Still, it was prestigious — Westchester. I’d always wondered what it would be like to attend, and after only one morning within the halls, I could feel the history.
Maybe this really would be my chance to start over, to find a little piece of the man who had existed before I’d lost everything that had meant the most to me.
Mr. Henderson clapped his hands, and my eyes snapped to the woman who’d just walked through the door.
“Ah! There she is!” he said cheerily.
The woman looked up at us from the book clasped in her hands, and that was the first thing I recognized — a familiar, tattered copy of Jane Eyre, one I’d seen too many times to count in a life that felt like I’d never even lived it at all.
“Escaping with Charlotte Bronte again, are we?” Mr. Henderson chuckled, but I couldn’t find it in me to laugh.
All I could do was stare.
Charlie Reid stood before me like a ghost, one that had haunted me for more than a decade, one I longed for just as long but never truly imagined I’d ever see again.
I realized distantly that perhaps I did imagine I’d see her, if I was being honest with myself. Perhaps I hoped for it.
Perhaps she was part of the reason I was back.
Her brows bent together in confusion over her wide, honey eyes before she carefully slipped a silk ribbon bookmark between the pages and tucked the book away in her messenger bag.
“Are you surprised?” she asked, her voice timid and small. It wasn’t the voice I remembered, the cheery, bird-like voice that used to make every sentence sound more like a song. Then again, she wasn’t the girl I remembered, either. She wasn’t sixteen anymore. Her hair wasn’t wrapped in two braids, one over each shoulder, and her eyes weren’t bright and full of life.
No, Charlie wasn’t the same girl I’d left crying on my porch fourteen years ago on the last night before I left her and this town behind me.
She wasn’t anyone I should have recognized at all, but I’d never forget those eyes.
“Not in the slightest,” Mr. Henderson mused. He clapped me on the shoulder, squeezing hard as he gestured to Charlie, as if I’d taken my eyes off her for even a second since she’d walked in the room. “Mr. Walker, this is—”
“Charlie Reid,” I finished for him, and I paused a moment, watching the mixture of shock and wonder fill Charlie’s eyes before I reached forward to shake her hand. “I’ll be damned.”
She let me take her hand, her cool fingers slipping across my palm before I wrapped mine around hers and shook gently. For a moment, I just held her there, willing her to light up with recognition, to remember the boy who used to live next door.
But she didn’t light up at all.
If anything, it seemed any semblance of light she’d ever possessed had been extinguished sometime in the years since I’d seen her. Those eyes of hers felt hollow — not even sad, just empty. Her pale pink lips didn’t curve into the smile I knew and loved, her cheeks didn’t flush with heat at my gaze the way they used to.
She just blinked, pulling her hand from mine and resting it back on the strap of her bag.
“It’s Pierce now,” she said, and I searched those words for any kind of emotion, but came up empty-handed. “You’re back.”
I narrowed my eyes a bit, trying to figure her out. She did recognize me — and all she had to say was you’re back?
“I am, indeed,” I said, smiling as my eyes took the rest of her in. The long dark hair that I used to watch her braid was pulled up into a high, tight bun, and she wore a long, modest navy skirt and simple white blouse, a gold scarf topping off her school spirit. Westchester’s colors on everything she wore seemed to almost blend her in with the school, as if she wasn’t a woman at all, but just an extension of the hallways she walked.
“You two know each other, I presume?” Mr. Henderson interrupted, jolly as ever.
“We used to be neighbors,” I answered when she didn’t. “Charlie and my little sister were best friends growing up, and I was friends with her brother. Before we moved, that is.”
“Splendid! That saves me a lot of silly introductions then,” Mr. Henderson said, checking the gold watch on his wrist before clapping me on the back again.
His eyes found Charlie next, and I noticed then that she was staring at me, though her expression hadn’t changed. Her gaze found Mr. Henderson with a blink as he spoke her name.
“Charlie, as we discussed, please give Mr. Walker a tour of the campus when you have a chance. And you’re still okay being his lunch buddy for the next week?”
Her eyes skated to me briefly. “Of course. I’ll take it from here.”
“Wonderful. If you’ll excuse me, I have an unfortunate meeting with a high school mom who can’t possibly believe her sweet son vandalized the bathroom before winter break.” He rolled his eyes, but gave us each a wink on his way out the door.
There were at least a dozen other teachers in that lounge, but I only saw Charlie.
We might as well have been alone, the way the air picked up a charge in Mr. Henderson’s absence. I wondered if she felt it, too. I only had her expression to go by, which gave away nothing. Either she hid her emotions well now, or she didn’t have any at all.
I wasn’t sure which would bother me more.
“Charlie Reid,” I mused, hoping she would lighten up a little now that we were alone. “A tadpole no more. What happened to the braids and oversized t-shirts?”
“I imagine thirty-year-old’s wearing pigtail braids would be a little silly,” she said. “And t-shirts aren’t exactly dress code appropriate.”
