As eighteen-year-old kids fresh out of high school. Ridiculous, I know. But he wasthe one. For him, I felt the kind of love I never had before and never have since. He was going to get a job as a mechanic to help put me through school at Stanford, my dream school I’d been accepted to but didn’t have the money to attend. Then we’d go wherever archeology took me. My parents were going to kill me, but I was smart. I’d gotten into Stanford after all. They’d see it wasn’t a foolish teenage dream. We were going to make a life together.
I sat on my luggage in my room that night, waiting for the knock that never came. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t stop my legs from shaking as I waited, and waited.
I cried myself to sleep, and when I awoke, I expected him to be there, begging for my forgiveness. But that never came either. I felt like a fool for believing him. I knew it had been too good to be true—that he would give up everything in his life to make sure I achieved my dreams. I felt selfish, but more than that I was hurt, so certain it was all a lie, that he’d never meant a word. How else could he utterly ghost me?
But hehadmade a plan. He was going to take me to California.
That small, insignificant piece of information seems to wind its way through time, easing the edges of the pain.
But what happened next? Why didn’t he come? His confession brings more questions than answers.
A high-pitched laugh echoes throughout the penthouse, dragging me to the current moment. The one where the man I’d once considered marrying is now a thief and having a Nerf battle with the child under my guardianship.
It feels like a fever dream. If I’m going to wake up soon and it will all be over, I want to enjoy it while it lasts.
I run to the pantry and reach behind the two big bags of flour where I hid Bella’s best Nerf gun two months ago after she’d given me a black eye with it. Time to pay back my old fiancé.
In retrospect, I should have considered the gun to be too dangerous to aim at a child.
“You killed me!” Bella whimpers dramatically, her body a limp noodle on the floor where I made my “kill shot.” “I’m dead, I’m deeeeeaaaad.”
She’s quite vocal for the departed.
“What were you thinking?” Soren asks in mock accusation.
I glare at him. “I was aiming foryou.”
“You broke my hand,” Bella says through her sobs.
I rein in my patience. “Let’s get you some ice.”
She throws her other arm over her face. “I can’t walk.”
Naturally.
Soren bites back a laugh and scoops the little girl off the ground and into his arms. I’m not at all jealous of the way she gets to cuddle into his chest.
Bella flashes me a wry grin as she passes.
The girl makes a formidable opponent.
I retrieve an ice pack, wrap a towel around it the way Bella likes, and meet them in the living room.
Bella is lounging on the couch like an Egyptian princess waiting to be fanned and fed grapes by a handsome man. Said handsome man is falling for her ruse hook, line, and sinker.
Maybe I should be worried she’ll steal my ma—
No.
He’s not mine.
There’s no way I’ll let myself fall for him after one little confession. He still has much more to explain. And of course, he’d have to stay out of prison. Then again, after the Hartwells find out how I’m assisting in this holiday heist, I might be there as well.
People get married in prison…
I shake my head free of the absurd thought.
“Do you think we should take her to the doctor?” Soren asks as he sits beside her examining the “broken” limb. “She’s really babying it and can barely squeeze my fingers.”
