Sweet Romance11 min read
I Woke Up Ten Again — and Hugo Santos Moved In
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I blew out the candle and told myself, "Happy birthday," like it was a promise I could keep.
The phone on the table buzzed and lit the room with someone else's warmth. My boyfriend of eight years called and left a message that practiced kind cruelty: "We need to talk." The last message was an efficient, practiced unburdening — he had a fiancée, and I had been his excuse for years.
I fell asleep with the smell of wax and the sound of his goodbye looping in my head.
"I swear I will never let that happen again," I whispered, meaning it for the first time in a long time.
"Kaelynn," my mother said, tugging my blanket like she always did, "get up, you lazy."
"Mom?" I sat up and saw her face the way I had last seen it years ago — younger, soft, hands that still smelled faintly of fried dough from the market.
"Today's your birthday. Remember? May twenty-ninth," she sang.
Two heartbeats later I saw my small hands when I lifted them: the mirror showed a child. The house was the old one, not the high-rise I had left for a city of glass and late nights. I had gone back to 2005. I was ten.
I learned things fast that week.
"Kaelynn," my father said, setting a plate of thin bean pancakes in front of me. "Eat up, you've got school."
"They smell like home," I told him, and the memory of survival tastes and sleepless nights and awful apartments washed through me. I promised myself two things: keep my parents safe, and never fall for fools again.
I sat down with the textbook and thought, "If I remember tomorrow's math, I should act on it." My memory was a film strip, every frame now vivid. Things I had read, strategies I had used in another life, all settled like new books on my shelves.
On the first morning back at school a teacher I remembered — Ms. Reed — smiled and announced, "We have a new transfer."
A small boy in a dark-red plaid shirt stepped in with a serious face. He bowed and said, "Hello, I am Hugo Santos."
Everyone's eyes slid across him like people noticing a clean coin. The girls fluttered. My friend Juliet — Juliet Neves — whispered in my ear, "He's so pretty, Kaelynn!"
"I know," I said. "Don't go making me the hero of your romantic comedies."
Hugo sat near the front, and the teacher assigned him beside a thin boy who loved to draw racecars and carried his whole world on scrap paper.
"Hi," he said, turning to me. "I'm Karter Griffin."
"You're loud," Karter complained to me later in the hallway. "You didn't listen to my racing theory."
"I listened," I said, smiling because the truth was duller: I had been at boardroom meetings and conference calls as an adult, but it didn't mean I wouldn't play tractor-racing on paper with a kid.
"Kaelynn," Karter puffed, "I drew a better corner."
"Save it for the match," I told him, and the three of us walked to lunch with Juliet chattering about which costumes she'd made for the next school play.
Hugo didn't come to the food line. He stood by the door like a sentinel. I noticed small things: perfect handwriting, a quiet patience, a look that sounded older than his years. He watched the room with a calm I recognized from corporate meetings. He was not ordinary.
After class, a man in a dark suit and a discreet ring of silver buttons stepped into our neighborhood like he had bought the place months before. He introduced himself in the soft, efficient voice of a professional: "I am Gunther Dunn. Mr. Santos's house manager."
Gunther bowed low and placed a tidy bag of envelopes on our table as if the paper alone could solve a thousand small debts. He offered us a polite smile and Megan from the bakery came to the gate to peek.
"We are renovating," Gunther said, looking at my parents. "Our young master needs a place to stay for a while. If you, Mr. Wheeler, would allow it, we can compensate — a monthly amount."
My mother whispered to my father and to me. "Three thousand a month," she said like a spell, like safety.
I felt my throat dry. I knew two things that mattered then, and both pulled at me in opposite directions: my parents were honest, proud. They would not accept charity. They would accept work. And Hugo — Hugo's expression had not changed. He was small, but his eyes had an adult's calculation.
"Grandfather — excuse me — Mr. Wheeler," Gunther said, pressing a neat leather envelope into my father's hands. "Three thousand is the initial contract."
