“You seem like a very smart kid to me,” I tell her.
“That’s what my daddy tells me,” she replies with the first smile she’s cracked since she walked through my door.
Her dad sounds like an especially interesting man. “I get why your father would say that. Still, you can’t be going around kicking other kids.”
“Kids shouldn’t be going around pushing other people and calling them names. If Kayden hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have kicked him,” she says, shrugging. Trying not to laugh, I let out an uncharacteristic snort.
This six year old girl speaks with more confidence than I’ve ever possessed.
“I agree with you on the first part. No one should be going around pushing people or calling them names. I’ll make sure I talk to Kayden. But if it happens again, instead of taking matters into your own hands and kicking someone else, just let me know, okay?”
“Are you going to take care of it?” she asks, pinning me down with an inquisitive look.
“Absolutely,” I assure her.
“Are you okay?” the door opens wide and my world freezes as I sit there and look up at someone I never expected to see. What is Christian doing here? Why is he asking if I’m okay? I swear it feels like being hit by a truck, blinded by the sun, and pushed under water all at once. Nothing makes sense. I don’t know what to feel.
Confusion.
Heartbreak.
Shock.
There are too many emotions running through my mind at once to focus on just one.
“Hi Daddy,” Ari says, getting up from the chair and running straight toward him. Daddy. Did she just call him that? Christian? My Christian? He’s not your Christian anymore, the voice in the back of my head says and it’s right.
The person standing in front of me is not the boy I fell in love with. No, a man has taken his place. This version is taller, with broader shoulders and a strong jaw. If it weren’t for his piercing dark brown eyes, which are currently focused on me, I’d be convinced he isn’t the same person. Christian had been gorgeous in high school, but that fades in comparison to the man he’s become.
Pushing those thoughts to the back of my mind, I focus on one thing only, the only thing that matters... he has a daughter.
“This is Mr. Cole, Ari’s dad,” Hannah says as she stands to the left of him. I didn’t even realize she was here until now. Her introduction of the guy who broke my heart confirms to me that I’m not crazy. That it’s really him. That Ari is his daughter. That he’s standing just mere inches away.
“Amari,” my name falls from his lips like an unanswered prayer as he lifts his daughter in his arms and embraces her. He looks at me and I see the confusion in his eyes. That makes two of us. He didn’t know I was back. I didn’t think he had stayed here, but I guess that wasn’t the only thing I didn’t know.
I look at him and then at Hannah. My eyes then shift to the girl in his arms. The one hugging him like he’s her lifeline. The one who talked about him like was her hero. I don’t know what to do with myself. I bring my hand to my chest, feeling like that’s the only thing I can do to stop myself from falling apart. I feel my heart breaking all over again.
He stayed in Forest Pines.
He’s in this room.
He left me.
He moved on.
He has a daughter.
“Ari, why don’t we go get your things while your dad speaks to Ms. Santana?” Hannah says, detecting the tension in the room. I know she heard the way Christian uttered my name with familiarity. She can see that my face is pale and my words have left me.
“Is it okay if I go with her, Daddy?” Ari asks, bringing her small hands to Christian’s chin and bringing his attention back to her. He tears his eyes away from me and looks at his daughter. I intrude in their moment as I watch the way he inspects her to make sure nothing’s wrong. Then, after he’s satisfied that she isn’t hurt, he nods.
He sets her down and Ari holds on to Hannah’s hand. They both walk out of the room and the moment the door closes the tension in the room becomes twofold.
Christian Cole.
My high school sweetheart.
He’s not your anything anymore.
He made me fall in love with him and then he left me.
I watch him, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t attempt to get closer to me or flee. He just stands there next to the door and I bet he’s weighing his choices. Trying to figure out if he should stay and try to talk to me or follow his daughter out the door and avoid this altogether.
I don’t move either. I stay seated because if I stand I may fall. I haven’t seen him in six years.
His daughter is six years old; the realization comes out of nowhere.
“She’s six.” Those are the first words to leave my mouth since he entered the room. Since he barged in and flipped my world upside down, again.
“I didn’t know you were back,” he says, avoiding my statement.
“She’s your daughter and she’s six,” I tell him, again ignoring his words. Of course that’s his kid, she called him Dad. He barged in here looking for her. She’s got his eyes and his confidence. That’s why it all seemed so familiar. Ari is a copy of him. Him and someone else. It takes me longer than it should, but I finally put two and two together.
I close my eyes. I know he’s here. I know this is real. But I wish so much that it weren’t. After being here for the last couple of weeks, the last thing I expected was this. Yes, I knew there was a chance he may have stayed. I knew I could run in to him at any point if he had. Still, I didn’t expect I’d ever be standing in this room face to face with him. I never expected that my assistant would call him in because of his daughter. How could I have?
I open my eyes and find him taking a few steps toward me. I shake my head, which causes him to stop moving. He can tell from the look in my eyes that I know. He hangs his head and moves toward me again. “It’s not what you think,” he starts to defend himself.
