Page 19 of Stuck with my Boss Daddies

We walked past the park, where we spent whole summers stretched out on blankets, dreaming about places we’d never been.

She slowed by the swings, staring out at them like they held ghosts.

“I used to think we’d never leave,” she said softly.

I swallowed. “Yeah?”

She nodded. “Then I realized staying wasn’t an option.”

My stomach twisted.

Because back then, I didn’t get it.

I thought I was enough. Thoughtwewere enough.

But Medford had ghosts she couldn’t live with.

And now? Now I wasn’t sure if coming back would save her or destroy her all over again.

Silence stretched between us.

Then she turned, tilting her head. “Do you regret it?”

I frowned. “Regret what?”

“Us.” Her voice was quiet. “Loving me.”

A sucker punch to the ribs.

I could have lied. Could have said I moved on.

But I hadn’t. Not for a single goddamn second. Even when I thought I had.

“No,” I said, voice rough. “Never.”

She swallowed, her fingers curling around the rusted swing chain. “I didn’t leave because I wanted to hurt you.”

I let out a slow breath. “I don’t know what I know anymore, S.” I looked at her, my heart pounding. “You were my whole damn world. And then you were gone.”

She squeezed her eyes shut for half a second. “I was just eighteen, Kai. I didn’t know how to stay.”

“That’s bullshit.”

Her head snapped up, eyes flashing. “No, it’s not.”

“You left because you wanted a new life.”

“I left because I wasscared,” she cut in sharply. “Because I thought if I stayed, I’d ruin everything. That one day, you’d wake up and realize I wasn’t worth it. That you would leave me too. Because that’s all Medford was to me—loss. The place I came when I lost everything, and…”

My chest ached as her words trailed off.

“You never would’ve lost me,” I said, my voice softer now.

She let out a hollow laugh. “People leave, Kai. That’s what they do.”

“Not me.”

She looked up at me then. Eyes raw. Haunted.

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