“When I cried,” Isla continues, voice roughening, “my mother told me feelings were distractions.That I was lucky.Other children had it worse.”
The memories of how her mother always made her believe he didn’t want her created an ache in her chest.Now it was too late.“And I believed her.Because I didn’t know what else to believe.”
Callum exhales, slow and controlled.“She gave you consistency.”
“Yes,” Isla agrees.“And took away choice.”
The words hang between them.
She lifts the page again; she has read it three times now, but she needs to see it with her eyes because her heart refuses to accept it.
“When I was eight,” Isla says suddenly, “I asked her why my father never came to my recitals.”
Callum looks up.
“She told me he was busy,” Isla continues.“That his music mattered more than mine.That I shouldn’t expect him to show up when he had already chosen his life.”
Her voice wavers.“I remember standing backstage that night, listening for applause from a man that never came.”
Callum’s fists clench at his sides.
“And now,” Isla says, tapping the no-contact clause, “I find out he wasn’t allowed to come.Not even to stand in the back.”
She laughs again, sharp and broken.“I spent my whole life resenting a ghost who wasn’t permitted to exist.”
Callum steps closer, his presence solid at her side.
“This doesn’t absolve him,” Isla says quickly, as if daring the thought.“He still signed it.He still chose distance.”
“No,” Callum agrees.“It doesn’t absolve him.”
She turns on him.“But it explains why he stayed away.”
“Yes.”
“And it explains why my mother never told me.”Her voice drops.“Because the truth would have cracked the image she built.It explains why she wants me to come home before I learned the truth.”
Callum nods.
“She needed you to believe he chose to stay away,” he says.“Because that made her the protector.”
Isla’s breath shudders.“She needed me loyal.”
“She needed you safe,” Callum corrects gently.“The problem is she defined safety as control.”
“So my father removed himself because he thought he was poison,” she says.“And my mother removed him because she thought she knew better.And I was never given the choice of seeing him.”
Callum’s voice is low.“Both of them made choices out of fear.”
“And I paid for it,” Isla whispers.
Silence presses in again, heavy with understanding rather than shock.
Callum reaches for the papers, gathering them carefully, aligning the edges as if order might help.It’s a small action, but it feels intimate, like he’s trying to hold the pieces together for her.
“He complied because he didn’t believe he deserved you,” Callum says.“And she enforced it because she didn’t trust him to be restrained and not the rock-n-roll star.”
“Look, an envelope addressed to you,” he says as it slips from between the pages.
