“They would bury me with my brothers,” I tell him.
“You can change your name fifteen times, but at the end of the day, you are still Ethan McIntyre.” He turns around and starts to walk out of the room.
“Ethan McIntyre died five years ago,” I tell him, and he looks back at me.
“See you soon, Ethan,” he tells me.
He doesn’t wait for me to answer. Instead, I watch him walk out of the room and past the nurses’ station. I wait until I know he’s gone before I let the lone tear slip out. I wipe the tear and make my heartrate come back down. “Don’t bet on it.”
Chapter Three
Emily
Five months later
“Please note that I’ll be giving a pop quiz sometime next week.” All the kids groan, and I smile. “Oh, please.” I lean back on my desk in front of the whiteboard. “I’m giving you a heads-up, so it’s not really a pop quiz.”
“Yeah, but then it just has us all nervous,” Chelsea says, leaning back in her chair, and I just shake my head. “It’s rough, Miss Emily.”
“I can imagine how rough it is.” I roll my eyes. “You have to spend less time on TikTok and more time reading,” I say, and the bell rings. The students get up and gather their things to rush out of the class. It’s usually like this during the last class on Friday because everyone is excited about the upcoming weekend. Even me.
“I’m going to study.” Chelsea stops in front of me, and I just smile. “Are you still coming over for Sunday brunch?” she asks. I nod my head, and she claps her hands together. “Cool, see you there.” She comes in and gives me a hug. “See you Sunday, Miss Emily.” She walks out of class, and I walk over to the whiteboard and erase everything, the diamond ring on my finger glistening in the light.
Turning, I sit back down at the desk, gathering the papers and cleaning up for the weekend. Teaching high school students never crossed my mind. When I decided at seventeen that I wanted to be a teacher, I thought kindergarten or maybe second grade. I never thought I had it in me to teach the older kids. But when you get your heart broken, and it’s shattered at nineteen, you become so numb that you don’t think anything will bother you. I graduated from school ahead of time because I took a full schedule and even went to classes during the summer. I had nothing else to do, and no one else to worry about but myself. I also thought I would escape the town as soon as I graduated, but I just couldn’t take that big step. I couldn’t move away. A piece of me had to stay in place in case he came back. It was stupid and naïve, and after two years, I finally got it that he was never coming back.
I blink the tears away whenever I think of Ethan and what we had. It obviously meant nothing to him; I obviously meant nothing to him. The promises he made were empty, and I deserved better. It took me a long time to move on, and Ethan would always own a piece of my heart.
A knock on the door makes me look up, and I see Drew. “Hey there, gorgeous.” He comes in wearing a blue suit with his blond hair perfectly styled. The smile on his face makes his blue eyes light up. “I was hoping you would still be here.”
“Hey, you.” I smile and stand as he comes over and kisses my cheek. “This is a nice surprise.”
“Yeah, I had a meeting in the area.” He puts his hands in his pockets. “So I thought I would swing by and see if you wanted to get an early bite to eat.”
“Sure,” I say, gathering all my stuff. “How about I meet you at the diner?”
“That sounds good,” he says. “Maybe we can do a movie night tonight, and I can make you breakfast in bed.”
“Yeah, let’s talk about it at the diner,” I tell him, not willing to have this conversation in the middle of my workplace. He just nods his head at me and comes in again, kissing my cheek and walking out.
I started dating Drew a year ago, and to be honest, we just fell into it. We used to hang out together with Ethan since they were best friends, and when Ethan cut us both out of his life, we had each other. We started hanging out when he came back home from college to take over his father’s insurance company. One thing led to another, and he proposed six months ago. I want to say I said yes because I love him with everything I have, but I didn’t. I said yes because he threw me this amazing birthday party and invited all my loved ones and got down on one knee.