Page 14 of Sunsets & Slow Dances

Chloe turned toward my mom, and from the expression on her face, it was clear that she and my mother knew each other, and Chloe was happy to see her.

“Hi, Mrs. Knight.”

“I told you, it’s Nora.” My mom handed her a bag. “I made you some snacks just in case you get hungry later. There’s some extra in there if you want to share.”

I wasn’t typically paranoid, but I was beginning to think that it was only me she had a problem with. She seemed to like Matty, Buzz, and my mom but barely tolerated me. In fact, I wouldn’t even say she tolerated me.

I grabbed my keys from the table and Matty’s backpack and was heading toward the door.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Taking you and Matty to school.”

“I don’t need you to take me to school. I can walk. Ialwayswalk.”

The school was over two miles away. Even if she left now and speed walked, she wouldn’t get there on time. “If you walk, you’re going to be late.”

“My momdied.” She adjusted the strap on her shoulder as she leveled her stare directly at me. “I don’t think anyone is going to care if I’m a few minutes late.”

I didn’t know what I’d expected when I got the call that I had been granted temporary custody of Chloe, but an angry teenager who hated me was not it.

I glanced up at my mom for help, not sure of what I was supposed to do.

“Well, sweetie, if you’re gonna walk, let me get you my umbrella. It might rain, and you don’t want your hair to frizz.”

Chloe’s expression tensed. I could see that my mom’s comment had hit a nerve.

My mom went to the coat closet, but before she opened it, Chloe sighed. “Fine. You can drop me off.”

Apparently, frizzy hair was enough of a threat to warrant a ride to school. Noted.

5

NADIA

He’s back.It wasn’t my imagination. It wasn’t a mirage. It wasn’t a supernatural visit from the ghost of exes past. I hadn’t just made the whole thing up in my head.

Callum Knight was back in Firefly Island.

My palms were damp. My pulse was racing. The room was spinning. I felt lightheaded and dizzy.

In just a few minutes, the room would be filled with twenty, six-year-olds. I tried to get myself under control as I slumped against the back of the door to my classroom. I inhaled slowly through my nose and exhaled through my mouth. I placed one hand over my chest and felt the pounding of my heart beating beneath my palm.

I closed my eyes and remembered the last time I’d seen Callum. It was the day after his father’s funeral, and I’ll never forget the look of pain and betrayal in his deep brown, chestnut eyes. It may have happened a decade earlier, but I still got that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach like it was yesterday. I wanted so badly to reach out to him, to comfort him, to pull him into my arms, and tell him that I loved him and would never hurthim, but I couldn’t do that. I had to hurt him in the moment to save him from being destroyed later.

A week earlier, our lives had been on track for a happily-ever-after. Technically, we were broken up at the time because of something so stupid I couldn’t even remember what it was. But we would have gotten back together. It was what we did. We broke up and got back together. It happened over two dozen times in our relationship that spanned nine plus years. Whenever I got upset, felt insecure, or misunderstood (which happeneda lot), my reaction was to break up with Callum. It was a toxic cycle I couldn’t seem to stop.

Honestly, looking back, I don’t know why or how Callum put up with me. Our breaks never lasted long. Nothing changed except our label. We still talked every day. He still told me he loved me. He never treated me any differently. He was my rock—the never-changing anchor in my life. I was like a toddler throwing a tantrum that he ignored.

So, despite being ‘broken up,’ the plan remained that I would move to Arizona with him immediately after I graduated college. I had one more semester of school to finish, and then I was going to pack up my Honda Civic and drive across the country to Phoenix.

Then the call came. The call that changed everything. The call that would forever set the trajectories of our lives in different directions. Chuck Knight was dead. He suffered an acute coronary embolism, which led to a fatal heart attack. He passed away in his sleep.

I left school and rushed home. Callum flew back from Arizona. The day after the funeral, Jennings Abernathy, Mr. Knight’s lawyer, stopped by the house to go over his longtime friend’s affairs—no pun intended—with Callum and his mom and dropped a nuclear bomb that blew up Callum’s entire life. Chuck left his wife Nora a letter explaining why he’d includedDanielle Marsh and her three-year-old daughter Chloe Marsh in his will. It turned out Mr. Knight had fathered Chloe and had not only been supporting her but would continue to do so posthumously.

The day wasn’t done with surprises yet. That evening, I left Callum and his mom to deal with what they’d just learned and walked smack dab into a family secret of my own. When I got home from Callum’s house, I retrieved the mail, which in and of itself was strange. Even when I lived with my mom, I’d only gotten the mail a handful of times when I was waiting to hear back from colleges to find out if I’d been accepted. But for some reason, that day I did. And not only that, I opened a letter addressed to my mother. I had never opened a letter addressed to my mother before and have not done it since. It was a past due hospital bill from a recent stay, which I knew nothing about.

I had to reread it three times before I could comprehend what the information was on the paper. She’d been admitted from the emergency room and stayed two days before being discharged AMA, against medical advice. When I saw how much she owed, it made sense why she’d left. After seeing that, I went to the kitchen and found where she kept her “important paperwork” in the junk drawer and discovered other bills, test results, pamphlets for medical equipment, and home health care. I also found unemployment checks dating back three months, which meant she hadn’t been at work.

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