Two days before the contest, Callum packed his things, reviewed Nate's last batch of solutions, and triple-checked the itinerary.
He had insisted Nate's parents come with them. The boy was brilliant, but the nerves were brutal, and having his mother and father there seemed to balance everything. The flight to Austin, Texas was uneventful, and for a short, blessed time—every haunting thought about Lara Evans was buried under the flurry of math drills, contest rules, and Nate's relentless questions.
The competition took place in a sprawling, glass-paneled convention center buzzing with bright banners and the hum of competition. Callum sat through the rounds with quiet intensity, watching as Nate breezed through round one, then two, then crushed the tie-breaker round with a near-perfect score.
When they called Nate's name, first place flashing in bold letters on the screen, the boy stared at it in stunned silence for a second before beaming. Callum felt his chest tighten with something real—pride, relief, maybe even a flicker of joy.
The applause roared.
For the first time in months, Callum smiled without hesitation.
Nate's parents hugged their son, then turned to him with teary eyes and overwhelming gratitude.
"Thank you," Nate's mother whispered, hands clutching his. "You changed his life."
He didn't know what to say. He never really did when parents looked at him like that.
That night, they treated him to dinner. Laughter, clinking glasses, harmless conversation. No traces of stolen photographs or perfume trailing behind. No glints of knowing eyes. Just a night. Just a win.
The next morning, Nate and his parents flew back early for a celebration at school. Callum stayed behind.
He had another stop to make.
Austin was home to someone else.
His younger sister, Anne.
She'd moved here five years ago with her husband, Greg, and they now had two daughters—ages four and one. He hadn't seen them since Christmas.
He hailed a cab, gave the address, and tried not to think about the moment her youngest would probably cry at the sight of him. He wasn't good with babies. Never had been. Anne used to joke that he'd hold them like they were explosives.
But maybe that's why he was going.
He needed a reminder of something… normal.
And family—even the messy kind—was as close as he could get.
The cab rolled through the quieter streets of suburban Austin, the sun warming the car windows in sharp stripes. Callum leaned his elbow against the door, letting the cool glass temper the thrum in his temples. He was already drafting what he'd say to Anne—he owed her more than just a casual visit, after all.
He hadn't even noticed they'd slowed near a red light until something caught his eye.
Someone.
A figure walking on the sidewalk, not five feet away from his window. Just ahead of a row of quaint local cafés and yoga studios.
A girl. No—a woman.
Hair loose, dark with a gleam of auburn where the sunlight caught it. Slender frame. Familiar gait.
He blinked, heart hitching in his throat.
No.
His head snapped up again as they passed her by. His pulse spiked.
It couldn't be.
He twisted slightly in his seat, eyes glued to the back window as the figure continued walking, unbothered, unhurried—oblivious to the storm that had just broken inside him.
"Shit," he muttered under his breath.
"You okay, sir?" the driver asked.
He waved it off. "Yeah. Yeah, sorry."
But no—he wasn't okay.
He almost pulled out his phone and dialed Allen, the school's security officer, to ask if Lara had signed in that morning. But he stopped himself.
It was Saturday.
There was no school.
What the hell was he doing?
Was he really this far gone that he was imagining her here? Seeing ghosts in a city over a thousand miles from home?
He dragged a hand down his face, frustrated with himself. Maybe it was the lack of sleep. Maybe everything about Lara had finally gnawed a permanent space in his head.
"You're insane," he whispered to himself.
The cab continued.
His phone buzzed.
A notification lit up the screen—he'd been tagged in photos from the contest. Nate's dad. He opened the app instinctively, welcoming the distraction, and found a carousel of images: Nate posing with his medal, Callum standing beside him in one. A blurry action shot during the last round.
He was smiling in most of them.
He paused.
Third photo in.
A candid snapshot—Callum and Nate in the background, Nate's parents slightly out of focus in the foreground, mid-clap.
And on the very edge of the frame, half-turned away from the camera, just a glimpse of a woman ducking her head, walking past the window behind them.
Shoulder-length waves of dark auburn.
Sharp posture. A sway he couldn't unsee now.
His thumb hovered.
That looked like her.
That couldn't be her.
But it looked like her.
"Jesus," he whispered, staring harder. He zoomed in. Grainy, but the shape of her jaw, her wrist, the faint curl of her hand—
No.
He shook his head, almost violently.
Lara wouldn't fly to Texas. That didn't make sense. Students didn't do that. Teenagers didn't have that kind of money. Especially not girls who claimed they couldn't even produce a birth certificate for a math contest.
This was delusion.
He was delusional.
He locked his phone and shoved it into his pocket like it burned.
He didn't want to entertain the possibility.
He didn't want to know what it meant if it was her.
The rest of the ride blurred past him—street signs, parked cars, pedestrians chatting on corners. All of it passed like wind against glass.
But that photo sat in his mind like a splinter.
And a single thought bled through all the noise:
If it was her... why didn't she say anything?