23. Katerina #2
I swallow hard. Heat pools behind my eyelids.
I turn my face toward the yard, letting the swirl of lights fill my vision.
"It's been a while since I've chosen something my parents actively disapprove of.
We had a huge conversation about it a couple of weeks ago.
They tried to talk me out of it. But it got to the point where I realized...
if I don't cling to this, I'll lose it for good.
" I inhale. "I'm sorry, you probably didn't need to hear me vent. "
Bex shakes her head. "I'm not exactly neutral on family tension. It's your big dream, right? You can't let them take that away."
I let my legs stretch out, crossing them at the ankles. I stare at the lights along the railing. "I should probably decide soon, about the direction. If I get accepted to one of these programs, which is a huge if, my life changes drastically. But I think I'm ready."
A band across the water starts playing a jazz tune. Faint horns echo across the lake. Around us, the hum of conversation from other guests moves in and out of earshot. It all feels like a place outside of time.
Bex turns slightly to face me. Her voice gentles. "If you could document anything, right now, what would it be?"
I don't hesitate. I don't even think. "Your family.
" The words are out before I can measure them.
"The Russo story. Immigration, sacrifice, the gap between parents and children.
The wedding that put all that tension under a microscope.
This moment, right here." I pause, color sweeping across my cheeks. "You," I almost add, but I don't.
For a second, Bex's mouth parts with no sound. Our gazes lock. Then Bex clears her throat. "Yeah. That's... exactly what it is."
I swallow. My chest feels ready to crack open. "I didn't mean to single you all out."
Bex offers a slow half smile. "I know. But you're right," she says softly. "It is exactly the story. It's the one we're living. Especially right now, with so much on the line."
My heart lurches in a way that tells me we're no longer just talking about documentaries. I study Bex's hand resting near my own. It would be so easy to shift an inch and let our palms brush. The thought makes my breath catch.
Bex's gaze drops to the porch boards. "Kit." A single word, rough around the edges, like it might be the start of something she isn't sure how to say. Then, more softly, "I don't know what we're doing."
My pulse stumbles. I try to swallow around the dryness in my throat.
Everything in me wants to offer a plan, a color-coded timeline for how we'd proceed.
But I have none of that. "I don't know either," I whisper.
"We're... sitting on a porch, and you're telling me things about your family you probably weren't planning to share, and I'm telling you about my film dreams, and it's all very... "
I break off, lost for words, and finally confess: "I'm not sure how to keep one foot in the old script and one foot in this new place. I keep trying to manage it, but it's... impossible."
Bex lifts her head. In the hush, she says, "Do you want to pretend after tomorrow that none of this ever mattered? That it was just something that happened in New Orleans?"
The question rattles my chest. I know Bex is referencing the ring, the entire bizarre secret. The wedding license that exists in real, legal form somewhere. The fact that our families have no idea. My face burns with the memory of how quickly and intensely it happened.
Bex draws a careful breath. "I don't want that," she says, sounding like she's revealing something raw.
"I can't leave Hollyvale and go back to Brooklyn and act like it was just a drunken weirdness.
Not after... the way we talk, the way we look at each other when we're not paying attention. I can't do it."
My heart thumps so loudly I'm certain Bex can hear it. I'm panicking, not in a fearful sense but in an overwhelmed sense. Because Bex just said she doesn't want to walk away. That is real. And it means something I'm not sure I have terms for.
One of the bulbs overhead flickers, casting a momentary strobe effect across the step.
Bex wets her lips. "I get that we might have to figure out a strategy, or some sort of plan so we don't blow up everyone's wedding. Or our own careers. Or everything. But I'm done pretending it's nothing."
I stare, searching Bex's face for the blow of a final punchline. There is none. Bex is absolutely serious, that light in her eyes raw with urgency.
"I..." I start. Then pause.
I can sense the electricity in the air, the tension that has existed between us from the start. It has just begun to coil tighter. So many times in the last weeks, I've told myself I was reading too much into it. But maybe I haven't read enough.
The jazz across the lake rises in volume for a moment, a brassy chord drifting on the breeze. The lights on the pine tree shimmer. I want to say something certain, something that confirms I'm also done pretending. But the words won't form.
Bex's fingertips twitch on the wood step, less than a breath away.
I open my mouth. My mind whirls with a half-dozen disclaimers. We need to be logical, we have to time this carefully, we can't overshadow Sofia's day. All true. None of it cancels the fact that I yearn to close the gap between us.
One woman has decided: Bex. She doesn't want to let this go.
So now it's up to me to choose. Yes, or no. Now, or never.
My breath catches. The music floats, the lake glistens under Christmas lights in July, and the hush between us feels like an ending and a beginning.
Then the moment hangs, suspended, as Bex's eyes lock on mine, waiting.
And the porch light above us flickers again, bright, bright, then plunging us halfway into shadow—