Because now she had to ask herself:What if he really did change?
And what if she still loved him?
Because she did. God, she did.
Even now. Even after everything. She could still feel the echo of that kiss like it had rewired her heartbeat. She could feel the touch of his hands when he’d handed her the cinnamon rolls—awkward and flour-dusted, like he didn’t know how to offer tenderness unless he baked it into something.
And still. Still.
She loved him.
God, she did.
The ache of it curled around her ribs.
She pressed a hand over her chest like that might calm the riot inside it.
You’re allowed, Emma had said.
You’re allowed to forgive him, Marcy had told her.
Fiona let that settle. Like a permission slip she could finally sign for herself.
She was allowed to want him back.
She was allowed to be happy.
But what if the path to that happiness was tangled and messy and nothing like the life she’d imagined for herself? What if it meant loving someone who could never respect her?
Fiona wanderedthrough the apartment like a ghost haunting her own life. Everything was exactly as she'd left it, but it felt different now. Changed. Like she was seeing it through new eyes.
She found herself in the living room, staring at the bookshelves. Her books were still there—the teaching guides, the child development texts, the binders full of lesson plans she'd accumulated over the years. Dean had left them all exactly where they belonged.
She pulled out one of her favorite resources, and a piece of paper fluttered to the floor. Dean's handwriting, in his careful block letters.
Fiona's breath caught. She bent to pick up the paper, then noticed more—sticky notes tucked between pages, loose sheets of paper covered in Dean's writing scattered throughout her books.
She pulled out another book. More notes fell out.
Fiona sank onto the couch, papers scattered around her like fallen leaves. Her hands shook as she read note after note, each one a revelation.
The notes weren't just research. They were apologies written to no one, realizations scrawled in margins, a man trying to understand the woman he'd married.
Fiona's vision blurred. These weren't the thoughts of a man who saw her as beneath him. These were the desperate scribblingsof someone trying to understand something magnificent he'd almost lost.
There were dozens of them. Tucked in every book, every binder, every resource she'd ever used. A paper trail of his awakening, his growing respect, his awe.
The last note was on a separate piece of paper, stuck inside her lesson planning binder:
She's brilliant. She's been brilliant this whole time, and I was too stupid and insecure to see it.
Fiona set the papers down with trembling hands.
The man who'd written these notes didn't think she was naive or simple or beneath him. He thought she was extraordinary.
Her breath caught on a sob that cracked her ribs open.
This wasn’t just love.
