Chapter 28
Somehow, Callum managed to catch me off guard, again.
Callum waited for one of those slow late afternoons when the house was finally quiet.
The kind where I could sit up longer than ten minutes without paying for it later, where the light came in at an angle and made everything look a little gentler than it really was.
His parents were out back, Thalia had gone home, and the space felt calm instead of tense.
He stood near the doorway to the living room, hands in his pockets, weight shifting in a way I remembered from years ago, back when nerves still made him visibly restless.
“Can I ask you something?” he said.
I muted the television and looked at him. “You just did.”
A corner of his mouth twitched, and for a second it almost felt normal. “Can I ask you something that actually matters, then?”
I nodded, careful not to give more than that.
He took a breath, slow and deliberate, like he was bracing himself. “Would you go on a date with me?”
The word caught me off guard. I didn’t answer right away, and he didn’t rush to fill the silence.
“Not a big one,” he added. “Not a grand gesture. Just-&rdquo He hesitated, then exhaled. “Another first date.”
That made my brows lift despite myself. “Another first date.”
“Yeah,” he said. “The same one. The one we already had, years ago. Same place. Same idea. Just… a chance for us to try again, to take a first step together.”
I studied his face, searching for angles, for hidden expectations, for the familiar pressure to perform reassurance or forgiveness. I didn’t find it. What I saw instead was careful hope, restrained and oddly humble.
“We’d be awkward,” he continued, quieter now. “For completely different reasons than last time. And I think that’s okay. I don’t want to pretend we’re where we used to be. I just-&rdquo He swallowed. “I want to start again at the place that we began.”
My chest tightened, not painfully, but enough to make me aware of it.
“You’re asking me out,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Like an actual date.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re not expecting -&rdquo I stopped myself before finishing the sentence, before defaulting to defenses I was tired of carrying.
He shook his head anyway, like he’d anticipated it. “I’m not expecting anything except your presence. And even that’s optional.”
I laughed under my breath, surprised by it. “You’ve gotten better at this.”
His gaze softened. “I had a lot of time to think about how bad I was at it before.”
“And if I don’t want that?”
“Then I’ll make you soup and pretend I didn’t ask,” he said, serious enough that I believed him.
I looked back at the darkened television screen, at my reflection faintly visible in it. I looked tired.
But curiosity stirred beneath the caution, quiet and persistent.
“When?” I asked.
His shoulders loosened, just a fraction. “Tomorrow afternoon. Early. No pressure to stay long.”
I nodded slowly. “Okay.”
The relief that crossed his face was brief and contained, like he didn’t trust it enough to let it bloom.
“Okay?” he repeated.
“Okay,” I said again. “I’ll go.”
He smiled then, properly this time, and it did something inconvenient to my chest.
· · ─ ·?· ─ · ·
The next day, Callum picked me up on time, exactly on time.
As he approached, he smiled and said, “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” I replied.
The drive was quiet but not strained. He didn’t reach for my hand, didn’t fill the space with chatter, and I noticed how intentional that felt. He was letting the silence exist without trying to conquer it.
When we pulled up to the cafe, something in my chest shifted.
It was the same place. The same brick exterior, the same crooked sign, the same smell of coffee and baked sugar drifting out the door. I hadn’t been back in years. I hadn’t realized how vividly it lived in me until I was standing there again.
“You remembered,” I said quietly.
He nodded. “I never forgot.”
We went inside.
The table near the window was open, the one we’d sat at before, sunlight pooling across the worn wood just like it had that first afternoon. He let me slide into the booth first, waited until I was settled before sitting across from me instead of beside me.
Another deliberate choice.
“We don’t have to stay long,” he said again, like a mantra. “We can just have coffee.”
“I know,” I replied. “You’ve said.”
“Just making sure you know I mean it.”
I studied him as he spoke, the careful posture, the way his eyes tracked my movements without clinging to them.
“This is weird,” I said, not unkindly.
He smiled. “It was weird the first time too.”
“No,” I said. “That was exciting-weird. This is… fragile-weird.”
He nodded. “Yeah. That sounds right.”
We ordered the same drinks we had years ago.
As we sat there, talking about neutral things at first, about the cafe, about work, about nothing that could crack us open too quickly, I felt the weight of what he was offering without demanding.
As the conversation settled into something easier, I became aware of how carefully he was pacing it, like he was reading my breathing instead of the clock.
He didn’t push for laughter, didn’t angle for nostalgia, didn’t reach across the table even when a joke landed and my smile lingered longer than I meant it to.