My mother stared at the money like one might stare at a lantern in a dark place. "We don't want to inconvenience your family," she said carefully.
"You're not inconveniencing anyone. We need someone who can cook small meals and be near the house." Gunther's voice was even. He nodded at Hugo, who tilted his head and offered a small, practiced smile to my mother. He leaned forward and brushed the beginning of my hair back gently, an intimacy that felt like silk and a warning at once.
"Don't be soft, Mom," I whispered, and my mother squeezed my hand.
"Okay," she said finally. "We will do it. But only Kaelynn can go to his home on weekdays. We will check the agreement."
Hugo's hand touched my arm so briefly I thought I dreamed it. His voice, when he finally spoke, was light as paper but steady. "Thank you."
The house we moved into was three blocks away from ours, a neat two-story that smelled faintly of lemon and leather. The first full day there, Gunther left his calling card: The house would be mine to take care of a few nights each week. It will be used as a place for Hugo to stay when parents were away. In return my family would get the pay.
That was the beginning. I filed my hesitation away and started to use the gift I had been given — the memory, the knowledge — like a small lamp.
On the train to Beijing with my parents and grandparents, a commotion outside our carriage pulled everyone to the door. A young woman fought with the ticket attendant, swearing that some people owed her a favor. Her luggage burst open and jewelry, cheap and brilliant and scattered, spilled across the floor.
"Please," she pleaded, eyes wide. "This is my work. I sell these to survive."
The beads and bracelets were the sort of art I knew — bold, color-clashing, a designer's fight with norms. I crouched and picked up a small braided bracelet with a metal tag that said, "Beauty." The necklace style was familiar, and a memory struck like a bell.
"Your name is Freya," I guessed.
She stopped mid-tug and looked at me, incredulous. "How do you know—"
"I know talent when I see it," I said, and I gave her my business card — the name of a little design house in Beijing where a friend might help. "Go there. Ask for opportunities. Pay me back with work."
She looked at the card as if I had handed her a lifeline. She grabbed my hand and, later that night, kept her word. She stayed up on our hotel roof and kept watch against pickpockets for an hour. I had offered money; she had given me loyalty. A small bargain was struck, another small fortune stored.
Then came the trouble.
The money in my father's pocket could not hide us from greedy eyes. News of the lottery win traveled like wind. Relatives who had been absent for years poured in with smiles that wanted more than good wishes.
"Mr. Wheeler, cousin," said Mauricio Blanc, a distant uncle with a big mustache and a louder voice than I liked. He had one of those smiles that lives on a hinge and never closes.
"How's business?" my father asked politely.
Mauricio stepped forward and unrolled a plan like a carpet. "You should invest. You give me some seed money; I bring returns. Factory, distribution. The works."
I felt the hair at the back of my neck rise. The story he told smelled like the old-fashioned scams I knew: layering promises until the bottom one folded. I remembered, in my last life, people with that exact charm stealing savings and trust in one long easy breath.
"We already bought land," my father said. "We have no extra to spare."
Mauricio's smile sharpened. "But with my know-how, with my partners—"
"Partners?" I asked before I could stop myself. "What are their names?"
He blinked as if surprised at being asked to be specific. "Oh, local partners, friends."
"Do they have addresses? Licenses? Are these partners registered with the provincial commerce office?" I asked, and a few neighbors, listening, tilted toward us.
Mauricio's face remained sunny. "You don't need to worry about paperwork at your stage. We can start small. Give me one hundred thousand."
One hundred thousand. The number fell between us like a stone. My mother's face paled and then hardened. "You leave my house," she said. "Now."
Mauricio scoffed and launched into another speech. "Listen, cousin, the city is changing. Give me a chance and you won't regret it."
By now a crowd had collected — relatives, neighbors, the bakery boy who knew everything, and a few women selling vegetables. The sun leaned down to hear. Gunther Dunn stood behind Hugo with respectful distance, his posture a fortress.
