Chapter Three
Edwina
When I saw him today, the first instinct that rose inside me was not anger.
For one dangerous second everything inside me moved toward him before my mind could intervene.
I wanted to close the distance between us, to run the way my body remembered how, to reach for him without hesitation the way I once had.
I wanted to bury my face against his chest, to feel his arms around me again, to confirm that the years between us had not been real after all.
The impulse was so strong it frightened me.
Because it reminded me how easily I had once belonged to him.
I did none of those thingsI stood still, kept my voice calm, and walked away.
But the truth remained lodged beneath my composure, undeniable and humiliating in equal measure. Part of me had wanted to kiss him too.
Helena shifted slightly in her sleep and I forced the memory away, smoothing the blanket over her small shoulder before standing carefully.
She did not stir. Children carry none of the complicated history adults drag through their lives.
They sleep peacefully without unfinished conversations echoing in their minds, without memories returning uninvited at the worst possible moments.
When I finally stepped out of her room and pulled the door halfway closed so the nightlight could cast its soft glow into the hallway, the apartment felt too quiet. Too still. Silence always invites memory. And memory, tonight, belonged entirely to him.
My friends had known nothing about us when it happened.
Back then I carried the relationship like a secret I protected fiercely, convinced that if the world touched it too closely it might break.
Aster and Gwen saw the changes in me, of course.
They noticed the late nights, the way my mood shifted without explanation, the happiness I tried unsuccessfully to hide.
But I never told them the truth. After I settled in London, once the first shock had passed and I could speak without falling apart, I called Aster and Gwen and told them everything.
The conversation lasted nearly the entire night.
I told them about Hayden, the secrecy, the love I had hidden even from myself, and the engagement I discovered so ordinarily that it felt cruel.
The silence on the line after I finished speaking felt endless. Aster was the first to break it.
“That son of a bitch,” Aster muttered.
Gwen was more restrained, which only made her words hurt worse.
“You deserved honesty,” she said. “The truth, Edwina. Never the lie.”
Neither of them asked why I chose to leave. They understood. And they supported me without hesitation after that, even when my decisions seemed extreme to everyone else.
I leaned against the kitchen counter, letting the cool surface press against my palms as I exhaled.
Five years had passed since that moment in the café.
Five years of building a life with careful hands and choices I had to stand by, a life that kept him out, buried his name, and left no space for the ruin he had once made of me.
Still, none of that distance had reached the place inside me where he remained.
The years had changed my days. They had given me new habits, new responsibilities, a new name, a daughter, and a version of myself I had learned to become. They had not erased him.
When I heard his voice again, when that dark, impossible sound reached me after all this time, something deep within me recognized him with a force that felt almost like betrayal, as though my own body had remembered what my pride had spent years trying to bury.
Time had not taken that from me. It had only taught me how to live around it, how to carry the wound quietly, how to hide what had never fully healed.
Morning arrived with pale light slipping through the curtains and the faint chill of late autumn resting against the windows.
The apartment felt softer than it had the evening before, warmed by Helena’s voice before anything else.
She woke with her usual rush of energy, asking questions before her feet touched the floor and insisting on the yellow sweater with the crooked star she had chosen herself weeks ago.
I helped her brush her silky straight hair, gathering it into a small braid she claimed made her look “very grown,” though she kept turning her head to inspect it in the mirror before I had even finished.
While I worked, she told me about the game she planned to invent for her friends that day, explaining the rules with complete seriousness and changing them every few seconds.
Routine had a way of pulling the mind back into place.
Breakfast, shoes by the door, a missing mitten found under the sofa, Helena narrating every thought as I moved through the morning with the ease of habit.
For a few hours, I let myself believe that yesterday had been only an interruption, a strange tear in an otherwise ordinary life, rather than the beginning of a complication that might follow me.
The kindergarten stood on the corner of a residential street not far from our apartment. Helena ran ahead the moment we reached the gate, stopping only to throw her arms around me once more before disappearing through the doors with the fearless confidence children carried so naturally.
“See you later, Mommy!” she called over her shoulder.
I watched until she vanished inside, then returned to my car.
The air carried that thin, biting edge that came when autumn was almost over and winter had begun waiting at the door.
I sat behind the wheel for a moment, hands resting on it before I started the engine, familiar with the act now to trust myself.
Then I drove toward the university, past bare branches, damp pavements, and the muted gray of a city caught between seasons.
By the time I reached campus the morning had fully awakened.
Students moved across the courtyard with coffee cups in their hands, conversations weaving through the crisp air as they hurried between buildings.
I had two lectures scheduled that day, both in the Foreign Languages Department where I had been teaching since finishing my master’s degree in linguistics.
After Helena was born I completed the program while balancing motherhood and work in a way that often felt impossible until it slowly became normal.
The university had given me a beginning. Ashcroft University of London had welcomed me two years earlier as a junior lecturer while I continued my doctoral research, a balance of teaching and scholarship that gave my days structure and kept the past at a manageable distance. Or at least it had.
Today the building felt different the moment I stepped inside.
The hallway outside the department buzzed with an unusual level of activity.
Several faculty members stood in small clusters speaking in low voices while administrative staff moved quickly between offices carrying folders and hurried expressions.
Something had happened.
I slowed my steps, trying to make sense of the sudden tension in the air. Before I could ask anyone, a familiar voice called my name.
“Edwina.”
I turned to find Giselle approaching from the other end of the corridor, her dark coat moving around her as she walked with the quick energy she carried everywhere.
She was small in height, almost minion-like in the way she filled a room without needing to tower over anyone, with long dark hair, big light-brown almond eyes, full lips, and a body shaped with curves exactly where they belonged.
We had met two years earlier during my first week at the university, when she helped me survive the mess of paperwork, office keys, classroom assignments, and names I could not yet remember.
Since then, she had become far more than a colleague. She had become family.
“Why does everyone look like the building is about to collapse?” I asked.
Giselle looked at me. “Oh, you don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“The dean resigned last night.”
I blinked. “Resigned?”
“Effective immediately,” she said, lowering her voice as two professors passed us. “And the board already has a replacement.”
“That was fast.”
“Very,” she said, drawing the word out until suspicion stirred in me.
I waited.
“He’s coming from the United States.”
Something tightened in my chest.
“Do we know who he is?” I asked.
Giselle shook her head. “No one knows much yet. Only that he’s already in London and he’s meeting the faculty later today.”
The hallway noise continued around us while her words settled slowly in my mind. A professor from the United States. The thought appeared at first, almost reluctant to form. And then it refused to disappear. A strange unease moved through me.
It could be anyone.
The academic world was full of scholars who traveled between countries and institutions, especially at this level. There was no reason for my thoughts to drift toward one particular name simply because yesterday had already unsettled me more than expected.
Still, the possibility lingered, and for one weak moment, I allowed myself to imagine it. Hayden in this hallway. Hayden stepping into the position of authority that had opened so suddenly. Hayden turning the life I had built within these walls uncertain with nothing more than his presence.
The thought pulled me backward before I could stop it, back to lecture halls, office doors, lowered voices, and the old imbalance between us. Once again, he would stand above me in a way the world could excuse. Once again, he would be my superior.
The realization left a bitter taste in my mouth.
I shook the thought away before it could settle any deeper.
No.
That was impossible.