Page 4 of Hale Yeah, It’s You

“She’s fourteen.”

Roman’s mouth drops open. And stays that way. He glances at the door Alayna disappeared through, then back at me. “Is this some kind of joke?”

Before I can answer, Mrs. Brosnan bustles through the staff entrance with her usual stormfront energy. “Ahh, Dr. Clarke! Welcome.”

He turns his attention toward her, attempting a smile, but it looks like it’s been sculpted under pressure—tight and forced. “I brought coffee and muffins for everyone. I’ll put them in the lounge. Frankie, do you mind helping me carry them in?”

His eyes pin me with a look that’s all challenge and tension and don’t even think about saying no . I want to tell him where to shove that cup holder, but something in his expression—a mix of anger and something that looks almost like betrayal—stops me.

“Sure thing,” I say, casually retrieving the drinks I’d set down earlier. I don’t wait for him; I turn and walk through to the staff lounge like none of this is bothering me at all. But inside? My brain is spinning out like a roulette wheel.

Why does he get to be mad?

The lounge is empty. No teachers, no witnesses. The door clicks shut behind us and suddenly the space is too small. The air is heavy with tension and the smell of blueberries.

Roman sets his load down with too much force. Coffee sloshes from one of the cups and bleeds into a napkin.

“Alayna Phillips-Hale,” he says slowly, his voice low and sharp, like a blade sliding from its sheath. “As in… Clay Phillips?”

I nod once, cautiously.

And then I see it click. Like a lightbulb snapping to life and blinding him.

Oh.

Oh.

My lips twitch. He thinks… oh God. He thinks Alayna is his daughter .

It’s written all over his face. The timeline.

The name. The age . He’s doing the mental math, rewinding the tape back to the last weekend we spent tangled in sheets and bad decisions before he disappeared from my life without a forwarding address.

My cheeks flush with heat—part embarrassment, part memory, part how dare he .

He thinks I kept a child from him. Our child.

And for half a second, I almost feel sorry for him.

Almost.

But then I remember all the years of silence. Of wondering what I did wrong. Of letting him haunt every corner of my heart, even while I told myself I’d moved on. If anyone deserves to sit in a pool of his own assumptions for a while, it’s Roman Clarke.

“Clay is a wonderful man,” I say, too smoothly. “And an amazing dad to Alayna. I know you’ve only just met her, but I’m sure you’ll see soon enough—she’s turning into the kind of person everyone’s better for knowing.”

I turn away to hide the laughter that’s bubbling up. It’s cruel. I know it is. But I can’t help it. The look on his face is priceless .

“I’m going to be late for work,” I toss over my shoulder. “But again—welcome home.”

I head for the back exit, avoiding another showdown with the battle-ax out front. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Roman still frozen, blinking like the world has tilted sideways under his feet.

I could tell him the truth. Clear it up. Let him off the hook.

But I don’t.

He left me in the dark for years. He can sit in a little of his own shadow for a change.

Twenty minutes later, I’m no longer laughing as I push through the doors of the hardware store. The familiar scent of cedar and grease hits me like a balm, settling over my raw nerves. This place has always wrapped me in its arms that way. A little chaotic, a little dusty, but solid and consistent.

I might be a little too proud of the way I left Roman spinning in his own assumptions, but the high is already fading.

His face keeps flashing in my mind—older, sharper, but still so him —and with it comes a rush of memories I didn’t ask for.

The kind that cling to the inside of your ribs and make you question everything.

Where I’m going. Where I thought I’d be by now.

What I’ve actually built for myself in the ruins of what used to be.

Back then, I thought Roman was it for me.

The endgame. The happily ever after. But he made it crystal clear that his future didn’t include me.

That kind of thing leaves a scar, no matter how much time passes.

And maybe the years have dulled the pain, maybe I’ve learned to laugh it off, but sometimes—on days like today—it still stings like it’s all happening for the first time.

Not that I’ve been pining. I’ve lived a whole life without him. Haven’t I?

I shake the thought away and focus on what’s in front of me.