I stepped forward and said, "Mauricio, you used to sell weight-loss pills from a van, didn't you? The company shut down after complaints." A murmur rippled through the crowd. I had found records in my memory — and in an old newspaper clipping in the village shop — about a man who promised wealth and left debt.
Mauricio's eyes darted, from my face to the faces around him. His voice tried for mirth. "Now who's being dramatic? Child, you don't know the ways of business."
"I know enough," I said, quiet but sure. "You took money from Aunt Maria last year for a 'seed' and she lost it. Your telephone number is still listed under addresses in two townships for 'consultations' and several complaints. I saw the complaint file at the market office."
He laughed too loudly. "Accusations without proof."
Gunther's hand slid into his jacket and produced a neat stack of photocopies. "We have her receipts," he said. "And statements. If you'd like to deny them in front of everyone, please."
Mauricio's grin fluttered. "Who are you to...?"
"Neighbors," I said, nodding around. "Everybody here has heard your schemes."
"Kaelynn," my father said, taking my hand. "If this man—"
"Let me handle it," I said. I had an urge that was almost like a law: exploit the stage.
I lifted my phone. "If you want to clear things, Mauricio, sign a statement now, here and now, under the witness of the neighborhood committee. If you refuse, do you want the complaints to be read in full?"
He scoffed. "You'll read it yourself? Very well, then."
I read complaints that had been simmering for years: blank guarantees, late deliveries, empty promises. I read Ms. Chan's name, then a farmers' co-op leader, then my aunt's tiny signature. Every name was a glass, every glass had cracks. Voices rose and fell. People began to nod. The bakery boy spat and said, "He conned old Mrs. Li out of her pension!"
Mauricio's face hardened in stages. First a shrug, then a thin smile. "Nonsense. Lies. You misread paper."
"Is this a lie?" I asked, and I stepped aside so Gunther could hand him a photocopy of a canceled check, the kind that couldn't be faked easily. I watched the crowd lean closer. I watched Mauricio's fingers tremble as he held the paper.
He opened his mouth to deny. His voice failed him, slurred by the pressure from neighbors who wanted their names to be respected. He took a breath and said, "I— those were business risks. I didn't— I never—"
"People trusted you," I said, "and you used that trust to borrow. It's different than risks. It is taking."
The mood changed. A neighbor who sold spices spat, "You promised we'd get machinery and nothing came. I gave you ten thousand." Another man stepped forward with a faded receipt. A woman I had seen only at weddings waved a scrap of paper and wept.
Mauricio shoved a paper back at me. "You don't know the whole story."
"You sure?" I said. "Tell the woman whose pension you took why her payments stopped. Tell the farmers why their soy didn't deliver. Tell us all why your 'partners' keep switching names."
He tried bravado. "You can't pin everything on me. I'm a businessman. Sometimes—"
"Sometimes you take more than you give and call it growth," I interrupted. "Not this time."
The crowd stopped hearing Mauricio's old sermons. They listened to the names, to receipts, to the line of proof that smoothed out into a rope that bound him. His voice dwindled.
He changed tactics. "I can make this right—give me time, give me money, let me—"
"Give you money?" I repeated slowly. "You want us to throw money into your cycle? Look at the faces now, Mauricio. These people are here. If you want to make this right, you sign an agreement: you return what you can or we go to the local office tomorrow and press charges."
For a moment he was stunned into silence, the kind that felt like a body hit by weather. He recognized that the scene had turned. Neighbors pulled out small notebooks, like they were ready to become jurors. Gunther placed two fingers on the photocopies as if to physically anchor them. My father — honest and blunt — looked Mauricio dead in the eye as one hard man to another.
The first change in Mauricio's expression was numbness. Then anger like a boiled hot weather. He swore and blustered because it was all he had left. He denied again, more frayed this time. "You can't do this to me. I am family! I can fix—"
"You are not family when you use family like a lender," someone in the crowd shouted. The bakery boy took a step forward. "You owe us bread. You owe people dignity."
