CHAPTER ONE
Elementary school was nothing like Anne Lee remembered. Or it could be she didn’t remember it all that well. She was thirty-one years old. Quite some time had passed since she’d attended elementary school.
No, some things were definitely different. The whiteboards of her school days had gone extinct—along with the distinctive scent of dry-erase markers—to be replaced with smart boards. The interactive board in the front of this particular classroom had “Let’s have a beautiful day, kiddos!” flashing across it.
Anne crinkled her nose, reminded of the futuristic cities depicted in sci-fi films. But the cool efficiency of technology was offset by the children’s drawings of autumn leaves, taped neatly on the walls. The bright, effusive artwork added much-needed warmth and cheer to the room. She was glad that part hadn’t changed.
But her eyes widened with growing bewilderment as she sat at the back of the room in a plastic chair meant for smaller bottoms. Were second graders really this tiny? Why were so many of them crammed into a single classroom? And how did they speak so fast? Did they not need to breathe?
She couldn’t fathom how her little cousin, Bethany—Ms. Hong to the children—could possibly hear herself think, much less teach twenty-some mini tornadoes. At the moment, her cousin stood staring down at her desk with her hand cradling her forehead, like she couldn’t remember what she needed to do.
Perhaps Bethany planned Career Week so she could take a breather while guests with interesting professions came into her class to speak with the children. Her cousin said she’d saved Anne, an actress, and the afternoon guest, a firefighter, for Friday to end the week with a bang.
Anne didn’t know about a bang. More like a pop and a death sizzle. A wry smile curled her lips. That wasn’t entirely fair. Being an actress in Korea had certainly had its moments. She’d started out with smaller K-drama roles, then worked her way up to playing memorable secondary characters until she finally landed leading roles. She had even starred in two critically acclaimed films, but the lukewarm box office reception had her returning to her TV roots.
Be it film or TV, bringing a story to life as the lead actress was as rewarding as it was exhilarating. And collaborating with the director and the other actors to create something that viewers became fervently invested in—a bit too much at times—was pure magic.
But when she hit thirty, the starring roles had dwindled at an alarming rate until she was offered her first auntie role six months ago. It was just the swift kick in the behind she’d needed. She had allowed herself to sink into inertia, becoming complacent in the life she chose out of duty. She had already fulfilled that duty—at least the part that had bound her to her life in Korea. It was past time she came home to America.
Not home home. She couldn’t fathom moving back in with her father and her older sister, Juliette. Both of them were beautiful and wildly vain, and they took every opportunity to remind Anne that she … wasn’t. That she was just Anne.
Her fans and the media—and the corporate sponsors who cast her in numerous commercials—thought her quiet beauty captivating. But she could never quite believe them after being just Anne for so long.
She huffed a humorless laugh under her breath. Since moving back home was not an option—at least not a healthy one—she bought a condo in Marina Del Rey, where her younger sister, Tessa, did research work for her computer science PhD. Being near the vast serenity of the Pacific Ocean was an added bonus.
Anne jolted out of her musings when an off-key bell buzzed through the school, sounding like a musical toy on its last dregs of battery. Bethany straightened at her desk as though the school bell had switched on her teacher mode, and an affectionate smile lit her lovely face as she glanced at her students. She met Anne’s eyes and winked before walking up to the brightly colored mat at the front of the classroom.
The kids lounged in various positions of repose on the mat, chattering and laughing without bothering to breathe. Even though the chaos was overwhelming, Anne wished she knew what they found so funny. She wanted to be delighted, too. To laugh until she was red-cheeked and winded.
“Time to pop your marshmallows in,” her cousin said in a soft but firm voice, then puffed out her cheeks.
What is she doing? Bethany looked like a startled blowfish—a startled blowfish in a pink collared dress with a perfect French bob. Was she trying to make her students laugh? Her cousin was only twenty-four years old, but she became a teacher right out of college. She had enough experience to know better than to rile up already hyper children.
Anne smoothed her bemused frown with a shake of her head. Her baby cousin wasn’t fourteen anymore. She didn’t need to worry about her.