We talked about the first date, eventually, but only because I brought it up.
About how nervous he’d been, how he’d shown up early, and about how I’d spilled coffee on my sleeve and pretended it was fine, even though I’d been mortified.
The memories came back soft-edged, less like wounds and more like artifacts, things we could examine without cutting ourselves on them.
“I remember thinking you were out of my league,” he admitted, scratching at the edge of his cup. “Which, to be fair, hasn’t changed much.”
I snorted before I could stop myself. “You had a ridiculous amount of confidence for someone who thought that.”
“I was bluffing,” he said. “Hard.”
“That explains a lot.”
The ease surprised me. Not because the pain was gone, but because it didn’t dominate every inch of the space between us. It sat there, acknowledged, not ignored, but not driving the conversation either. That felt new.
After coffee, he asked if I felt up to a walk and I nodded. The afternoon air was mild, the sidewalk familiar, and we walked side by side with enough space between us that our arms didn’t brush.
“This was the part where you almost tripped,” he said, nodding toward a crack in the pavement.
“I did trip,” I corrected. “You caught me.”
He smiled at the memory, but he didn’t say anything else, didn’t turn it into a metaphor or a plea. He just kept walking.
The neighborhood hadn’t changed much. Same trees, same uneven sidewalks, same sense of time moving slower than it did everywhere else.
It felt strange to be there with him like this, not as a couple pretending nothing had happened, not as two people avoiding each other’s eyes, but as something undefined and tentative and oddly sincere.
We stopped at the small park where we’d ended the first date, the one with the bench that always caught the late afternoon sun.
He gestured toward it, and I sat, grateful for the rest. He stayed standing for a moment, like he was deciding whether joining me would be too much, then sat on the far end, angled slightly away, giving me room to breathe.
“I know this doesn’t fix anything,” he said finally.
I glanced at him, noting the way he kept his voice steady, grounded. “I know.”
“But I needed you to know I remember,” he continued. “Not just the good parts. All of it. Who you were then. Who you are now. And that I still want to choose you, even if choosing you looks different than it used to.”
The words landed carefully, like he’d practiced saying them without sharpening them into promises he couldn’t guarantee. I felt something loosen in my chest, not enough to call it healing, but enough to let the air move more freely.
“I can see that,” I said. “And it matters. I just-&rdquo I paused, searching for the right phrasing. “I don’t know what it means yet.”
He nodded. “You don’t have to.”
We sat there in companionable quiet for a few minutes, watching a couple of kids chase each other across the grass, listening to the distant hum of traffic.
I became aware of the way my body felt, not braced, not flinching, just present.
It struck me that this was the first time in a long while I hadn’t been waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Do you remember the flowers from our first date? I plucked some of the wildflowers in this park for you, and you put some of them into your hair?” He asked, his voice trailing off as he glanced at me with a faint smile on his face.
“Yeah, I remember. It felt like the sweetest gesture ever at that time.” I replied, smiling.
When it was time to leave, he stood first and offered his arm. I hesitated, then slipped my hand through, resting it lightly against his sleeve. The contact was brief, almost formal, but it sent a quiet ripple through me all the same.
At the car, he opened the door for me, another small echo of the past, and waited until I was settled before walking around to his side.
When we pulled up to his parents’ house, the sun was lower now, casting long shadows across the driveway. He turned off the engine but didn’t move to get out right away.
“Thank you,” he said. “For coming.”
“You’re welcome,” I replied. And I meant it.
I reached for the door handle, then paused, something tugging at me, gentle but insistent. I turned back to him, really looked at his face, at the patience there, the restraint, the effort that didn’t demand recognition.
I reached across the console and took his hand.
It wasn’t dramatic. No sparks, no swelling music in my head. Just skin against skin, warm and steady, a quiet acknowledgment of what had been and what might still be possible.
His fingers curled around mine, careful, like he was afraid of squeezing too tightly. He didn’t pull me closer. He didn’t say anything. He just held my hand and let that be enough.
When I let go and stepped out of the car, my heart felt heavier and lighter all at once, full of questions that didn’t need immediate answers. The date hadn’t healed anything. It hadn’t erased the hurt or rewritten the past.
But it had reminded me that beneath all of it, there was still something worth tending, even if I wasn’t ready to name what that meant yet.
I walked inside, aware of him watching me go, and for the first time in a long while, the thought of the future didn’t feel like a closed door. It felt like a hallway, dimly lit, uncertain, but open enough that I could imagine taking another step when I was ready.