Mauricio's voice went from a roar to a small, raw sound of someone being squeezed. He fumbled with his pockets and then with his speech. "I can repay, I can—"
"Then sign now," I said. "Open the bank book. Tell the names. Return as much as you can and apologize in front of everyone you asked for money. Promise us you won't do this to anyone else."
The neighbors leaned in; there was a collective hunger for justice, not cruelty. Mauricio, cornered in the bright public square, faltered. The arrogance that had lived in him was stripped like bark from a rotten tree. He started to list what he could return, at first small amounts, then larger, then asking for time. Each offer was a collapse from pretense: smug, shocked, shameless, pleading.
"Please," he said eventually, "I will— I won't run. I will sign. I will—"
The crowd reacted in different voices: someone clapped, not in joy but in release. "Finally!" another cried. "We can get our money back." Older women muttered about how long they'd waited. A young man took out his phone and pointed the camera to capture the moment. A child nearby asked, "Is this what grown-ups do?" A few people snapped photos. People murmured the story out — a broadcast begun.
Mauricio's face crumpled. He looked like a puppet whose strings had been yanked, then cut. He tried to bargain further, throat thickening into pleas. "I can repay you if you just—"
"Stop," my mother said, a thin, exhausted voice. "You have to show you can be honest. Your promises matter only if they are kept."
He signed. He apologized. He listed names and promised to meet the market office the next morning. As he spoke, the crowd's tone shifted again to a ledger of judgment: some wanted harshness, some wanted risk contained, some wanted to throw him out of town. But the public scene had done two things: it took his swagger and turned it into a timed watch, and it gave the community back its voice.
Mauricio's reactions had moved in a line of increasing exposure: first bluster, then denial, then rage, then bargaining, then begging. The neighbors watched him shrink.
"I will not do this again," he begged, then repeated the words like a chant until his voice broke.
"No one is happy, Mauricio," my father said, "but we will start the paperwork. If you break this, we will do more than watch. We will file."
He nodded, and tears — or theater — leaked from his corners of his eyes. People around him did the math: how much would come back, how long would it take. The bakery boy spat one more time and then, to everyone's small surprise, gave Mauricio a chance to sign a repayment agreement in front of the crowd: names, amounts, dates. Mauricio signed. The old feeling of vindictive drama lurched into a practical list.
When the papers were folded and the names recorded, people dispersed slowly, like a tide that had accepted a change of current.
I stood with my family and listened to the footsteps fade. Gunther pulled me aside as if to say thank you. Hugo, who had watched without expression, nodded at me in a way that held both relief and something like respect.
"You were brave," he said. "You used the town's own voice. That is stronger than any law book."
"It could have been worse," I answered. "But it's done."
He looked at me as if he was measuring me for something future and said softly, "If anyone steps on your people again, tell me."
"Deal," I said.
The keys Hugo left with me — a small set with a brass fob — felt warm in my palm, like a promise made and a promise kept. I kept thinking of all the small trades we make to keep our families safe.
There were other challenges ahead: a young designer named Freya who would become an ally, a class election that would teach me how power looks in a classroom, and a boardroom I would have to manage when I became worn and brilliant at the same time. Hugo and I traded words like currency: sometimes careful, sometimes sharp, sometimes sweet.
"Kaelynn," he said one afternoon, handing me a small orange soda because he remembered the brand I loved, "you never asked for my help. But if you want it, I will not pretend I don't."
"I don't want you to pretend," I said. "I want you to be honest."
"I am," he said.
I laughed, because being honest was the new luxury I had learned to afford.
At the edge of the garden Hugo's butler, Gunther, had left a stack of keys on my table. I picked one up and turned it. The brass glowed in my palm in the late light.
"If everything else fails," I said, "I'll know where to knock."
Hugo's hand found mine, warm and steady, and for the first time since I remembered the taste of goodbye, I felt like I might hold on to what's mine — and maybe hold something of his too.
The End
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