“You’re hooked,” she had said, grinning. “I’ve created an addict.”
“You’ve created an informed citizen.”
“You just spent two hours reading about the Jonestown massacre.”
“Research.”
She had kissed me then, still laughing, her mouth curved against mine. “You’re such a weirdo,” she murmured. “I love it.”
I love it.
Not “I love you.” We’d never said that to each other—not directly. But it was there in every look, every touch, every stolen moment. I had felt it every time she smiled at me. Every time she reached for my hand in the dark of a movie theater. The way she fell asleep against my chest and trusted me to keep her safe.
I had kept our relationship secret. Not because I was ashamed—but because my friends were sharks in designer clothing, boys who measured their worth by the women they collected and discarded.
They would have looked at Pauline and seen a target. A challenge. Something to be won and ruined and bragged about over drinks.
I couldn’t stand the thought of their eyes on her. Hell, I couldn’t stomach the idea of them speculating about her, reducing her to another conquest. So I kept her separate, in a space that was just ours, where no one else could touch her.
I thought I was protecting her.
The night I asked her to be with me publicly—I thought I was finally doing the right thing. I wanted to walk into a room withher on my arm and let everyone see what I had known for years: that she was the most remarkable person I had ever met.
She’d looked at me like I’d said something monstrous instead of something true.
She said no.
Just no. No explanation. No softening. No second chance.
I had stood there in that hallway, confused and wounded, and she had walked away without looking back.
I spent the next few weeks trying to understand—calling her, texting her, showing up at places I knew she’d be. She avoided me like I was a disease. Eventually I stopped trying. Pride, maybe. Or self-preservation. Some combination of both that let me sleep at night.
I graduated before she did and focused on building my father’s company.
She graduated and moved to New Jersey and I told myself she was the one who gave up.
I told myself a lot of things.
Now I pulled out my laptop and typed “California Times” into the search bar.
The website loaded—sleek design, professional layout, the kind of publication that took itself seriously. I navigated to the staff page and scrolled until I found her.
Pauline Wells, Junior Reporter.
The photo was small, probably taken by someone who didn’t know how to capture the way her eyes lit up when she laughed. But it was her. Those curls. That warm brown skin. That mouth that always seemed on the verge of saying something clever or cutting or both.
She looked beautiful. Untouchable. Like every single thing I had lost and never understood why.
I stared at the photo as seconds ticked by.
Then I started looking at the company itself. Ownership structure. Financial reports. Recent acquisitions and restructuring.
I wasn’t sure what I was thinking. But my fingers kept moving across the keyboard, pulling data, running numbers, building a picture of a company that was ripe for acquisition.
By midnight, I had a folder full of research and a plan that was either brilliant or insane.
Probably insane. Definitely insane.
