"New teacher?" I frowned.
I didn't care about staff changes as long as they kept my son safe and educated.
"Yeah." Olei's voice got a bit louder, filled with childish curiosity. "We don't know what the new teacher will be like. Everyone in class hopes she'll be nice."
I didn't answer. I'd have someone run a background check when the new teacher started.
"You should rest. You just broke the fever." I glanced at my watch. It was late.
The light in Olei's eyes dimmed. He slipped back into that careful demeanor.
"Okay, Dad." He closed his eyes immediately.
The moment I shut the door, I leaned against the wall, filled with a sense of defeat. I didn't know how to change, how to be a normal father.
Anthea, if you were here, what would you do? Everything would be different, wouldn't it?
Chapter Eight
Anthea
My fingers were stiff from gripping the pen for so long. Black ink covered the lesson-plan notebook in dense, tiny script. Outside the window, London rain fell relentlessly as always, the gray sky like a sodden wool blanket pressing down on everything.
Six years. I should have been used to this gloomy weather by now, but tonight, the sound of the rain felt unusually sharp, as though something were hammering against my nerves.
"Anthea?" My mother's cautious voice came from the apartment hallway. "Sweetheart, I brought you some hot soup. Your favorite—cream of mushroom."
I looked up. My gaze settled on the woman standing in the doorway—well-preserved yet visibly weary—and the man behind her, stooped slightly, holding a dripping umbrella.
My parents. Six years ago, they had followed me to England, showering me with gentleness and care, consumed by guilt and desperate to make up for what I'd suffered. Yet I could never again rely on them the way I once had, without reservation.
"Just leave it on the table, Mom." I forced a smile—the kind that had become pure muscle memory. "Thank you."
My father rubbed his hands together awkwardly, his eyes darting away from mine.
"Work... going okay? Don't overdo it. We don't have any more debt now. You don't need to push yourself so hard."
Don't need to push so hard. Acid rose in my stomach. What had those debts been paid with? My womb. My child. I hadn't even seen what Olei looked like, didn't know whether he was all right.
But I didn't say it out loud. That would be too cruel. I had already walked through hell once. There was no need to drag them down with me.
"I like teaching, Dad." I tugged the corner of my mouth upward. "It makes me feel like I'm still alive."
Or rather, work had become my anesthetic. Grading papers, preparing lessons, attending meetings—the endless tasks kept me too busy to think about anything that happened six years ago: that man who was nothing but lies, those deep-gray eyes I had once loved so completely. It let me escape the kind of pain that could swallow a person whole.
"Anthea, I know you still blame your father for the investment failure, the bankruptcy, for what it led to." My mother sighed softly. "All these years, your dad and I have felt—"
"Mom, don't." I cut her off, exhaustion the only thing in my voice. "It's over."
But we all knew it wasn't really over. Even though the cursed debt and that cursed deal were gone, I still couldn't open my heart to anyone.
After seeing my parents out, I collapsed onto the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling until my eyes burned. I didn't dare close them. The moment I fell asleep, the nightmare would arrive on schedule—the terrible thunderstorm night when those monsters tore Olei from my arms, his newborn screams ripping through the air.
Every time it happened, I woke gasping, unable to breathe.
The next morning, I stood in the headmaster's office, clutching an envelope that could change everything.
"Congratulations, Anthea." The headmaster peered at me over hisreading glasses, a pleased smile on his face. "The advanced study program at Rosewood Academy in the United States. They only accept three international teachers each year. You're the sole candidate selected from the UK this time."
