Twelve years after she broke my heart at prom, Catherine showed up at my front door and she wasn’t alone. A kid stood beside her, watching me with sharp, familiar eyes. Just like that, the past I’d buried came crashing back.
I grew up in a house that smelled like cinnamon on Sundays and old wood the rest of the week. My grandparents didn’t have much, but they had love, and they poured it all over me like honey on cornbread.
We lived in a two-bedroom cottage with paint chipping off the walls like dry leaves in the fall. Money was tight, but I never felt poor. Not until I stepped foot in school.
School was a battlefield and I was wearing the wrong armor for it. My clothes were clean but never new. My lunch was homemade, not store-bought. The other kids sniffed out my difference like bloodhounds.
Being a good student did nothing to help my social standing. “Teacher’s pet” was their favorite name for me, and they threw it like stones.
It didn’t matter that I didn’t snitch or that I didn’t talk much at all. My grades were my only defense, so I clung to them like a drowning man to driftwood. If I could just make it to the future, I’d never be “the poor kid” again.
I was sixteen when I met Catherine.
She had a way of walking like she was on her way to something important. Her hair was the kind of brown that looked like caramel in the sun, and her eyes were too sharp for anyone to lie to.
She wasn’t like the others. She sat next to me in Chemistry and actually spoke to me. Not “at” me like most of the kids, but “with” me, like I had something worth saying.
“Hey, I’m terrible at this,” she’d admitted one day, turning her worksheet toward me with a helpless grin. “Save me from this balancing equations nightmare?”
She didn’t have to ask twice. I leaned in, my heart thudding in my chest like it knew something I didn’t.
We spent the whole period talking — about chemistry at first, but later about music and movies and how her mom was obsessed with “clean eating.”
We laughed. I didn’t do that much back then. I started tutoring her in Chemistry and over time, we fell in love. People still bullied me, but it didn’t hurt as much because I had Catherine.
She’d drive us out to the woods on weekends so we could be alone. Sometimes, lying on the backseat with her curled up against me, grazing my fingers over her bare shoulders, I felt like everything was perfect.
I’d thought she wasn’t like the others, but I was wrong. It turned out she was exactly like everyone else who looked down on me, and I found out in the worst way possible.
Senior prom. I didn’t want to go, but she asked me to be her date. I stood by the punch bowl watching her in that dark blue dress that glowed against her skin like moonlight.
She spun on the dance floor, and I assumed she was spinning toward me.
But she wasn’t. She was spinning into the arms of Greg, Mr. Perfect Haircut himself. Greg was the richest and most popular guy in school. He was everything I wasn’t.
She kissed him in the middle of the dancefloor and then they ran off together. I left for college the next day.
That was the night I learned a new lesson: trust isn’t free, and love costs more than I had to give. I decided then to focus on my success and set love aside.
Twelve years later, I had everything I’d ever dreamed of.
My house was modern and sleek. My car, parked out front, was one of those quiet electric beasts that barely made a sound.
I had filled the house with everything I’d never had as a kid, but I hadn’t figured out how to fill it with people. Maybe that’s what happens when you spend years building walls so no one can hurt you.
I was halfway through my Saturday morning coffee when the knock came.
Not a delivery. They leave packages at the door. A neighbor? Maybe, but none of them had ever knocked before. This just wasn’t that kind of neighborhood.
When I opened the door, I stopped breathing. I knew her immediately. Catherine’s eyes were still too sharp to lie to, though they’d softened in ways I didn’t expect. But she wasn’t alone.
The boy next to her was around twelve. He had curly hair like mine, and his eyes… they were sharp like hers but familiar in a way that made my heart stumble. It was like looking at a photo of my younger self.
“Hi,” I said, completely stunned. “Is this… what I think it is?”
“Can we talk?” Catherine’s voice was rougher than I remembered. Like she’d been using it to say too many hard things.
I stepped aside, and they walked in.
The boy sat on my couch, swinging his legs like he’d done it a thousand times before. Catherine stayed standing, wringing her hands like she was trying to squeeze something out of them.
His name was Jacob.
Her eyes darted to me, back to him, then back to me. She bit her lip.
“He’s your son,” she said like it was something simple. Like those three words wouldn’t split my world down the middle. “Please, just give us a chance to be a family.”
“I… my son?” I knew it was true just from looking at him, but I wasn’t ready to believe it. “You ran off with Greg. Why would I believe anything you say now?”
Her face crumpled. Her eyes darted to Jacob, then back to me. “It wasn’t like that,” she said, sitting down on the edge of the couch. “He left me. My parents cut me off. I tried to find you, but you were already gone.”
My heart was burning in my chest, too hot, too tight. “I’ll be a father to him. But you and me? That’s over, Catherine. It was over twelve years ago.”
She nodded, her head dropping low like she was carrying the weight of every choice she’d ever made. Her voice was barely a whisper when she asked for water.
I didn’t argue. I just walked to the kitchen, filled a glass, and counted my breaths. Everything was happening all at once and my head was spinning.
When I came back, she was gone.
I turned to Jacob. He was still on the couch, his eyes not moving from the TV for an instant.
“Where’s your mom?” I asked, my voice tight.
“She took off,” he said, voice trembling, eyes fixed on the screen like he could disappear inside it if he focused hard enough. “It’s been hard since she lost her job. She… she can’t afford to take care of me.”
Two hours later, I was still sitting across from him, my hands clasped like I was praying, except I wasn’t sure who I was praying to. I had a son… a child who’d been left in my care. And I had no idea what to do with him.
“I don’t know you, kid,” I finally said, rubbing my jaw. “And you don’t know me either.”
Jacob looked up, blinking slowly but saying nothing. Yet there was a look in his eyes that I knew well. I’d seen it often enough when I looked in the mirror when I was a kid. It was uncanny to see it staring back at me now.
“But it doesn’t seem like Catherine is coming back anytime soon. You wanna stay with me for a while?” I asked, hating how unsure I sounded.
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“You guess, huh? Well, what if we get to know each other better before you decide? There’s a place nearby that makes great pizza.”
He glanced at me, almost like he was testing me. “Okay. I love Hawaiian.”
I winced. “Pineapple on pizza? That’s criminal.”
His lips twitched, and I saw a small grin on his face. “Only kind I like.”
I sighed, pulling my phone out of my pocket. “Alright, one time. But after that, no more pineapple pizza in this house. Deal?”
His grin widened. “Deal.”
Two years later, I didn’t recognize the house anymore.
It wasn’t the furniture or the paint. It was the sound. The laughter. The stomping of sneakers up and down the stairs. The clatter of school backpacks being thrown in the hallway despite the rule I’d made. I still yelled about it, but I didn’t really mind.
Jacob had grown a few inches, his voice was cracking, and his attitude had gotten sharper, but so had our bond. We fought about bedtimes and school projects, but somehow, we figured it out.
One afternoon, we sat on the couch eating pizza. Hawaiian. I didn’t even complain about it anymore.
“Hey,” he said suddenly, like it had just popped into his head. “I think you’re a cool dad.”
I blinked fast, my heart jumping to my throat. I looked away, wiping my eyes like it was nothing.
“Yeah, well…” I cleared my throat. “You’re alright too, kiddo.”
He grinned, but this time, I didn’t look away. I grinned back at my boy. I never knew I’d enjoy raising a kid so much.