Page 56 of Enchanted to Meet You

My chest tightened, a sharp, cold ache blooming behind my sternum as I imagined a seven-year-old Rhys coming home from practice with grass stains on his knees, expecting his mum to be in the kitchen.

“Did she... did she say goodbye?” I whispered.

“No,” Rhys said. He didn’t even sound angry, just apathetic. “No note, no phone call. She sent a postcard about three months later from somewhere on Prince Edward Island. It had a picture of a lighthouse on the front and a message on the back that said, ‘Hope you’re doing well in soccer, Rhys. Be good for your dad.’ And after that... nothing. She never called, she never came back, and she never filed for formal visitation during the divorce. She just... erased herself.”

“Rhys...” I reached down, my fingers wrapping around his wrist, feeling the strong, steady thrum of his pulse beneath his warm skin. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he said softly, though the slight, subconscious tightening of his jaw betrayed the old, lingering ghost of that pain. “For a long time, when I was eight or nine, I convinced myself it was my fault. I thought if I’d been better at soccer, or if I hadn’t made so much noise in the mornings, or if I’d been a better kid, she would’ve stayed. That’s a fun thought process to run through your head when you’re nine years old.”

“That’s awful,” I said, my voice cracking slightly. “It wasn’t your fault, Rhys. Not even a tiny bit.”

“I know that now,” he said, turning his hand under mine so his fingers could lightly entwine with mine, his palm warm against my skin. “And honestly... my dad made sure I knew it. Man, my dad... he stepped up in a way I don’t think I fully appreciated until I got older.”

A small, affectionate memory seemed to soften the dark intensity in his eyes as he looked up at me.

“He went to the hospital administration the week after she left and fought them tooth and nail to restructure his shift hours,” Rhys said, a faint smile touching his lips. “He gave up a fast-track promotion to chief of surgery just so he could be home more. He learned how to cook—badly at first, we ate a lot of burnt grilled cheese and undercooked pasta—and he bought every single book on parenting he could find at the store. He sat on the floor in my bedroom every single night until I fell asleep, for almost two years straight, because I was terrified that if I closed my eyes, he’d be gone when I woke up. He never let me feel like a burden,” Rhys whispered, his fingers tightening gently around mine. “Not once. No matter how tired he was, no matter how hard his day at the hospital had been, he always made me feel like taking care of me was the most important thing he had to do.”

“He really is incredible,” I said, remembering the quiet, grounded way his dad had talked about my family earlier. “You can tell how much he adores you. It’s written all over him.”

It was the opposite of what I saw in my own dad.

“You’ll get to see a lot more of that at the cottage next weekend,” Rhys said, a grin lifting the corners of his lips. I nodded, realizing that I was actually kind of … excited to go to the cottage, to spend time with him, to see more of Rhys and his dad and this amazing bond they had.

Heavy, rhythmic footsteps sounded on the hardwood stairs outside, breaking the silence of the second floor. Rhys didn’t jump back or pull away instantly; he simply shifted back onto his heel, his hand smoothly releasing mine as the footsteps approached down the hall, accompanied by the distinct, mouth-watering aroma of garlic, melted cheese, and wood-fired crust.

“Rhys?” his dad’s deep voice called out from the hallway. “I got two large garlic-crusts from the place down on Main—one pepperoni, one cheese—because I assumed Ainsley was staying for dinner.”

“We’ll be down in a sec!” Rhys called back.

Sitting there in the soft, fading afternoon light, with the lingering warmth of his father’s hand still fresh on my shoulder, a sudden, sharp wave of intense emotion crashed over my chest—so sudden and violent it almost took my breath away.

They had folded me into their life so easily.

His dad hadn’t questioned why I was here, hadn’t hesitated to buy extra food, hadn’t treated me like a nuisance or an outsider. He had welcomed me into his home, offered me advice, bought me dinner, and treated me with a quiet, casual kindness that I hadn’t felt from an adult in almost a year. And Rhys... Rhys had bandaged my leg, listened to my messy, humiliating family drama, held my hand, and given me the exact strength I needed when I felt entirely broken.

They were treating me like I belonged here. Like I was family.

And it was all built on a lie.

The sudden, brutal realization sliced straight through me like a razor. I wasn’t Rhys’s girlfriend. I was an actress in a carefully staged fake relationship designed to mess with Kelcey and protect his pride. Mine, too, I supposed. The second this arrangement ended—the second summer started and the performance ran its course—this house, this safety, this warm kitchen, and Rhys’s quiet, intense presence would disappear. I was a guest playing a role, intruding on a real family’s warmth with my fake status.

A hot, painful lump swelled in my throat, threatening to choke me.

“I... I need to use the washroom before we eat,” I said quickly, pulling my legs off the bed and swinging them over the edge a little too fast.

“Ainsley, wait—careful on that leg,” Rhys said instantly, reaching out a hand to steady my elbow as my foot touched the floor.

“I’m okay! Really!” I said, my voice sounding tight, high, and panicked even to my own ears. I pulled my arm back, carefully avoiding his eyes because I knew if I looked at him for even a second, the tears brimming behind my eyelids would spill over right in front of him. “Just... give me a minute. I’ll meet you downstairs.”

Without waiting for his answer, I turned and hurried out of his bedroom, trying not to limp as I moved down the quiet hallway. I slipped into the small guest bathroom near the top of the stairs, shut the heavy door behind me, and turned the lock with a click.

I leaned my back against the cold wooden panels of the door, pressed both hands tightly over my mouth to muffle the sound, and let the hot, painful tears finally spill over my cheeks in the dark.

sixteen

The ballet studio on Wednesday was an incubator for pure misery. It wasn’t just warm, it was a heavy, suffocating blanket of moisture that clung to the mirrors, fogged up the tall arched windows, and turned the air into something you practically had to chew before breathing in. The ancient air conditioning unit in the wall had given two minutes into warm-ups with a loud, metallic clunk-shhh, leaving sixteen dancers trapped in a room that felt less like a pristine studio and more like a steam room built by someone who hated teenage girls.

Madame Laurent hadn’t even blinked. She’d just clapped her hands, pointed her wooden cane at the piano, and declared that true prima ballerinas danced through adversity.