Page 63 of Sexting My Ex’s Dad

In the back of my mind, Nathan’s warm voice goes cruel and cold as my brain repeats the line he said at dinner. I don’t want to be a dad.

There’s no telling if that will be true when he learns the truth, or if he’ll regret it, or if he’ll hate me for keeping it from him. I don’t know if he’ll search for me, or if he’ll find me.

I leave Maya a voice note, telling her everything and letting her know that I’ll be in touch with her. Of all the people I’ve known till now, she’s one of the ones who will keep my secrets safe.

By the time the city lights fade behind the car, I’m gone.

12

NATHAN SR

SEVEN YEARS LATER, THE DAY OF

Portland greets me with wet pavement, a full inbox, and a conference agenda designed by someone who hates sleep. I step out of the car at the hotel entrance and adjust my cuffs, then I give the valet my keys and my room name like I’m handing over control on purpose. My phone keeps vibrating with calendar reminders, and I keep ignoring them until I’m inside.

Hawthorne sent me here to speak on trauma systems, quality metrics, and inter-department coordination. The crowd is the usual mix of administrators, surgeons, board members, and people who like to say “stakeholders” with a straight face. I can do this in my sleep, and I often have.

It’s been six years since Athena disappeared, and I still think of her every day. Not in a romantic, soft-focus way, not as a nostalgic ache I can file away, but as a constant irritation under the skin. I’ve learned how to function around it, and I’ve learned how to keep my face calm when her name appears in my mind without invitation.

I’ve gone on dates. I’ve gone on enough dates that I can predict the entire evening by the appetizer course, and I can do it while smiling and making the other person feel chosen. I’ve sat across from intelligent women with stable careers, clean histories, and the kind of compatibility that makes therapists nod, then I’ve walked them to their cars and felt nothing afterward except relief that the performance is over.

None of it has ever felt like her.

Athena didn’t fit neatly into my life, and she didn’t try to. She walked into a hospital full of ego and panic and made frightened children calm, and she did it with humor sharp enough to cut through bullshit. She looked at me like I was a man, not a title, and I broke that trust in one dinner conversation I still replay with a kind of disgust that never fades.

Nate has gotten worse with time. He’s louder now, and he’s more polished on the surface, which makes the rot underneath it more difficult for strangers to see. He treats entitlement like a personality trait, he treats women like accessories, and he treats my refusal to fund his nonsense like a personal betrayal. He still believes he deserves what he wants, and he still believes he’s the victim when he doesn’t get it.

Cindy has tried to circle back into my life like she’s returning to a house she never moved out of. She calls, she suggests dinner, she plays the warm ex, and she shifts into threats the second she hears “no.” I have refused her every time, and she continues to act surprised that refusal is a permanent state.

I still think she has something to do with how quickly Athena vanished from my life, but I don’t have the evidence to connect the dots.

The first day of the conference drags. I speak in the morning, I sit through panels in the afternoon, and I shake hands with people who want their photo with a trauma surgeon. I eat dinner with colleagues who talk about budgets and “culture,” and I keep my face neutral while my mind keeps slipping sideways into older memories I didn’t invite.

It’s 5:18 p.m. I leave the last panel with my name still on my badge and a polite smile still on my face, then I walk out of the hotel before anyone can funnel me into drinks. I don’t text anyone, I don’t explain, and I don’t pretend I want to network.

I head into the city on foot with my jacket open and my hands in my pockets, then I let my feet choose streets that look lived-in instead of designed for tourists. Portland feels softer than Boston, less sharp around the edges, and it should make it easier to breathe. It doesn’t.

I pass restaurants filling up for dinner, then quieter blocks with porch lights and strollers, and I realize I’m moving toward green space without planning to. The park entrance comes into view while the sun is still up, and the sound of children carries across the grass. Parents sit on benches and pretend to relax while their eyes never stop tracking movement. I slow near the edge of the path and scan the area without thinking, the same habit I use in trauma bays when I’m assessing a room.

Then I see Athena sitting on a bench near the swings with a sketchbook in her lap and a tote bag beside her. Her hair is longer, darker, pulled back in a loose knot that looks like it was done quickly then forgotten. She’s dressed casually, jacket, jeans, sneakers, and she looks like this park is part of her routine. The sun has cast her in gold, she’s never been so remote and beautiful at the same time. She could be a ghost, or a dream.

My body stops before my mind finishes the sentence.

The world narrows to her profile, her hands, the way she tilts her head as she listens to something off to the side. I stand still with my hands in my pockets and my shoulders squared. The last thing I want is to startle her, and the first thing I feel is a sharp, irrational need to see if she’s real.

An excited giggle beside her pulls my attention away, and I look down at a little girl beside Athena. The child leans toward the sketchbook and asks a question with her whole face. Athena answers and starts drawing, her pencil moving quickly while the little girl watches like an art critic with sticky hands. Athena’s expression softens when she concentrates, and it’s the same expression I used to see when she explained a procedure to a frightened child.

The girl says something, then Athena pauses for half a second and draws something, her mouth twitching as if she’s trying not to react too strongly, then she keeps drawing and keeps listening. The child keeps talking without taking a breath, animated and confident, as if her story controls the world.

Athena laughs under her breath.

The little girl tilts her head to study the drawing, then she looks up, and I see her eyes clearly for the first time. Storm-gray. Not a vague resemblance. Not the kind of gray you can rationalize into coincidence. The exact shade that shows up in my own face, the exact shade that used to make nurses call me intense even when I was being polite.

My legs lock in place.

I don’t step closer. I don’t let my body pull me into their space. I stay where I am with my hands in my pockets and my shoulders squared, and I force myself to breathe through my nose until the moment stops tilting. The child blinks slowly at Athena and smiles, and her grin appears suddenly and takes over her entire face.

My mind jumps backward six years without warning.