Chapter 5

Simeon stood in his office with the door locked behind him. On the monitor before him, the security feed showed the guest room hallway, quiet and still. Emma was still asleep.

He rubbed his face, eyes burning from a night with no sleep at all. He had only watched. Made sure she stayed. Made sure she didn't hurt herself again.

His phone buzzed against the desk. Thomas.

"Confirmed," the investigator said. "Lawrence Carter finalized the divorce paperwork this morning. He's moving fast, making sure everything's locked down before she can think straight."

Simeon's jaw tightened. Of course he was.

"Keep watching him," he typed back. "I want to know everything."

He set the phone down and looked at the screen again.

Emma.

Thirty-three years he had loved her. Thirty-three years of watching from somewhere just out of sight.

---

He was seven the first time he saw her. Second grade, first day, the new kid with clothes two sizes too big, hand-me-downs from a cousin he barely knew. The other children had laughed. Called him poor. Said he smelled like the secondhand shop his mother dragged him through every August.

Then a small girl with wild, untamed hair had stood up from her seat.

"Shut up. All of you. He's new and you're being mean."

She sat beside him that day. Every day after that, for years.

Her family had money, a big house on the good side of town, cars that gleamed in the driveway. She never once made him feel small because of what he didn't have. They became inseparable, the two of them against everything.

Then came high school. Sixteen years old, and she was laughing at something foolish he'd said, head thrown back, and something inside him shifted so completely he barely recognized himself afterward.

He fell in love with her that day.

He never told her. How could he? She was Emma Vale, bright and beautiful, born into a family with everything. He was a boy with holes in his shoes and a father who came home smelling of whiskey more nights than not. So he stayed quiet. Stayed her best friend. Died a little every time she mentioned some boy she liked.

Then college happened. Lawrence happened.

Lawrence with his car and his tailored clothes and a confidence Simeon had never learned how to fake. Lawrence, who could offer her a version of life Simeon could only watch from the outside.

She fell for him fast. Talked about him constantly, eyes bright in a way that made Simeon's chest ache every single time. He listened. He smiled. He let her believe nothing was wrong.

When she got engaged, something in him finally broke. He couldn't stay and watch her marry someone else, couldn't stand in a church and clap for a life he wanted for himself. So he left. Changed his number. Moved cities. Built something out of nothing, because heartbreak, it turned out, made an excellent kind of fuel.

He hired Thomas five years into her marriage. Just to check. Just to make sure she was safe and happy somewhere he couldn't reach.

The reports came steadily after that. Photographs. Small updates. Emma looked content in them. Three children. A beautiful house. He told himself that was enough. Her happiness was enough.

But he never asked Thomas to stop. Couldn't bring himself to let go completely.

Then, last week, Thomas had called with a different tone entirely.

"You need to see this."

Photographs followed. Lawrence with a woman named Rose. Hotel entrances. A kiss caught through a car window.

"How long," Simeon had asked, voice flat.

"Two years. Maybe longer."

His blood had turned to fire in his veins. "Find everything. Dates. Times. Proof of all of it."

Thomas delivered, as he always did. Lawrence was planning to end things, coldly, completely, with every piece already arranged before Emma ever walked back through her own front door.

Simeon had tried to reach her. Driven straight to the house the moment Thomas warned him something was happening that night. But by the time he arrived, it was already finished. He'd found her gone, the house lit up with the wreckage of what used to be her life scattered inside it.

He'd searched half the city in the rain, panic clawing up his throat with every empty street. Then, finally, through the windows of an old church glowing warm against the storm, he'd seen her collapse.

He was through the doors and across the floor before he could think, catching her just as she went down, a small blade clattering somewhere near her hand.

And now she was here. In his house. Under his roof.

A second chance he never thought he'd earn.

A knock sounded against his office door.

"Dad?"

Sara.

He crossed the room and unlocked it. She stepped inside and studied him with the particular sharpness only a thirteen year old who had grown up too fast could manage.

"You didn't sleep," she said.

"I'm fine."

"You always say that." She dropped into the chair across from his desk. "We need to talk about Emma."

"What about her?"

"I saw your face this morning. When you looked at her." Sara's eyes narrowed slightly. "I've never seen you look at anyone like that. Not even Mom."

Something tightened behind his ribs. "Sara."

"Tell me the truth. Who is she to you?"

Too smart. Always had been.

"We were friends growing up. I told you that already."

"Friends don't look at each other the way you looked at her."

He sat down slowly. "I fell in love with her. In high school."

