She was right. I was many things, but a good actress wasn't one of them. My face always betrayed me.
"Then I'll be polite but distant," I decided. "Professional. I will make it clear I'm not interested in reviving the past. Then I'll continue with my life as if his presence means nothing to me."
Even as I said the words, I knew they were hollow. Kyle Bennett's presence could never mean anything to me, no matter how much I wished it could.
Claudette squeezed my shoulder sympathetically. "Whatever you decide, we've got your back. But sooner or later, you're going to have to face him. And when you do?—"
"I know," I interrupted. "I'll handle it like the mature, professional adult I am."
But would I? The truth was, I was anything but mature and professional when it came to Kyle. I felt like that eighteen-year-old girl again, vulnerable and scared, making decisions that would haunt me for years to come.
After my friends left, I stared at my computer screen unseeing, my mind replaying fragments of conversations from long ago, promises made and broken, tears shed, and accusations hurled.
Maybe Claudette was right. Maybe I was being immature. Ten years was a long time to hold onto the past. We were different people now. Whatever had happened between us belonged to another lifetime.
I opened the company directory on my screen and found his profile.
Kyle Bennett, Systems Engineer. His official company headshot stared back at me, professional and polished, but with the same warm eyes I remembered. The eyes that had once looked at me like I was everything.
What would be the worst that could happen if I just walked up to him and said hello?
We could talk like rational adults. Clear the air. Maybe even find a way to coexist in this building without all the drama and sneaking around.
Or he could hate me. Maybe I would look at him in the face and realize that I still haven't gotten over what happened, and maybe I would tell him to his face that he didn't protectme enough, or he protected me so much that he made a mistake.
My hands started to sweat at that thought.
No. Avoidance was the safer option.
In the meantime, I would continue as I had been, careful, vigilant, and completely in control of my surroundings, just as I liked it.
I closed his profile and returned to my report. Monday would come soon enough, and with it, another week of navigating the minefield that my workplace had become. But I'd survived worse. I'd survived the actual fallout, the aftermath of everything that happened that year. I could certainly survive seeing him again.
I just had to stay focused. Stay in control. Stay away from anything, or anyone, that threatened the carefully constructed peace I'd built for myself.
But as I packed up my things at the end of the day, a nagging voice in the back of my mind whispered a traitorous thought:What if seeing him again is exactly what you need?
I silenced the voice, just as I had silenced all thoughts of my school days for the past decade. Some doors were better left closed. Some wounds were better left unexamined.
Some memories were better left in the past.
On Saturday morning, I told the girls I would take the day for myself and went to the cemetery with two bouquets of flowers.
The first was for my mother. I sat cross-legged on the grass beside her grave, carefully arranging the white lilies she'd always loved. The headstone was simple but elegant, just like she had been. Elizabeth Danault, Beloved Wife and Mother.
"Hey, Mom," I said softly, running my fingers over theengraved letters of her name. "Sorry, it's been a couple of weeks. Work's been... complicated."
The cemetery was quiet and peaceful in the morning light. A light breeze rustled the oak tree's leaves, which provided shade for my mother's final resting place. I'd chosen this spot specifically for that tree, knowing how she'd loved to read beneath the one in our backyard.
"Dad's good. Still swimming every day, still spoiling Bailey a lot." I smiled, imagining my mother's fond eye-roll at my father's devotion to his dog. "I'm good, too. Mostly."
I talked to her about work, about the budget reports I'd completed ahead of schedule, about the praise I'd received from my boss. I told her about the new book I was reading, the one I thought she would have enjoyed.
What I didn't tell her, not right away, was about Kyle. About how seeing his face again, even just in a photo, had turned my carefully structured life upside down. About how I'd spent the past week hiding from a ghost I thought I'd outrun long ago.
But the thing about talking to my mother, even like this, was that I couldn't lie to her. I never could.
"He's back, Mom," I finally said, my voice barely above a whisper. "He's working at my company now."
