The text came at 7 AM, before I'd even finished my coffee.
Jay: Can we talk? Somewhere away from the facility. I need to explain some things.
I stared at his message for a full minute before typing back: I told you we can't do this.
His response was immediate: One walk, that's all. No injuries to treat, no interruptions, no excuses. Just two people talking like normal human beings.
Summer: You're engaged.
Jay: And I need the chance to make things right, to explain what I should have explained in that equipment room before you walked away. Please, Summer. I'm not asking for anything more than a conversation.
I set down my phone, picked it up again, set it down. The memory of his face when I'd left him standing among the shelves rose unbidden—the devastation, the words he'd been trying to say that I hadn't let him finish.
Jay: Please, his next message said. Give me one evening. If you still want me to leave you alone after that, I will. Promise.
Against every rational instinct I possessed, I typed: Where?
The park he'd chosen was on the outskirts of the city, far enough from the training facility and St. Caroline's that running into colleagues felt unlikely.
A neutral zone, free from the weight of our professional entanglements and the watchful eyes of people who would report back to Nathan or Mariana.
I found Jay waiting near the entrance, dressed in civilian clothes that made him look younger somehow—jeans, a worn sweater, a jacket that had seen better days. No hockey jersey, no team gear, nothing that marked him as Jay Callahan, professional athlete.
"You came," he said, and the relief in his voice was almost painful to witness.
"Against my better judgment." I pulled my coat tighter, acutely aware of how close we were standing. "One hour. Then I need to get to my shift."
The paths wound through groves of oak and maple, their leaves turned to fire by the season's slow dying. Our footsteps crunched through fallen foliage, the sound rhythmic and grounding.
For the first few minutes, neither of us spoke—just walked, breathing in air that smelled like earth and decay and the particular sweetness of autumn.
"This place reminds me of somewhere I used to go as a kid." Jay said eventually. "Before everything got complicated, before I became a Callahan instead of just Jay. There was a park near our summer house, and I'd spend hours there alone, pretending I was someone else."
I stopped walking, turning to face him.
"Why are we doing this? I thought you wanted to explain yourself. To tell me about Mariana, about the engagement, about why you've been chasing me while you're promised to someone else. And instead you're... what? Sharing childhood memories?"
Jay's expression flickered—caught, but not ashamed. He took a breath, choosing his words carefully.
"I can't tell you everything about my arrangement with Mariana. I wish I could, but it's complicated in ways that involve more than just me. There are people I'm protecting, consequences that would fall on someone other than myself if I…"
He broke off, frustration tightening his jaw. "I know that sounds like an excuse, I know you've heard 'it's complicated' from men who were just buying time to keep lying."
The echo of Xavier's explanations rang in my ears: It's complicated. Just give me time.
"So I thought I'd give you something else, something real about who I am.” Jay continued, meeting my eyes with an openness that felt deliberate, vulnerable, "I figured if I can't prove myself with facts, maybe I can prove myself with honesty. Show you I'm not just playing games."
I crossed my arms, the familiar frustration rising in my chest. Another man with secrets, another man asking me to trust without giving me the full picture.
But something in Jay's expression gave me pause. There was no calculation there, no careful management of information. Just a man offering what he could, even if it wasn't everything.
"If this is some kind of manipulation…" I started.
"It's not." His voice was firm, certain. "I know I haven't earned your trust, but I'm trying, Summer. The only way I know how."
I should have walked away, should have demanded answers or accepted none at all. Instead, I started walking again, and he fell into step beside me.
Something about the crisp air and the privacy of the trees and the rawness in his voice made me want to give him the same honest answer in return.
"Fine. Since we’re sharing our stories—I wasn't always like this. In high school, I was... different. Invisible, mostly. The kind of person people looked through instead of at."
Jay's brow furrowed. "I find that hard to believe."
"Believe it." I kicked at a pile of leaves, watching them scatter. "I was bullied. Badly. For years. The kind of systematic cruelty that makes you question whether you deserve to exist at all."