Chills run through my body the moment those words leave his mouth because it confirms that I’m right. I may be bad at math, but this is really simple. Six years. Six years ago we were in high school. It was senior year. He was my boyfriend. Six years ago was when he broke my heart.
“Did you think I was going to let you follow me around? That I would be your doting boyfriend forever? If you did, you were wrong.” The words he said to me as he broke up with me six years ago come back to mind.
He used those words to drive the knife into my heart and tear me to shreds.
He should’ve used some simpler words.
He should’ve just told me… he cheated.
10
CHRISTIAN
No one could’ve prepared me for this moment. If anyone had said to me that I would show up at my daughters’ school and see her, I would’ve laughed. Then, depending on who said it, I would’ve punched them in the face for bringing her name up in the first place.
I haven’t seen her in six years.
She’s still as breathtaking as the first time I saw her from the corner of my eye. Except she’s even more beautiful now, if that’s even possible.
She still has the sweet and innocent look that can bring me to my knees. But I can see in the way she looks at me that she’s different now. She’s fiercer. More assured. She’s a woman.
Still, the girl I fell in love with back then is standing right in front of me and I want nothing more than to crash my lips against hers and feel her pressed against my body. Have her mold into me like she did before. I ache to have her in my arms again.
When she asks me about my daughter though, I know that’s never going to happen. The two of us being together… yeah that’s something I gave up on a while ago.
“I didn’t know you were back,” I tell her as I absorb the shock of seeing her here. I don’t know what to make of it. How long has she been back?
She ignores my question and keeps asking me about Ari instead. I don’t get what she’s trying to figu
re out until the moment I see her eyes widen in understanding.
She’s thinking six years.
I know the moment she thinks she’s pieced it together because her eyes don’t hide the disdain. The disgust. Betrayal is visible in the way she looks at me like I’m a monster. I’m not… not in that way anyway.
Tempted and pulled by her, I take an unsure step in her direction but pause in place after I see the way she looks at me. It’s the same way she looked at me the day I broke her heart… the day I broke both of our hearts. “It isn’t what you think,” I tell her.
She stands up from her seat suddenly and rounds the desk so she’s farther from me. I watch her shake her head and I want to run toward her, tell her everything, and beg her to forgive me.
“Have a seat,” she tells me, her words devoid of any emotion.
I follow her instruction. Taking measured steps, I sit down in the chair she’s just abandoned, turning it so it faces her. I swallow the ball that I feel in my throat and just wait for her to speak again. There are so many things I want to tell her, including how sorry I am, but I don’t. I owe her the space to express what she feels first.
“We called you in today because your daughter kicked a child on the playground,” she says matter-of-fact. I feel the whiplash of switching topics and it leaves me feeling disoriented. She schools her voice and talks to me as if I were just one of the other parents. Someone she doesn’t know. Someone she doesn’t love. Loved.
She’s probably moved on. It’s been six years. I never expected us to get back together, so why should she? She was always a catch. Always above my league. Always deserving better than anything I could give her.
“We made the mistake of not looking into it a little deeper,” she continues and despite how much I want to know what happened to my daughter, at this moment, I want to explain myself to Amari more.
“It’s not what you think… Ari, she’s… I didn’t…” I blow out a breath of air, frustrated at my sudden inability to speak. I know I’m not making sense right now but, then again, how am I supposed to make sense of this situation? I ran away from having to explain it before.
Amari raises her voice, effectively stopping me from speaking again. “One of the other students was being mean to her. Called her names and pushed her. When he pushed her, Ari stepped on the ladybug she’d been playing with and killed it, so she kicked him back.”
Any other time and I would’ve made a big deal out of being called in about my daughter getting in trouble when the school didn’t have the full story. I would’ve smiled triumphantly at the fact that my daughter is defending herself, like I taught her to. I would’ve been pissed that another kid put his hands on my child.
But not right now.
I know my daughter’s okay.
And right now I want the girl in front of me, the girl of my dreams, to talk to me. To let me talk to her. To let me explain. To tell me how she’s feeling. To not treat me like a complete stranger.
“Amari, I know that this looks bad…” I start again.
She clears her throat, interrupting me once again. “Mr. Cole, we apologize for calling you in. We should’ve looked into this further. Your daughter is fine. We will talk to the other child and his parents.”
I stand up from the chair and place my hands on her desk. “Don’t do this. Don’t treat me like this,” I beg. My eyes focus on her own, waiting for a sign… a crack in the armor she’s proudly wearing.
“I’m treating you a lot better than you deserve. I’m the principal of this school. Your daughter… she’s one of my students. I will treat you with the respect I treat the other parents. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“You’re not even going to give me a chance to explain?”
“It’s been six years. I’ve moved on. You’ve moved on. An explanation doesn’t seem necessary. It also won’t change anything,” she says resolutely.
She’s moved on. Of course she has. She’s beautiful, smart. Now, a school principal. Any guy would be stupid to not lock her down while they had a chance. I’m an idiot for letting her go in the first place, but I had to. I wonder if she has kids. “Can I just say one thing?”
