Page 4

CHAPTER 4

ZANDER

“Sienna!” I try again, picking up my pace and starting to sprint.

Fuck, I should have started running as soon as she did, but I was frozen in place, shock pulsing through my veins like venom.

That little girl said, “Mommy.”

Sienna’s a mommy to a girl who looks about two years old. I’m wrestling to do the math as I charge after her, desperate for answers.

But by the time I round the corner, she’s gone. Vanished… just like she did last time.

“Fuck,” I mutter, scraping my hands through my hair and getting a dark scowl from a mother walking past with her babies.

“Sorry,” I murmur, my shoulders deflating when I stare down the road, wondering if I just imagined the blue-eyed beauty. She’s still a stunner.

I never thought I’d see her again.

But there she was. Holding a toddler. Her toddler .

My toddler?

“Double fuck,” I mutter under my breath as I spin and look the other way.

Should I just start wandering the streets shouting her name?

What is she even doing in Nolan?

My mind flashes back to the last time I saw her, the way she felt in my arms as we shared our final kiss goodbye. It took everything in me to let her crawl out my bedroom window after the night we’d spent together. I loved her. And it killed me to break up with her, but I knew it was the right thing to do. I’d thought it through, made the sensible decision for both of us. Logically, I was being the better man, not tying her into some long-distance bullshit.

But I’d hated myself for it.

I’d tried to live it up in college, play the best ball I could, party and spread my wings the way I wanted to. But I missed her. I tried to get over her. And when that didn’t work… I went back for her.

But she’d already gone…

I had a three-day break for Christmas, and I wasn’t about to waste it. I’d been training my ass off, proving to Kelsey U that picking me had been the right decision. I was getting in good with the rest of the team, earning their respect. I didn’t always love the hoops I had to jump through, but I tried to convince myself it was worth it.

I hated some of the stuff I’d been doing, but I could make changes. Just small little tweaks that would keep me in the good books with my team captain but also let me be with the one person who I just couldn’t let go.

I had to get Sienna back. I’d tried the bachelor life, but I was fucking miserable.

Hopefully I wasn’t too late to persuade her to get back together with me, to beg her to apply to Kelsey U so I didn’t have to live without her anymore.

I’d held out for as long as I could. Not contacted her the way my parents told me to. I was being merciful, cutting the ties and not teasing her with texts or phone calls the way I wanted to.

But I couldn’t do it anymore.

The second I walked through the door, I dumped my bag, hugged my mom, and told her I had someplace important to be.

“Where are you going?” she called after me.

“I’ll be back soon. I promise!” I waved to her, and she no doubt assumed I was heading to Noah’s house. He was back for Christmas, too, and we’d already arranged to catch up.

But there was someone else I needed to see first.

Sprinting to Sienna’s front door, I knocked three times and held my breath as I listened to the shuffle of steps behind the wood.

My heart started to race, my insides jumping as the door creaked open and an unfamiliar face greeted me.

“Yes?” The old man gave me a confused frown. “Can I help you?”

“Oh, uh… hi, sir. You must be Sienna’s grandfather?” She’d told me about him, but I couldn’t remember his name.

“Who? ”

“Sienna.” I could feel my forehead wrinkling. “She lives here.”

“Sorry, son. You must have the wrong house.”

My head jolted back, and I took a few steps away from the house to gaze up at it. “No, this is where she lives. I… I used to come over here all the time.”

“Oh.” The man nodded, his lips rising into a half smile. “You must mean the people who lived here before I moved in. I never met them. The house was empty when it came on the market.”

“What?” I rasped, stumbling back toward him. “You just bought this house?”

“Moved in about three weeks ago.”

“But…” I blinked. “She…” Stumbling away from him, I didn’t even bother saying goodbye as I ran down the path like a drunk ostrich and wrestled the phone out of my pocket.

Finding Sienna’s number, I immediately called her and waited as it rang and rang, then went to voicemail. With an annoyed huff, I texted her.

Me: You’ve moved? What’s going on? Please call me. We need to talk. It’s really important.

She never responded, so I texted every hour until midnight.

And nothing.

Had she changed her number too?

Fuck. I didn’t know what the hell was going on.

After a sleepless night, staying up to the early hours, scouring social media and finding all of Sienna’s accounts closed, I ducked out of the house before Christmas breakfast and hit up each of my friends. Noah and Emily were stoked to see me but ended up being no help at all.

“She just left. Started the school year a little miserable but nothing red flag-ish, and then one day she just didn’t show. I thought she was out sick, but then Olivia told me she’d moved.”

“What the fuck?”

“I know.” Emily bulged her eyes in agreement with me. “I tried texting her, but she just ghosted me. She didn’t say goodbye to any of us.”

“Why didn’t someone tell me!”

“Why would we, dude?” Noah scoffed. “You made me swear not to mention her name around you. When Emily told me what happened, I wanted to let you know, but you seemed preoccupied with all your stuff, and I didn’t want to bother you with it. I thought you were over her, man.”