He stopped walking. When I turned to face him, his expression had shifted into something I hadn't expected—genuine horror, protective anger, the face of someone confronting injustice for the first time.
"How could anyone bully you?" He gestured at me, struggling for words. "You're... you're beautiful. Intelligent in ways I can't even express. Anyone who'd hurt someone like you—they must have been jealous."
"It wasn't about beauty, Jay. I didn't look like this back then."
"Doesn't matter." His voice had gone hard, fierce. "It doesn't matter what you looked like. Anyone who'd hurt you, anyone who'd make you feel like you didn't deserve to exist…"
He shook his head, jaw tight. "I don't understand how people can be that cruel. I really don't."
The earnestness in his outrage made something twist in my chest. He meant it, every word. He was genuinely angry on behalf of a version of me he'd never known, couldn't picture, had walked past a thousand times without seeing.
I started walking again, needing the movement to steady myself. Jay fell into step beside me, his anger still radiating off him in waves.
"I transformed myself afterward," I said quietly. "Spent years becoming someone new, someone who couldn't be broken the same way. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I barely recognize the girl I used to be. That's the point, I suppose. She was too easy to hurt."
"Summer..." His voice cracked on my name.
"What was it like at your school?" I asked, deliberately shifting focus. "With bullying, I mean. Did you see much of that?"
Jay considered the question, his footsteps slowing. "Honestly? No. I mean, there was drama—high school politics, people being petty, the usual stuff. But nothing that seemed serious. At least nothing I was aware of."
He didn't look like he was lying. His confusion seemed genuine, unperformed. I absorbed this information carefully.
People from his circle had bullied me. Mariana, his childhood friend, his arranged fiancée, the girl he'd grown up beside, had made my existence a daily exercise in survival.
She'd whispered cruelties in hallways, orchestrated humiliations in bathrooms, left marks on my skin that I still carried years later. And Jay genuinely didn't seem to know.
Was he really that oblivious? Had his world been so insulated, so protected by privilege and popularity, that the suffering happening three lockers away had never registered?
Or had he simply not cared enough to notice? Had the invisible girl been so far beneath his attention that her pain hadn't warranted a second glance?
The questions burned, but I couldn't ask them. Couldn't reveal that the bullied girl and the woman walking beside him were the same person, transformed by desperation and determination into someone he'd finally decided was worth seeing.
"The people who hurt me ran in certain circles," I said carefully. "Popular crowds. The kind of kids who could do whatever they wanted because their families had money and connections."
Jay's expression darkened. "That tracks. People with power often abuse it. They think the rules don't apply to them because they've never faced real consequences."
He paused, something shifting in his face. "God, if I'd known… if I'd seen it happening—I would have stopped it. I know that probably sounds hollow coming from someone who didn't see, but I need you to know that."
Would he have though?
I studied his face, searching for the lie beneath the earnestness. But there was none, just genuine conviction, the anger of someone who believed in basic human decency and couldn't fathom its absence.
If he'd known, would he have helped? Would he have stepped between me and Mariana, used his social capital to shield someone who had none?
I'd never know for certain. The past was immutable, a locked room full of what-ifs and might-have-beens.
But watching him now—seeing the protective fury in his eyes, the way his fists had clenched at the thought of someone hurting me—I found myself believing that maybe he would have. Maybe, if he'd actually seen me, things could have been different.
Maybe we could have been different.
"I believe you," I said quietly.
His shoulders relaxed slightly, some of the tension draining from his frame. "Thank you. For telling me. For trusting me with that."
We walked in silence for a while longer, the leaves crunching beneath our feet, the autumn sun filtering through branches that were slowly going bare.
Something had shifted between us—a door opening, a wall coming down, the tentative beginning of something that terrified me even as I moved toward it.
Jay Callahan might never have seen me in high school. But he was seeing me now. And that had to count for something.
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