While Bethany stood in place looking resolutely silly, the ringing chatter filling the room quieted almost at once. Anne looked around with wide eyes. With puffed cheeks of their own, the kids silently scrambled around until each of them claimed a different square, their assigned “seats,” on the mat. She shouldn’t have doubted her cousin. Bethany knew what she was doing.
Bubbling laughter slipped past Anne’s lips as she belatedly realized the whole thing was absolutely adorable. Even though Anne quickly smothered her laugh with her hand, Ms. Hong and her twenty-some second graders turned and glared at her with identical blowfish faces.
Anne promptly straightened in her seat and puffed out her cheeks so she wouldn’t get in any more trouble. She puffed so hard that even her eyes bulged and her brows hiked up to her forehead. She didn’t need a mirror to know she looked ridiculous.
That was when he—Frederick Nam—stepped into the classroom. Anne forgot how to breathe as shock surrounded her like a fog. But even as she swayed in her seat, her bulging eyes stayed glued on him.
He walked with long, confident strides, certain of his welcome and unafraid to take up space. He’d always been that way. There wasn’t a room on this planet he wouldn’t feel comfortable in. People flocked to him like he exuded the warmth of the golden sun in an otherwise frigid world.
Anne was glad he still possessed his confidence and openness—glad she hadn’t somehow diminished his light. She probably never held such sway over him anyway. But that was beside the point.
Frederick is here.
Her brows drew low over her eyes as she struggled to gather her untethered thoughts. She vaguely noted the bruising force of her heart pounding against her rib cage and the shrill ringing in her ears. Frederick. He was here.
He was leaner in the face but broader everywhere else, filling out his gray polo shirt and dark jeans rather impressively. Her gaze took in his slightly overgrown hair and skittered across his wide shoulders and chest before traveling down the length of his tall frame. He looked … older, but in the best sense of the word. All the potential he had carried as a good-looking nineteen-year-old had come to fruition in his gorgeous twenty-nine-year-old self.
His face broke into a delighted grin when he spotted the children on the mat. They really were ridiculously cute. When he turned the full force of that smile on Bethany and nodded his greeting, her cousin turned a brilliant shade of pink as she scampered to meet him at a side table near the door.
Something sharp twisted in Anne’s stomach, piercing through her shock and confusion. It couldn’t be jealousy. She had no right to be jealous. She was more likely losing her mind. Get it together. But as Bethany opened her mouth to speak, Anne’s breath whooshed out of her in a noisy pfft through her puckered blowfish lips.
This time, Anne didn’t even notice the censorious glare of Ms. Hong and her twenty-some students. All she saw was Frederick as she sat utterly still, fear and hope paralyzing her. Hope? What was she hoping for? She hoped … they could leave the past in the past and be civil to each other like grown adults.
Their relationship had ended a decade ago. A chance meeting was not that big of a deal. Then why did she feel as though more hinged on this moment than she could imagine?
It took a while for Frederick’s gaze to focus on Anne, like he couldn’t understand what he was seeing. Their eyes met and fused across the classroom. Shock chipped away his smile, and something bleak and tortured flitted across his face.
A fierce jolt of relief shot through her. It hurt him to see her. He felt something for her. He hadn’t completely erased her from his heart. Dear God. Shame drowned her twisted relief. How could she be glad that a part of him still hurt over her? She didn’t want to be this selfish, greedy person.
Anne shifted her weight in her chair as though to stand. She didn’t know what she planned to do, but she couldn’t sit and watch him hurt. But she blinked and the moment was over. He’d already turned to Bethany with his charming grin back in place.
Had she imagined it all? Had she projected her own pain and regret from the last ten years onto him? Frederick was once her world, and losing him had altered her forever. He had brought out the best in her, and she lost that version of herself when she lost him.
But as much as she missed him—missed them—breaking up with him had been the right thing to do. He had an amazing job—he was a fire captain, saving people’s lives—because she didn’t let him leave everything behind for her. She wished she could’ve spared him the heartbreak, but she couldn’t regret ending things between them.
Frederick nodded at something Bethany said, his head bent solicitously toward her. Anne narrowed her eyes as indignation rose inside her. Even though she wasn’t still in love with him, she hadn’t forgotten him either. But it looked as though Frederick didn’t have the same trouble.
Copyright © 2025 by Judith J. Yi
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