Chapter 5

Kristine's hand froze on the door handle. She wanted to keep walking, to pretend she had not heard him, but her feet would not cooperate. Something in his voice had stopped her cold. That professor tone was gone, replaced by something rawer. Something that sounded almost like the George she used to know.

She turned slowly, forcing a smirk onto her face even though her insides were churning. "Now what, Professor George?"

He stood by the examination table, his arms crossed, his expression unreadable. But there was tension in his shoulders, in the set of his jaw. He was not as calm as he wanted her to believe.

"Can you explain why you didn't show up for your follow-up appointment?"

Kristine blinked. Of all the things she expected him to say, that was not it. "I've been busy."

"Busy covering for others?" George's response came almost immediately, his voice sharp. "Or busy avoiding me for five years?"

Heat flooded Kristine's face. The nerve of him. The absolute audacity. She folded her arms across her chest and threw her head back, anger making her voice shake. "You have the nerve to ask me that? You know what you did!"

"Really?" George took a step closer. Then another. Each footfall deliberate and measured. "Like leaving me with mixed information without listening to my side of the story? Like calling me an asshole and then ghosting me? Avoiding me for the last five years?" His voice had gone harsh now, rough around the edges. He stopped a few feet away, close enough that she could see the anger flashing in his eyes. "Tell me, Miss Cooper, what exactly did I do?"

Kristine's jaw dropped. Was he serious right now? The image burned itself across her mind again like it had a thousand times before. Claire's hands in his hair. Their bodies pressed together in that dim hallway. The satisfied smile on Claire's face when she saw Kristine standing there. The way George had looked caught, guilty, scrambling for excuses.

"Wow." The word came out disgusted. She could not believe he was standing here playing innocent, like she was the crazy one for being upset. Like she had imagined the whole thing.

But looking at him now, at the genuine confusion and frustration written across his face, something twisted uncomfortably in her chest. He actually seemed to believe he had done nothing wrong. Either he was the best liar she had ever met, or something about that night was more complicated than she had thought.

No. She could not let herself go down that path. She had seen what she saw. She knew what happened. Letting him twist it around, make her doubt herself, that was exactly how manipulators worked.

"Well, it doesn't matter anymore." Her voice came out softer than she intended, almost tired. "It's in the past and we're done. Now I have work to do, so goodbye."

She turned back toward the door but George's voice stopped her again.

"That's it? That's all you're going to say?"

"What else is there to say, George?" Kristine did not turn around this time. She could not look at him. "We broke up five years ago. We're different people now. Just let it go."

"I spent months trying to find you." His voice cracked slightly on the last word. "You blocked my number. You told your mother not to let me in. You quit your job and moved to a different state without telling anyone where you went. I had no idea if you were safe, if you were okay, if you were even alive. And you want me to just let it go?"

Kristine's hand tightened on her bag strap. She had not known that. Had not let herself think about what he might have gone through after she left. She had been too consumed by her own pain, her own humiliation, to consider his side of things.

But that did not change what she saw.

"You want to know what you did?" The words came out sharper now. She spun to face him, all the anger and hurt from five years ago bubbling up to the surface. "You brought me to a nice restaurant. You made me think it was going to be a special night. And then you snuck off to make out with Claire in the hallway like I was nothing!"

George's face went pale. "Is that what you think happened?"

"That's what I saw happen!"

"She kissed me, Kristine! I was pushing her away when you walked up!"

"Oh please." Kristine laughed bitterly. "I saw the way her hands were in your hair. I saw how close you were standing. Don't insult my intelligence by pretending it was innocent."

"I'm not pretending anything! She grabbed me and I was trying to get her off when you appeared out of nowhere and jumped to conclusions!"

"Conclusions? I used my eyes, George!"

"And not your brain, apparently!" His voice rose to match hers. "If you had stuck around for even thirty seconds, if you had given me one chance to explain, none of this would have happened!"

The silence that followed was deafening. They stood there, both breathing hard, years of unresolved anger and pain crackling in the air between them.

Kristine shook her head slowly. This was pointless. They could stand here and argue all day and nothing would change. The past was the past. What happened happened. And rehashing it now, five years too late, would not fix anything.

"Well, it doesn't matter anymore," she said quietly, meaning it this time. "It's in the past and we're done. Now I have work to do, so goodbye."

She walked to the door with more confidence this time, her hand steady on the handle. Then she paused, turned back to look at him one last time. George stood frozen in the middle of the lecture hall, his glasses clutched in one hand, his face a mixture of shock and something that looked almost like grief.

"For good this time," Kristine added, her voice firm.

Then she walked out and slammed the door behind her, the sound echoing through the empty hallway like a final punctuation mark on a conversation that was five years overdue.