I can tell she wants to say no but she nods instead. I bet she thinks the sooner I say the thing I want to say the quicker she can get rid of me.
I’ll tell her the most important thing. “I didn’t cheat on you. Ari happened before you and I started dating.”
She opens and closes her mouth. “So, you had a daughter before we started dating?” she says and the hurt I hear in her voice reminds me of the last time I hurt her and how I keep hurting her, even though I don’t want to.
“No…” The fact that she would believe I would hide a child from her altogether hurts me. Then again, I did hide a child from her.
“You’re not making any sense.”
I pull my hair like that’ll help pull my thoughts together. “I’m nervous as hell. I didn’t expect to see you again,” I tell her honestly.
“That makes two of us,” she says and I watch the way she taps her fingers on her desk.
I feel my phone buzz in my pocket. I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve been here because the moment I saw her face it felt as though time froze. Looking at the clock behind Amari, I realize that I’m already late for practice.
I want to stay more than anything, but I can’t lose this job. “I need to explain everything to you and I know you probably have a lot of questions. But right now, I’ve gotta go. Give me a couple hours, maybe over coffee, and I’ll tell you everything I didn’t tell you before.”
“You didn’t have a need to explain things to me six years ago. There’s no reason to do so now.”
“I just—”
She gets up from her chair. “We apologize for calling you in, Mr. Cole,” she says rounding her desk and walking toward the door. When she reaches it, she props it open. “Thank you again for coming in.”
Her tone and stance tells me she’s done talking to me. With work waiting, Ari standing just outside the door with Hannah, and my mother probably waiting for her outside, I respect Amari’s request.
When she begged me to stay before, to explain what was going through my mind, I didn’t. Now she’s asking me to leave, and I think it’s finally time I listen to her.
11
AMARI
He gives me one final glance, a mixture of desperation and shock, before he closes the door. The moment he does, I deflate. I walk the short distance to my desk, holding on to everything I can in the process.
The moment I sit back down, I let out all the air I’ve been holding. My head hits the desk with a loud thud. A second later, I hear a knock at my door. My legs are shaking and the tears are on the verge of falling, but I hold them back. If it’s him coming back, I don’t want him to see me like this. I want him to think I’m strong. To think I’m over him.
Still, even though I think I’m prepared for him to come back inside, I’m not. So I don’t say anything. I don’t answer when I hear a second knock. I don’t know if it’s him coming back but, even if it’s not, I don’t really want to talk to anyone else.
The door opens anyway, my silence ignored. I raise my head from the desk and find Hannah looking back at me with concern visible in her eyes.
“Are you okay?” She asks, and that’s all it takes for the dam to break and the tears to fall. I wipe at them maniacally, trying to get the proof of how broken I am to disappear. “Oh no,” she says, realizing her words were my undoing.
I keep wiping, but it’s not helping. The tears just keep on falling. “I’m sorry,” I tell her, apologizing for my outburst. This is work. I’m the head of this school. I just started last week. This is not the impression I want people to have of me. It’s not what I want to be known for. This drama was supposed to be over six years ago, when high school ended, yet somehow, it’s reared its head once again.
“It’s okay,” she says and I can sense her hesitation. I can tell by t
he look on her face that she wants to comfort me, but she just met me and has no idea how to deal with my outburst.
I clear my throat and somehow manage to get the tears to stop. I hold it all in. I can leave soon enough and break down when I get home, but for now, I have to keep it together. It’s my job. “Thanks,” I tell her because I don’t know what else to say.
“Are you doing okay?” She asks, looking behind her toward the door Christian exited from. Christian Cole. Heartbreaker. Christian Cole. A father. Though I know that Ari is his daughter, my heart doesn’t know how to process this. I had reason to get Christian out of my head before, but now, now I’m more motivated than ever. I need to get it out of my system. Get him out of my system.
I shake my head, deciding to opt for honesty because lying won’t erase the look on my face and the tears she’s already seen. “Not really.”
She gives me a sympathetic smile. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I give her a sad smile. “Not really,” I repeat.
Hannah nods. “Totally get it. Well, school’s over now, so you should go home. Grab some ice cream, watch a movie, and cry.”
“That sounds like a plan,” I tell her, continuing to smile through the pain.
“What are you still doing here?”
I point at the papers on my desk. “I’ve got work to do.” Not really, but I would hate being the first person out the door.
“It’s an elementary school. Nothing on your desk is so important that you can’t do it tomorrow,” she says, reminding me of my best friend’s earlier words.
Man, I really wish Emely were here right now. She would know how to make it better, make it hurt less. Or at least how to make me forget about it temporarily.
“You’re right,” I reply, giving in. It’s not like I was going to get any more work done with what I’ve just discovered. My mind can’t think about school trips or dances right now. All that keeps playing on repeat is Christian and the fact that he has a six-year-old daughter he claims wasn’t the product of a betrayal.
Just Because of You Page 5