Mondays are always busy. A stack of boxes waits outside my office, filled with supplies that need sorting and shelving.

Dad will show up later to “supervise” from the front counter, sipping his coffee like a king overseeing his kingdom.

But the store is mine now. He knows it. I know it.

I don’t need him to tell me how to run the place.

So maybe my life doesn’t look the way I once imagined, but it’s mine .

I’ve made something here—something steady, something real.

The work feels good in my hands, even if it’s not glamorous.

I never needed a big career, I only wanted to be happy .

I still do. I still hope that someday that happiness might include love again. Maybe a family of my own.

Someday just… hasn’t happened yet.

In a way, I do have a family. It’s not the one I dreamed of back when Roman and I were scribbling hearts on notebook paper and planning prom outfits, but it’s real . Messy and unconventional, but real.

Roman and I were high school sweethearts.

It was love at first scrimmage—literally: a boys-versus-girls soccer game for charity.

We collided mid-field, both going for the ball.

I fell. Hard. And not just on the turf. I hadn’t even known he existed until that moment.

He'd been living in town for a year, but somehow our paths never crossed—not until that one crash sent sparks flying.

That crash changed everything.

The sparks caught, the fire spread, and two years later, I paid the price.

My phone buzzes, pulling me out of the spiral. I sit down on one of the unopened boxes and pull it from my pocket.

CLAY

How did drop off go?

ME

Went fine. Form submitted. See you at dinner.

CLAY

Oh good. I was hoping Layna-bug would remind you. 6pm at Jake’s.

ME

See you then.

I sigh and lean forward, elbows to knees. I don’t usually get short with Clay, but I’m off-kilter today. Everything is too close to the surface. My nerves are frayed, emotions rubbed raw. Normally, he’s one of the few people who can calm me down.

We’ve been through a lot together, especially in the past few years. Co-parenting Alayna—unconventional as it is—has only made our friendship stronger.

Clay’s another example of young love gone wrong.

He fell for my sister Tasha, and for a while, it looked like they had it all figured out.

Tasha was two years ahead of me in school, loud and lovely and impossible to ignore.

Everyone loved her. Clay was equally as magnetic—smart, funny, the golden boy on every sports team.

Together they looked like something out of a teen drama.

They left for college as the perfect couple.

Two years later they came back, and Tasha was pregnant. Dad married them in the backyard under the same oak tree that held our tire swing growing up. It should’ve been a happy time.

But Roman had just left. And I wasn’t okay.

I wasn’t happy for my sister. Or for Clay.

I was heartbroken and confused and angry in ways I couldn’t explain.

When Alayna was born, I shut everyone out.

I went silent. I kept my head down, taking classes I didn’t care about at the community college.

I didn’t know what I wanted. High school graduation had felt like a funeral for the life I thought I was building.

Tasha and Clay moved into Grandma and Grandpa’s old place, and I avoided it like the plague. Except for Alayna. I couldn’t stay away from her. She was light in the middle of all that darkness. I started slipping over before school and after work, just to be near her.

Eventually, I started coming by more. Tasha loved it. She’d take a nap, run errands, shower in peace. She was so grateful—always thanking me, begging me to stop by more often.

At the time, I didn’t think anything of it. I wanted to be there for the baby. I didn’t realize I was slowly becoming something else. Something more. A fixture. A third parent, almost.

Clay had taken a job working for the city—steady hours, decent pay.

It wasn’t glamorous, and it was far from the sports-star dreams he’d left home with, but it was reliable.

Tasha, on the other hand, had traded in her big dreams for diapers and dishes.

She’d always talked about being the wife of a professional athlete, living in some high-rise apartment with designer strollers and VIP passes.

Instead, she was back in our hometown, a stay-at-home mom in our grandparents’ old house, surrounded by hand-me-down furniture and chipped paint .

From the outside, they looked happy. At first, anyway.

By the time Alayna was three, I had fully settled into the rhythm of life at the hardware store with Dad and afternoons at my sister’s place.

And then, like that first collision on the soccer field, my world changed again.