Kate hadn’t planned on going to the reunion.

Too much history. Too many versions of herself she’d outgrown. But curiosity—and a strange sense of unfinished business—pulled her back to the old school hall dressed up with fairy lights and cheap nostalgia.

That’s when she saw you.

You were standing near the drinks table, older, calmer, unmistakably familiar. Not frozen in time like everyone else seemed to be—but refined, like you’d edited yourself carefully.

“Katherine Lockwood,” you said, smiling when her eyes met yours. “You never liked being called Kate back then.”

Her chest tightened. “I didn’t tell anyone that,” she replied coolly.

“You didn’t have to,” you said. “You corrected people every time.”

She watched you closely now. “We didn’t talk much in school.”