Chapter 78: Seventy Eight

Grocery shopping was supposed to be a quick, mindless task. Bread, milk, apples, juice boxes, something frozen I could shove in the oven and pretend was homemade. I hadn’t even bothered to change out of the soft-worn sweatshirt I slept in, just pulled on leggings and tied my hair into a sloppy knot at the top of my head. Sundays were for survival.

Grocery shopping on a Sunday was never a good idea. Grocery shopping on a Sunday with a sugar-high five-year-old? That was just masochism.

“Noah, keep your hands to yourself, baby,” I called out, pushing the cart with one hand and adjusting my slipping tote bag with the other. My sweatshirt had a coffee stain from this morning, and I absently rubbed at it.

Noah darted ahead into the cereal aisle, his dinosaur plush bouncing in his grip. “I want the one with the tiger, Mommy!”

“Stay close!” I called out, my heart already kicking up. He disappeared around the corner.

I picked up the pace, the cart wheels squeaking, turning the corner fast.

I knew he was still nearby. Noah was somewhere in the same aisle, chattering to himself as he pretended the cereal boxes were part of a spaceship. I could hear the occasional giggle, the thump of something toppling.

I should’ve kept my eyes on him.

I hurriedly turned the corner, suddenly stopping short.

Oh.

The breath left my lungs before I even registered his face. Tall. Broad shoulders. A navy jacket I remembered too well. He held a basket in one hand and a bag of oranges in the other, looking like he belonged in an ad for artisanal breakfast juice.

And then his eyes met mine, those blue eyes I used to know like the lines on my own palm. It was as if time folded in on itself.

For a moment, we just stared. Stunned. As if neither of us could trust what we were seeing.

“Willow,” he said, voice low, disbelieving.

I swallowed hard. “Hi.”

It wasn’t enough, not after five years, not after the way we’d ended. But it was all I could manage.

I was suddenly so aware of my clothes, my dishevelled state, my bare face, my unkempt hair.

He looked me over. Not in that predatory, ogling way. I’d never known him to be like that. No, it was softer. Slower. Like he was searching for the girl he’d once loved and trying to understand who this new woman was standing in her place.

He looked at me like he didn’t know me.

I guess he didn’t, anymore.

“You look... different,” he said, cautiously.

I forced a smile. “It’s been a while.”

“Yeah,” he murmured. “A while.”

More than a while. It felt like a lifetime.

There were so many things he didn’t know. So many secrets held tight in my chest. He didn’t know I’d written a resignation email just minutes before our last fight. He didn’t know that the very next day, I’d bought a bus ticket and never looked back. He didn’t know that I’d spent the last five years raising a boy with his eyes and his stubborn streak.

I could still hear Noah playing around. I was grateful he wasn’t with me right now. How could I ever explain that to Declan?

“How have you been?” I asked, trying to sound casual. It came out shaky.

He gave a half-smile. “Busy. Academia doesn’t really slow down.”

I nodded, forcing my hands to stay at my sides, though they ached to wring each other. “What brings you here?”

He hesitated. “Work. Just here for the summer.”

“That’s nice,” I said, voice thinner than I wanted it to be. “How long are you here?”

“Three months.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “You live here?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded slowly, eyes searching mine. “For how long?”

“Years,” I said. “Since just after... everything.” I breathed, “Four, five years now, I guess.”

There was a pause. Heavy. He knew what I meant. That last night. The fight. The way I’d told him I never wanted to see him again, that he’d used me, that we meant nothing.

I still remembered the way he had looked at me, then. The betrayal, the hurt in his eyes. I was still haunted by the look in his eyes, that would have loved me for a lifetime, if only fate would have allowed us.

He was quiet for a beat. “You really just disappeared, Willow.”

My throat tightened. “I had to.”

“Why?”

I shook my head. “It’s not a conversation we should have here.”

That was true. Not in the dairy aisle, under the flickering lights and the loud pop music overhead. Not with my son an aisle away playing picking out cereal, blissfully unaware that the man whose DNA ran through his veins was standing ten feet away.

“I just…” Declan rubbed the back of his neck. “I thought about you. I mean, not all the time, but... sometimes. Especially when I’d go back to the university. You were just gone. No note. No goodbye.”

I stared at the floor. “It wasn’t easy for me either.”

“Was it because of me?” His voice cracked, just a little.

My chest ached. “No. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“But you made me feel like I had,” he said, suddenly sharper.

I looked up at him.

I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t tell him that I’d left with more than guilt. That I’d left with his child growing inside me. That I’d built a life from the rubble of our love and handed that life to someone else; someone who could provide safety, stability. Someone whose life I would not ruin, like I could have ruined his.

Instead, I just said, “I’m sorry things ended the way they did.”

He stared at me like I was speaking a foreign language. And maybe I was. Maybe the version of me he remembered wouldn’t have said that. Maybe I’d changed too much.

I could hear Noah laughing now, out of sight. I couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t let Declan follow the sound and see the part of himself he didn’t even know existed.

“I should go,” I said, taking a shaky step back. “It was... good to see you.”

He hesitated. “Right. You too.”

For a second, it looked like he might say more. Ask for my number. Suggest we catch up. Demand answers. But then his eyes hardened, and his jaw set in that familiar way. I turned and walked away.

I didn’t look back. I really, really wanted to.