Amy moved back to the small town with her young son, hoping for a fresh start. On his first day of school, she walked him into the classroom—and froze at the sight of the teacher’s face, one she’d spent seven years trying to forget. Daniel. Her ex-husband. And her son’s homeroom teacher. Seven years ago, she’d caught him with another woman, left heartbroken, and never told him she was pregnant. Now he stood there, gentle and patient, the perfect teacher admired by all parents. In contrast, she was just a worn-out single mother who avoided staying long at parent meetings. Worse still, her son looked more and more like him, and the townsfolk began to watch them with knowing glances. Daniel grew suspicious, then certain. He felt anger, then fell silent, before awkwardly drawing close as both teacher and father. He showed up at the hospital late at night when their son had a fever, stood beside her when she was flustered at the school celebration, and turned up every time she tried to run away. Amy’s walls slowly crumbled, yet the pain of his betrayal still lingered between them. Until one day in the vice principal’s office, she heard her once closest best friend sneer: “Do you really think Daniel was in that room by choice all those years ago?” When the truth came out, Amy realized she’d hated the wrong man for seven long years. And the man she’d wrongly blamed had been waiting for her all along. This time, she would not run away again.
