All Chapters of The Boy I Wasn't Supposed To Want. : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The lecture hall felt too bright and too loud, students filing in around her, laughing about weekend plans, complaining about problem sets, living lives that hadn't cracked open at the seams. Ivy sat near the back, notebook open to a blank page, and stared at nothing in particular.She hadn't slept well since the recording. Not because of what was on it, but because of what listening to it had done, pulled every private, unguarded thing she'd felt for Callum out into the open air where it could be picked apart by someone who wanted to hurt them with it.A coffee cup appeared on the desk beside her notebook."You still take it with too much sugar," Callum said, sliding into the seat next to her before the professor arrived. "I remembered before I ordered it. Figured that counted for something."Ivy looked up at him, something in her chest easing at the sight of him in a way that had nothing to do with the coffee. "You're not even in this class.""No. But I know your schedule, and I wan

Ivy found Callum on the front steps of his uncle's building, waiting, like he'd known she'd come the second she got Reagan's words out of her system enough to drive."Ask him who was driving," she repeated, voice tight. "What does that mean, Callum?"He didn't answer right away."You told me Dean was driving.""I lied."Ivy stared at him. "Why?"His eyes dropped to his hands."Because I was driving."The words landed harder than she expected."You?""I was seventeen. I had a permit. Dean let me drive home from the program." His voice tightened. "There was a deer. The road was wet. I swerved."Ivy couldn't speak."I lost control," he said. "Dean died. I survived."For a long moment neither of them said anything, the porch light buzzing faintly overhead, the whole night narrowing down to the space between them."You didn't just hide that you knew Dean," Ivy said finally, voice shaking. "You let me believe the wrong person was driving."Callum looked away."Do you understand what that me

Marcus called them both into the living room on a Sunday evening, the wedding binder sitting closed on the coffee table for the first time in weeks."I've been thinking," he said, looking between his son and Ivy, something tired but resolved in his expression. "Keeping you two apart isn't fixing anything. It's just making all of us miserable and pretending that's progress." He glanced at Diane, who nodded once beside him. "Callum, you can come home. We're not going to pretend everything's simple. But this," he gestured vaguely at the distance between them, "isn't working either."Ivy felt something loosen in her chest that had been tight for weeks. Callum's hand found hers before either of them said anything, a small, grateful squeeze."Thank you," Callum said quietly."Don't thank me yet." Marcus's mouth twitched, almost a smile. "We still have a lot to figure out. But you're allowed to figure it out under one roof instead of two."That night, with Marcus and Diane asleep down the ha

Diane didn't say another word about it that day. She retreated to her room with a headache she clearly didn't have, and Marcus disappeared into his study, door closed, the particular kind of quiet that meant a house full of people all avoiding each other on purpose.Ivy found Callum in the kitchen an hour later, staring at nothing, a cup of coffee gone cold in front of him."He won't talk to me either," Callum said, before she could ask. "I knocked. He told me he needed time.""Everyone keeps needing time." Ivy sat down across from him, exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with sleep. "I'm so tired of adults needing time while the rest of us just sit here not knowing anything."Callum reached across the table, covering her hand with his. "We'll get it out of them eventually. I promise you that.""How? They've both spent decades not telling anyone. I don't think a headache and a locked study door is going to magically turn into honesty."Something flickered across Callum's face, a

Nobody moved for a long moment. Ivy sat frozen on the couch, the words rearranging themselves over and over in her head without landing anywhere solid."Reagan's father," she said finally. "You're telling me Reagan and Dean's father believed he was my father too.""He believed it enough to file for custody," Marcus said quietly. "That's what mattered legally, at the time.""Why would he believe that?" Callum's voice was tight, urgent. "Diane, were you, was there ever a relationship between you and him?"Diane flinched, but didn't look away. "Briefly. Before I was ever involved with Marcus, before any of this. It ended badly, and by the time I found out I was pregnant, I genuinely didn't know for certain who the father was. I told him the truth, that there was a chance, and he decided the chance was enough to act on.""And Marcus stepped in," Ivy said slowly, looking at him now.Marcus nodded. "I was already close to your mother by then, helping her, however I could. When he pursued cu