I couldn’t tell if she was trying to make a joke or if she was as serious as an obituary. I smiled anyway, hoping it was the first option, but the smile fell quickly at her next words.
“And again, it’s Pierce now.”
Pierce.
Of course, she was married. It shouldn’t have been a shock. It shouldn’t have even solicited a single blink from me, let alone the dry swallow that torched my throat next. She was thirty now, and even with the light gone from her eyes, just as beautiful as she’d always been.
I repeated it to myself, the fact that she was married, over and over again like a curse.
But I still couldn’t tear my eyes away.
“Right. Pierce,” I said finally, clearing the rawness from my throat in the next breath. “Sorry about that. Habit, I suppose. Married for long now?”
“Almost eight years.”
I whistled. “And here I can barely fix myself a bowl of cereal in the morning. I thought I was supposed to be the more mature one.”
We both knew that was a joke. She’d always been the more mature of the two of us, even when she was just a pre-teen and I was supposed to be heading off to college.
Charlie was five years younger than me, and neither of us would ever forget that. It was those five years that had kept us apart, that had been a constant reminder of what we both wanted but could never have.
Now, at thirty-five and thirty, those years were no longer a road block. They weren’t even a speed bump.
But the ring on her finger that she played with obliterated the road altogether.
“Still burning water, huh?” she said after a moment. “At least one of us hasn’t changed.”
She managed something of a smile then, just the slightest twitch of her lips, and that made mine double in size. Maybe on the outside, I hadn’t changed much to her — sure, my hair was longer now, curling over the edge of my ears, and my chest was broader, my arms, too, thanks to a friend I met in Juilliard who convinced me we’d land more tail if we spent more time in the gym than in the classroom. But I was mostly the same, I supposed.
I couldn’t say that about her.
I tried to do anything but stare at her, but I couldn’t stop myself from searching for the girl who’d stood before me fourteen years ago on the night before I left Pennsylvania for New York. I think she’d hated me that night, and I’d never forgotten the
way her eyes had filled with tears that pooled and never fell when we said our goodbyes.
She’d asked me to kiss her, and I’d said no — letting those years between us keep me from her like an electric fence.
Even now, I kicked myself for that mistake.
“You hungry?” I asked, gesturing to the café behind us. It was the kind of teachers’ lounge I’d only seen in movies, the kind no public school would ever have. My teachers most certainly brought bagged lunches and microwave dinners, but the Westchester teachers’ café had an entire buffet selection — from salads and hot sandwiches to grilled chicken and vegetable plates.
Charlie eyed the food behind me, and I swore I could feel her stomach roll like it was my own.
“I had a snack just before lunch, actually,” she lied. I knew it was a lie because she chewed her thumbnail in the next instant, one of her tells. It came out when she was nervous or hiding something, and the fact that at least one thing was still the same about her made me smile.
I rummaged through my bag for an apple before abandoning the rest of my belongings on the table behind us. I pulled my coat on, wrapping a scarf around my neck next and taking a bite out of the fruit.
“Guess it’s a perfect time for that tour, then.”
Charlie only nodded, not looking back to ensure I followed her as she made her way out of the café.
Once her back was to me, I let out a long breath, shaking my head. It was the marriage of a blessing and a curse, seeing her again after so many years. The boundaries that used to exist between us had vanished, but the new ones that had taken their place were made of steel, lined with barbed wire, drenched in warning to keep clear.
The ring on her finger was a symbol of her commitment to another man.
That alone should have sobered me. That alone should have been at the forefront of my mind, but it wasn’t.
Charlie Reid was married, she was Charlie Pierce now, and still, it didn’t matter.
I loved her, anyway.
Charlie
Reese Walker was back in town.
I still didn’t believe it, even as he walked next to me as we toured the Westchester campus, his arm brushing mine as we rounded the courtyard. I kept my eyes on the buildings I pointed out to him as we passed, avoiding his gaze that begged me to look at him.
I could see it from the first moment he saw me — Reese was looking for Charlie, the girl he left behind, the girl he used to know.
She didn’t exist anymore.
“Over there is where the athletics facilities begin,” I said, pointing across the courtyard where some high school students were eating lunch. It was freezing, both Reese and I bundled back up in our scarves and coats, but even in the winter there would be a few kids who would brave the cold for a lunch outside of the noisy cafeteria. “When you get a chance, you really should take a walk through it all. We have an Olympic sized swimming pool, a state-of-the-art fitness center, softball and baseball fields, soccer and football fields, wrestling room — Westchester prides itself on offering something for everyone.”
Reese nodded, but his eyes only skirted over the facilities briefly before they were locked on me again.
He’d changed, too.
The first thing I’d noticed when I recognized him was that his hair was longer. It used to be styled neat and short, and now it grew as unruly as the boy I remembered. He’d filled out, his shoulders and chest broad, arms toned — the skinny boy from my childhood gone, replaced by the man I hadn’t seen in fourteen years.