“I’m not.” I shook my head, walking out of their living room with more questions than answers.

Trudging home with my shoulders hunched, I fought various waves of pain, annoyance, and confusion. Why the fuck would she just take off without saying anything? It didn’t make any sense.

My phone started buzzing as I stepped back into the house.

“There you are!” Mom bustled into the entrance while I shrugged off my jacket and held up my phone. “Okay, but after that call, you’re telling me exactly where you’ve been.” She huffed and stormed back into the kitchen while I answered a call from Olivia .

“Hey.”

“Emily just texted and told me you’re looking for Sienna. Why?”

I sighed, resting my butt on the back of the couch and tucking a hand under my armpit. “I was hoping I could see her. Tell her I missed her.” I mumbled out the last part.

“Toy with her, you mean?”

“Hey. No,” I grumbled, kicking the heel of my socked foot on the floor. “I genuinely want her back.”

“Well, you missed that boat.”

“Olivia,” I softly pleaded. “Where is she?”

After a sigh that made my stomach hurt, she finally told me. “Truth is, I don’t actually know. She moves around a lot and is total shit at staying in touch, even though she promised me she would.”

“What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know. She wasn’t the same after you left, but she was trying and then… one day she didn’t turn up to school, and that afternoon, she came over and told me her parents were hitting the road, and she was going to finish out her senior year via online school. They had some big camper van, road trip adventure thing planned.”

I nodded, remembering all the stories she’d told me about tripping around with her parents. “I thought she wanted to graduate here.”

“Me too.” Olivia popped her lips. “I mean… the day she left, she did seem really upset. She came over to hug me goodbye and was crying and going on about needing a clean break. She wanted to put everything behind her.” He r voice dropped to droll and unimpressed. “She was kind of babbling, to be honest, like she didn’t know what she was trying to say. In the end, I just hugged her and told her to go have fun. She promised to send me pics and keep me updated but…” Olivia sighed. “She sucks at it. I get the odd text every now and then, but I’ve had so many messages go without a response that I’m not sure I’m going to bother anymore. It’s obvious she wants to be left alone.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well…” I huffed. “Can you tell her I need to speak with her?”

“I doubt it’s gonna make any difference.”

“Why?”

Olivia groaned like she wished she hadn’t called me in the first place. “She was never the same after you broke up. She was obsessed with you, and you tore her heart out.”

Ouch. It hurt like a knife through the stomach to hear that, and I quickly tried to justify my actions. “I was trying to do the right thing. Be sensible.”

“Well, she never recovered. If you ask me, you did do the right thing. She was way too clingy with you and needed to grow a serious backbone. The fact that she couldn’t cope without you tells me she wasn’t even ready for you, you know?”

I nodded, not sure I was really following.

“My advice?” Olivia continued. “Leave her alone and let her get on with her life. She’s traveling, having fun exploring the country. Don’t toy with her heart and make her miss you all over again. You were the one who broke it off, so do the right thing and… keep it off. You need to move on too.”

To say I was devastated was the understatement of the year. I couldn’t get over the fact that Sienna had just left and not even told me about it.

I spent the rest of the day stewing, which definitely set a pretty morose tone for Christmas. I felt kind of bad about it. It was the first time I’d made it back since starting college, and I was being a grumpy asshole.

Dad and Monica came over for lunch. Even my grandparents were there. It was supposed to be this family celebration, and all I could obsess over was the fact that Sienna hadn’t been where I thought she was. That she’d left and not told me.

She’d just up and vanished and was ghosting me, no matter how many texts I sent or voicemails I left.

In the end, my sullen behavior got too much for Dad, and our family lunch ended with a massive argument. I packed my bags and headed back to Kelsey U a day early.

Wincing, I rub the back of my head and fist my hair. Mom’s forgiven me since, but it took a hell of a lot of apologizing.

“Zan! What’s wrong, man?” Grady runs up to me, resting his hand on my shoulder. “Why are you standing all the way over here? We thought you’d taken off.”

“Uh…” I swallow, unable to form a coherent sentence. How the fuck am I supposed to tell him? I just saw the one who got away, and she was carrying a daughter… maybe my daughter.

Fuck, fuck, fuck! What am I supposed to do with that ?

“You okay? You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“Nah, I’m good, bro.” I shake him off and start walking back to the field.

He wanders along beside me, not saying anything. He’s good like that, never demands shit I don’t want to give.

But by the time we reach the grass, I feel like I owe him an explanation.

When Wily walks over to check on me, I spit out a small semblance of truth.

“Just thought I saw someone I used to know.”

“Oh yeah?” Wily wiggles his eyebrows. “Was she hot?”

I snicker and can’t help tipping my head to the side. “Still gorgeous.”

“Ahhh.” They start to razz me, and I let them, because I can’t tell them everything right now.

They don’t know how I broke Sienna’s heart.

They don’t know how she broke mine.

And they can never know how I returned to Kelsey U and, in an attempt to deal with my personal tragedy, systematically fucked up my freshman year in the worst way possible.