Sara leaned forward. "Did you ever tell her?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I had nothing, and she had everything. It felt impossible."

"That's stupid."

"Maybe. But that's how it felt at sixteen." He looked down at his hands. "Then she met Lawrence in college. He could give her things I couldn't."

"So you left."

"I did."

"And now she's here."

"She is."

"Do you still love her?"

The question sat heavy in the quiet room.

"Yeah," he whispered finally. "I never stopped."

---

Sara was quiet for a long moment. Then, "How did you find her last night? At the church?"

Something cold slid down his spine. "What do you mean?"

"You just happened to be driving past a random church in the rain? That's a pretty big coincidence, Dad."

He couldn't lie to her. Not about this.

"I've had someone keeping track of her. For years now."

Sara's eyes widened. "You've been having her followed?"

"Not followed exactly. Just making sure she was safe."

"Dad. That's basically stalking."

"I know how it sounds." He rubbed his temple. "But I needed to know she was okay, all these years."

"And when you found out about Lawrence cheating?"

"I tried to reach her before he could do what he'd planned. I was too late."

"So you went looking."

"Thomas told me she'd left the house. I drove until I found her."

Sara stood and walked to the window, arms crossed. "This is a lot, Dad."

"I know."

"Does she know? About the investigator, about all of this watching?"

"No. And she can't. Not yet."

"You'll have to tell her eventually."

"I know."

"If she finds out on her own, she's going to hate you for it."

"I know that too." He rose and walked over to stand beside his daughter. "But right now she needs steadiness. Not more betrayal added on top of everything else."

"You think she'd see it that way?"

"Probably."

Sara studied him a moment longer. "Do you think she ever loved you back? Even a little?"

The question landed somewhere raw. He'd asked himself the same thing more nights than he could count.

"I don't know. She never gave any sign."

"Or maybe she did, and you were both too scared to say anything."

Worse thought, that one. That they might have had something real, and he'd spent thirty years running from a coward's fear instead of finding out.

"Doesn't matter now," he said quietly. "She needs to heal. That's what matters."

"When are you going to tell her? About how you feel?"

"Not now."

"When?"

"When she's stronger."

"What if she's never ready?"

"Then I keep it to myself. Same as I have for thirty three years."

Sara turned fully to face him. "That's sad, Dad."

"Maybe. But her peace matters more than my feelings."

---

"Mom knew, didn't she," Sara said after a pause. "About Emma."

He nodded. "Yeah. Sandra knew."

"Did it bother her?"

"She said it didn't. Said everyone carries a ghost or two. That loving someone unreachable doesn't stop you from loving someone else, fully, honestly."

"Do you think she was happy? With you?"

"I hope so. I tried, Sara. Your mother was patient and kind, more than I probably deserved."

"But?"

"But she wasn't Emma." The words came out cracked. "That's not fair to her memory, or to you. But it's the truth, and you deserve the truth."

Sara crossed the room and hugged him, arms tight around his middle. "I'm not upset, Dad. I just want you to be happy. Really happy, not just fine."

"I have you. That makes me happy."

"You know what I mean."

He did.

"Give it time," he murmured into her hair. "Let her heal first. Then maybe."

"Promise me you'll tell her eventually. All of it."

"Sara."

"Promise me. She deserves to know the truth, whenever it comes."

He closed his eyes. "I promise. When the time is right."

"Good." She pulled back, wrinkling her nose. "Now go shower. You smell like a man who hasn't slept in two days."

A laugh broke out of him before he could stop it, the first real one in what felt like weeks.

"I'm serious. Go. I'll check on Emma, make sure she has everything she needs."

"Don't say anything to her."

"I won't. But you will. Eventually."

She slipped out, leaving the door open behind her.

---

Simeon walked back to his desk and looked at the monitor one last time. Emma was awake now, sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing, looking as lost as he'd ever seen anyone look.

His chest ached watching her.

Thirty-three years he had loved her. Thirty-three years of staying silent.

Maybe Sara was right. Maybe the truth needed saying eventually.

But not now. Not while she was still this broken.

He would wait. Be patient. Be present.

And hope, quietly, that one day she might see him as something more than the friend who happened to catch her when she fell.

Hope that she might, someday, choose him.

But even if she never did.

He would still be here. Still watching over her, still standing close enough to catch her if the ground gave way again.

Because that was what it meant to love someone the way he loved her.

You stayed. Even when it cost you everything. Even when hope felt foolish.

You stayed anyway.