She looked at me, didn't ask more, and handed me the keys.
After signing the contract, I stood in the empty living room looking at the palm trees outside. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting mottled shadows on the floor.
I didn't know what would happen next, didn't know if she'd forgive me. Six years ago, I said those words, did those things. Why should she forgive me?
Didn't know if that guy Mark would keep standing between us. He'd been with her six years, taking care of her, taking care of her son. He said, "Taking care of you two—I'm happy to do it." Why should he step aside?
Didn't know if Tommy would accept me. He was five years old with his own life, with Mark. Why would he want a father who'd never been there?
I didn't know any of it. But I knew one thing.
Six years ago, I was a coward. To shoulder family responsibility, I pushed away the only woman who'd ever truly loved me. I made her run eight thousand kilometers away, made her endure every difficult night alone.
Six years later, I didn't want to be a coward anymore.
Whether she wanted me or not, whether Dr. Mark was around or not, whether Tommy accepted me or not, I'd stay here. Stay near her and my son.
The day she needed someone, the day she was willing to give me another chance, I'd be here.
This time, I wouldn't run away again.
Chapter Eleven
Casey
The week after the luau, Hawaii's sunshine blazed just as bright, almost painfully so, but I couldn't feel a single degree of warmth.
I'd become a spooked animal, living in a state of high-wire calm. Every morning, I'd peer through the crack in my door, scanning the hallway to make sure that familiar tall figure wasn't standing guard before I dared take Tommy out.
I'd completely changed my commute routes. No more taking the shortcut past the beach with the prettiest views—now I wove through cramped, congested alleys, even though it doubled my travel time.
"Casey, you've been looking like a sprinter on the starting blocks lately." Lina lifted Tommy into her beat-up pickup while shooting me a worried look.
I forced out a smile and adjusted Tommy's backpack straps. "Just haven't been sleeping well. Thanks for doing this, Lina."
To avoid running into Paul, I'd asked Lina to handle Tommy's drop-offs and pick-ups. I stood there watching the truck sputter away around the corner, then let out a long breath.
I'd thought about running. The idea grew like wild vines in the dark hours. I could sell my secondhand car, take all my savings, and buy a ticket to the mainland or another island. Seattle? Portland? Maybe Atlanta? Anywhere without Paul would do.
But then I'd look around my apartment—the faint yellow stain still visible on the ceiling from that old leak, this tiny place barely a few hundred square feet—and remember this was the home I'd built over six years, piece by piece, with my own two hands.
Six years ago, I'd fled here pregnant with less than a thousand bucks in my pocket. I'd spent countless nights on this island holding a crying Tommy, unable to sleep. Now I had a steady job, friends like Lina I could count on, and Tommy had a carefree childhood.
Everything I'd been through, everything I'd fought for, was here.
Why should I run again? Just because that man showed up out of nowhere?
"I'm done running," I told myself. "Paul, you already destroyed my past. You're not taking my present, too."
Friday afternoon, I finished work early and decided to pick Tommy up from preschool myself. I wanted to treat him to the coconut ice cream he'd been talking about for days, and maybe ease some of my own tension.
But when I reached the rainbow-painted gate of the preschool, my heart skipped a beat.
That luxury black sedan, so jarringly out of place on Hawaii's humble streets, its paint job so glossy it reflected the laughing faces of nearby kids, was parked there. Paul leaned against it.
He wasn't wearing the expensive suit from the banquet. He'd changed into a high-quality navy shirt, sleeves casually rolled tohis forearms. In his hand was an elegant box tied with a pale blue ribbon fluttering in the breeze.
I instinctively turned to leave, but Tommy had already burst through the gate with his little dinosaur backpack.
