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.
