Callum stills.
He doesn’t look away.That alone feels like kindness.
“No, he didn’t speak of your mom around me.He talked about regret,” he says carefully.“About mistakes that couldn’t be fixed with money or apology, but he never mentioned Alisa by name.”
Not an answer.But not avoidance either.
Isla nods once.“That sounds like him.”
They move around the room, falling into an unspoken rhythm.She checks the nightstand.Callum scans the bookshelf along the far wall.It’s filled with music, scores, theory books, and thick notebooks filled with handwritten notes.
Callum pulls one down and flips it open.His fingers linger on the pages.
“He annotated everything,” he says.“Couldn’t leave a thought unfinished.”
Isla watches him, struck by how different he seems here.Less guarded.More… present.As if this room strips something away from him too.
“What did he teach you?”she asks.
Callum hesitates.Then, quietly, “How to survive.”
That makes her look up.
“That’s not music,” she says.
“It was,” he replies.“Just not the kind people clap for.”
She waits.
Callum exhales and sets the book down.“After my father died in a small plane crash, my mother remarried.Quickly.”
Isla sits on the edge of the bed, instinctively still.
“I didn’t fit into the new picture,” Callum continues.
Her chest tightens.“What did she do?”
“She sent me to a boys’ school,” he says flatly.
Something in his tone makes her heart drop.
“Boarding school?”she asks.
He shakes his head.“Correctional.Supposed to straighten me out.Discipline.Structure.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
Isla’s breath catches.“That’s… young.”
“Yes.”
“Was it bad?”she asks, already knowing the answer.
Callum lets out a slow breath.“It was hell.”
The word hangs between them.