He was the last person I expected to see that day, and yet seeing him hadn’t triggered a single feeling from me. It was almost like he’d never left, like he was still next door and I still saw him every day.
There was something buried, a stirring within me when he smiled. It pulled at a cold, barren yet familiar part of me that tried to surface, but failed.
Maybe it was because I didn’t feel anything at all, anymore.
“And this,” I said, pulling the door open that lead into our world-class fine arts and sciences facility, “this is where you’ll spend most of your time outside of the classroom, I imagine. The Jenkins Center for the Arts and Sciences.”
Reese stood close to me as I rambled off all the features of the building, the various rooms and facilities evenly split between two seemingly opposite passions and skill sets. Westchester’s goal had always been to unite the two, science and art, to bring forth new, creative ways to imagine and see the world we live in. There were dance studios, digital music labs, as well as classical band rooms, an orchestra pit in the performing arts wing, various science labs with their own specific focus in each. It was massive, and I only had knowledge of about half of what it actually housed.
“I can’t believe you went to school here,” Reese said from behind me. I turned toward the sound of his voice, finally allowing myself a moment to take him in as he marveled at the space.
His emerald eyes were wide, one hand touching the wooden banister that led up a spiral staircase to the second floor where individual practice rooms were housed for students to reserve on their own. Those eyes brought memories of late nights at the piano, watching him play, listening to the music he heard before anyone else, the music he created.
That laden part of me moved again, a yearning for something, but a simple blink buried it.
I watched Reese absorbing it, the grand splendor of it all, the history, his gaze spanning the length of the hall before falling to the map in his hand as he pieced it all together.
“It was an amazing experience,” I said after a moment. “Some of the best years of my life were spent here. I guess that’s why I couldn’t wait to come back.”
“Yeah, I did not have that same desire to get back to my high school.”
Reese smiled, eyes finding mine again as he tucked the map into his back pocket.
“Some of the best years of your life, huh?” he mused, fingers still trailing the wood. “And where were the other years in that category spent?”
I swallowed, eyes falling to my simple kitten heels.
“Garrick,” I replied softly, recalling my years at university there. It was a small, private university not too far from home. It was also where I’d met Cameron. “And my first few years of teaching. Of being married.”
I felt Reese’s gaze burning my skin, but I didn’t return it. I didn’t want to know what his eyes looked like, didn’t want him to search mine like the truth was hidden inside them.
“You met your husband when you were at Garrick?”
I nodded. I still didn’t look up.
Reese was quiet, but then he stepped forward, his auburn oxfords sliding into view with my shoes. We were toe to toe, and I remembered another time when we stood this way, when I couldn’t look at him. Another time long ago.
“And now?” he finally asked.
I slowly lifted my gaze, eyes catching his.
“Are you living the best years now, Tadpole?”
The way he looked at me willed me to say something, to bare my soul that he was trying so desperately to see. I used to hand it to him in the palm of my hands, eyes wide and heart open, nothing to hide.
But he didn’t understand. There was just nothing to see, now.
It had been five years since I’d had anything to offer.
The doors behind Reese flew open, students trickling in slower at first before that trickle became a stream.
“We should head back,” I said, running a hand over my hair to smooth any flyaways back into place. “I told my aide that I might be a little late coming back from lunch, but we have a lot to cover today, so I shouldn’t be gone too long. And you’re with the fifth graders, yes?”
Reese just watched me. He was still waiting for an answer.
“Well, they’ll be heading back to class now, too. Best not to leave them alone too long. They’re old enough to cause more trouble than you think.”
I wrapped my scarf around my neck again and pushed through
the doors, not checking to see if he followed.
You just read the first two chapters in What He Doesn’t Know, book one in the angsty, emotional duet from Kandi Steiner. Continue reading by grabbing your copy here (available in Kindle Unlimited).
Kandi Steiner is a bestselling author and whiskey connoisseur living in Tampa, FL. Best known for writing “emotional rollercoaster” stories, she loves bringing flawed characters to life and writing about real, raw romance — in all its forms. No two Kandi Steiner books are the same, and if you’re a lover of angsty, emotional, and inspirational reads, she’s your gal.
An alumna of the University of Central Florida, Kandi graduated with a double major in Creative Writing and Advertising/PR with a minor in Women’s Studies. She started writing back in the 4th grade after reading the first Harry Potter installment. In 6th grade, she wrote and edited her own newspaper and distributed to her classmates. Eventually, the principal caught on and the newspaper was quickly halted, though Kandi tried fighting for her “freedom of press.” She took particular interest in writing romance after college, as she has always been a die hard hopeless romantic, and likes to highlight all the challenges of love as well as the triumphs.
When Kandi isn’t writing, you can find her reading books of all kinds, talking with her extremely vocal cat, and spending time with her friends and family. She enjoys live music, traveling, anything heavy in carbs, beach days, movie marathons, craft beer and sweet wine — not necessarily in that order.
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The Wrong Game Page 34