayer that they would both recover.
Without another word, I left the room.
I turned the corner quickly and collided with someone.
My breath stopped.
I looked up.
Caleb.
The pounding of my heartbeat roared in my ears like thunder in my skull. My pulse raced wildly, and my legs felt weak beneath me.
I dropped my gaze immediately and forced my feet to keep moving.
Just keep walking.
“Nyah!”
I froze at the sound of my old name. It hit me like a blow to the chest. My heart lurched painfully. He hadn’t used that name in so long… but hearing it again felt like someone had reached into my past and yanked it violently back into the present.
Panic surged through me as I realized my mistake.
I bent down quickly and pretended to tie my shoelaces, hoping the movement would hide my face and give me a second to regain control.
When I stood again, I continued walking forward casually, keeping my head slightly lowered.
Don’t turn around. Don’t look back. I knew if I did, everything I had worked so hard to rebuild would collapse.
I turned the next corner and pushed open the nearest door.
It led to the stairwell.
Without hesitation, I slipped inside and hurried down the stairs, my heart still pounding violently against my ribs.
Once I reached the lower level, I pulled out my phone and sent Elle a quick message, thanking her for all the help. I told her I would see her back at the house.
Then I shoved the phone back into my bag and walked, battling the sea of inner turmoil.
Driving back to Cowichan Bay, the sky outside had begun to dim into the muted colours of late afternoon, the fading light stretching long shadows across the road ahead of me. The ocean occasionally peeked through the trees, and small towns along the route drifted in and out of view.
Did Caleb know it was me? The thought slid into my mind. My stomach stirred as the memory replayed. The sound of his voice calling my old name still echoed faintly in my ears, the way it had frozen me mid-step.
Nyah.
I had not heard that name spoken in his voice in so long that it felt like my chest had cracked open when he said it.
What if he’s following me right now? My eyes darted up to the rear-view mirror, my heart thudding unevenly as I scanned the cars behind me. A white sedan. A pickup truck. Another car farther back with its headlights just beginning to glow in the fading daylight.
None of them looked familiar.
I continued checking the mirror every few seconds, unable to shake the uneasy feeling crawling beneath my skin.
Memories of him flickered through my thoughts without permission—the sound of his laugh, the way he used to look at me as if I were the only person in the world, the way his arms had once felt like the safest place I could ever be.
I exhaled slowly and shook my head.
I cannot look back on my life.
That part of my story was over. Looking back would only pull me into the same cycle of suffering that had taken me so long to escape.
I needed to move forward.
And forward was not somewhere in the past.
Forward was now.
And now… meant Cole.
The moment his name entered my thoughts, something softer spread through my chest, easing the tightness that had been there all afternoon.
A small, reluctant smile touched my lips as I remembered the way he had looked at me earlier that morning.
Standing in my bedroom.
The intensity in the way his gaze had lingered on me while I stood there wrapped only in a towel.
Butterflies stirred gently inside me, the same ones that had taken flight before Elle’s call had interrupted us. I could still feel the charged silence that had hung in the air between us, the way the space between our bodies had seemed to shrink without either of us moving.
Something had been about to happen.
I had felt it.
I had not been afraid of where that moment might lead.
I had begun to have feelings for him that had quietly grown over the past weeks.
The way he laughed with the children. The way his eyes softened whenever he looked at me. The way his presence in the house had slowly begun to feel natural, comforting, as though he had always belonged there. All of it had slipped into my heart before I had even realized what was happening.
Then Elle’s call had destroyed the moment.
A small groan escaped me as I remembered how abruptly I had left the house.
One moment, I had been standing close to him, feeling the heat of his gaze on my skin, and the next, I had rushed downstairs, kissed his cheek in a hurried apology, and disappeared out the door without giving him any real explanation.
From his perspective, it must have looked ridiculous. He must think I am either bipolar or completely crazy. The thought made me huff out a soft, humourless laugh.
Cole had begun to mean a lot more to me.
More than I had ever imagined.
More than I had ever planned.
And that meant I could not afford to repeat the same mistakes I had made with Caleb, which eventually destroyed what we once had.
I could not build something new with Cole on that same fragile foundation.
He deserved honesty.
If I wanted whatever was growing between us to have a real chance, he needed to know the truth.
All of it.
Every painful piece of my past.
The lights of Cowichan Bay slowly began to appear in the distance, glowing softly against the darkening sky.
Tomorrow I will tell him everything.
No more secrets.
No more half-truths.
I would sit down with him, look him in the eye, and finally reveal the parts of my life I had spent so long trying to hide.
Because if Cole and I were going to move forward together, it had to begin with the truth.
To know Caleb’s thoughts when he thinks he sees “Nyah” at the hospital, read the fourth chapter in his Bonus Chapters.