Chapter 6
Blair
It had been a long time since someone looked at me like that, like I mattered. Not because of what I could be or should’ve been, but because I did.
Greyson saw me. And somehow, that was the scariest part.
I walked home from the bar alone, the air cool against my skin. Every step pulsed with memories. Some I welcomed, others I shoved away.
The truth of why I left lingered behind my ribs like a bruise. But seeing Greyson again cracked something open.
When I got home, Madison was asleep on the couch, her hand resting protectively on her belly. I pulled a blanket over her and crept into the guest room.
I opened my laptop. The blinking cursor dared me to say something honest. So I did.
I wrote about the boy with warm eyes. The bar where ghosts still danced. The town that had broken me, could also help me heal. I wrote for hours. And when my fingers stilled and my heart thudded full in my chest, I whispered to the silence:
Maybe I’m not done here after all.
The afternoon sun painted everything in amber as I stepped out of Delilah’s Bookshop, the front door closing behind me with a soft chime.
I had just picked up some new titles that I had been eyeing.
The tote bag slung over my shoulder still felt warm from being hugged against my side, like it was absorbing the lightness of the moment.
Then everything stopped.
Across the street, leaning casually against a streetlamp, was a man with silvering hair at his temples, wire-rim glasses perched on his nose, his button up too formal for this town. He stood like he owned the sidewalk.
My blood turned to ice.
Professor Mitchell.
Or, someone who looked exactly like him.
My lungs forgot how to work. I blinked once, twice, three times, but the image didn’t change. The way he shifted his weight, the way he scanned the street. Calm. Measured. Predatory.
No. No. It couldn’t be him. He was supposed to be hundreds of miles away, still teaching at the university. He couldn’t be here. Not in Wisteria Creek.
But my body didn’t care about logic.
A sharp ringing filled my ears. My vision tunneled.
I was back in that classroom at the college. Only a sophomore. Bright-eyed. Eager. Excited to be in upper level english class, ready to start my dream of becoming a writer.
He’d smiled too kindly, told me there was something he wanted to discuss regarding my latest paper I had turned in. I didn’t know how to say no. He was a professor, my professor. I trusted him.
I hadn’t screamed.
I hadn’t told anyone for years.
“Blair?”
A voice sliced through the static. Delilah’s, I think. I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t breathe.
My hands trembled. My knees buckled. I stumbled sideways against the brick shop front, gasping like I was drowning in plain air. My throat was closing. The sounds of the town, the cars, the wind, the laughter, faded to a buzzing hush.
My vision blurred again, and when I looked back across the street, he was gone.
Gone.
Or maybe he’d never been there at all.
But the damage was done. The memory had opened like a wound, spilling into the present, soaking everything in panic and shame. I slid down to the sidewalk, arms around my knees, chest heaving. I couldn’t stop shaking.
Delilah crouched beside me, her hand hovering near my shoulder. “Blair, sweetheart, you’re okay. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
I wasn’t. Not at that moment. Not in my own skin.
It took Madison ten minutes to get there after Delilah called. But when I saw her, her eyes wide with concern, voice gentle as she crouched and gathered me into her arms and took me to the car, I let myself fall apart.
Right there on the sidewalk.
In front of the bookstore that held my childhood memories.
Because trauma didn’t care how far I’d come.