Same dimples. Same wide brown eyes. Same gentle mouth I had once watched smiling beneath the prom lights when I was seventeen and too broken to believe in miracles.
Charlotte held out the food with both hands, her fingers trembling from the cold, a damp baseball cap shadowing her face.
“Your order, sir.”
Sir.
Not Tyler.
Not even a flicker of recognition.
Back in high school, I had been the overweight grieving kid people only noticed when they wanted to laugh. Now I was thirty-seven, leaner, steadier, and shaped by years of building a life from nothing. Charlotte had no reason to connect me to the boy I used to be. Education
But it still hurt.
“Would you like some water?” I finally asked. “You look exhausted.”
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