Chapter 25 #2
I want to tell her everything. I want to sit on this counter and spill it all. The car, the apartment, the way he says my name in the dark, the trip we're planning, every single thing I've been carrying alone for months. I am bursting with it.
But telling Erin means putting her in the middle again. Between me and Rome, the way she was when I chose to take a break from school. She chose my side then and it nearly broke them.
I won't do that to her again, not when they're this happy. Not when my brother has finally stopped organizing his life around worrying about me and started building one with the woman he loves.
So I smile and say, "I promise, there's nothing," and I pick up paper and ribbons and go back to work. The guilt sits in my rib cage like a second heartbeat for the rest of the morning.
Rome and Erin's place is quiet at five o'clock that same afternoon. Erin's at a late consultation, so it's just the two of us, which hasn't happened in a while.
He's cooking. Nothing fancy, just pasta, the kind he used to make when it was just us growing up.
Rome has never become a great cook, and neither have I, but those first few years together he overcompensated for our absent parents, not letting me do anything, taking the caretaking to an extreme that meant I wasn't allowed near a stove or a chore.
Eventually I learned to be a part of whatever he was making, and now cooking together feels like coming home in a way that has nothing to do with the actual apartment.
Sometimes I think about how hard it must have been for him. He was barely more than a kid himself, and suddenly he had me needing him for everything.
He must have wanted a break at some point. Must have needed space I never gave him. But he never complained, never raised his voice. Never once made me feel like anything other than wanted.
I still crumble a little at the thought. I just loved him so much. I never liked the quiet when our parents were gone, but when I was with Rome I didn't feel unloved or unseen. I felt like the center of someone's world.
I sit on the counter. It's my spot. It's been my spot in every kitchen Rome has ever had, from the tiny walkup in Chicago to his penthouse there to this place he shares with Erin. He's never once told me to get down. Other people's counters, sure. But his counters are mine.
"How's the interview prep going?" he asks, stirring pasta.
“Fine, I think. I signed up for a practice test next month."
"Good. You'll crush it."
"I know."
A half-smile pulls at his mouth. "Humble."
"Accurate."
He turns back to the stove. The kitchen smells like garlic and the candle Erin keeps on the windowsill, something herby and warm that makes the whole apartment feel like a home instead of just a place where people live.
I watch my brother move around this space that belongs to him and Erin, this life they've built together in a small town he never planned to stay in. I am so happy for him.
"Lil, I'm sorry," he says suddenly.
I frown. "For what?"
"For pushing so hard. About this year. About Portugal. About all of it." He turns the heat down and leans against the opposite counter, arms folded. His eyes are the same shade as mine, but they carry more years in them, more worry.
"I know I've been pushing too hard."
"Rome, no..."
"I was scared. I saw you burning out and I didn't know how to help except by throwing options at you, and most of them were the wrong options, and I know that now."
I pull my knees up and wrap my arms around them, making myself small on the counter.
"You were never too much," I tell him. "Annoying, yes. Too much, no."
The half-smile comes back. "That's generous."
"I'm a very generous person."
He retreats for a moment, turning back to stir the pasta, check the vegetables. All the small domestic movements that look so natural on him now, but didn't always. Rome in a kitchen used to be functional. Rome in Erin's kitchen is comfortable.
"I chose to come here," he says, his back to me. "Harbor Hill. Erin. I chose all of it, and I don't regret a single day. But I think about you in Chicago finishing school by yourself, struggling, and I hate that I made it harder by leaving."
"You didn't."
He had, but not in the way he takes the blame for. That's all on me.
"Rome." I wait until he turns around. "You being happy is not something I need you to apologize for. You and Erin are the best thing I've ever seen. You know that. I would burn down anyone who threatened what you two have."
He studies me like he's checking for cracks I might be hiding under the surface. I let him look. I have nothing to hide on this particular subject.
"I wanted you to have everything," he says quietly. "I still do. Medical school, the career, all of it. Everything Mom and Dad didn't care enough to stick around for."
"I know."
"But I also know I pushed too hard because I was trying to give you the life I didn't get to have. I was making it about me, even when I told myself it wasn't."
He rubs the back of his neck, a gesture I've seen a thousand times when he's working through something he doesn't know how to say. "You deserve to choose your own life, Lily. Not the one I think you should have."
I slide off the counter and cross the kitchen and wrap my arms around him. He hugs me back, tight and solid.
"I will try and be better from now on," he mumbles.
"I love you," I say into his chest. "You're the best person I know and you did everything right. All of it. Every single thing."
He holds on for another second before letting go and clearing his throat. He goes back to the pasta, because he's Rome and emotions need to be followed by practical action or they'll just sit there being uncomfortable.
"You know what I'd really love?" I say, climbing back onto the counter.
"What?"
"Nieces. Nephews. Like, several. A whole crew of tiny Morelands running around."
He doesn't say anything right away, but I see the change in his shoulders. A loosening. A softening he would deny if I pointed it out.
"It's early," he says, and I have to physically stop myself from screaming with joy.
"Romie." I hear the squeal in my own voice and I don't even care. "Do you really mean that?"
He turns around, and the look on his face makes my whole heart expand. This man, this serious, grout-obsessed man, is smiling so big. A smile that makes him look like the twenty-something he should have been instead of the forty-year-old he's been pretending to be since he was eighteen.
"If it were up to me," he says, "we'd have started yesterday."
I press both hands over my mouth. "Shut up."
"But I'm not rushing her. She'll tell me when she's ready and I'll be there."
"Oh my God." My eyes are stinging and I don't even try to stop it. "You're going to be the best dad. You're going to be so annoying about it. You're going to build the kid a crib from scratch and inspect every daycare in a fifty-mile radius."
"I would build a crib, yes. That's normal."
"You'd build the crib and then build a second one because the first one didn't meet your standards."
"Safety standards exist for a reason, Lily."
But I am not buying it, and he shakes his head at me, but the smile hasn't gone anywhere.
My brother wants babies. My brother wants babies with Erin, and one day there will be small people in this world who have a little bit of Rome and a little bit of Erin and they will be so loved it will be stupid.
I can already picture it. Dinners filled with laughter and small fights over who gets to set what on the table. Little hands reaching up for him. Erin glowing even brighter than she does now.
And me. Aunt Lily. Present for all of it. Loved and loving so hard I might actually burst with it.
Rome plates the pasta and sets mine in front of me on the counter because he knows I'm not getting down. He hands me a fork and stands across from me, and we eat the way we've eaten a thousand meals before, just the two of us.
"I trust you," he says, halfway through his plate. "Whatever you're doing, whatever you decide. I trust your judgment."
I focus on the taste of garlic and olive oil because focusing on anything else right now would crack me open.
"Thanks, Rome," I manage.
He nods and goes back to eating. We talk about interview prep and Poppy's wedding and whether Gran is going to behave at the ceremony or cause an incident, which we both agree is a coin flip at best.
Later, I walk home with my brother's voice in my head.
I trust you. Three words, offered without conditions, from the person whose opinion matters more to me than anyone else's on this earth.
I hate lying to him, but the other option isn't much of an option, not when everything is still so new and fragile and ours.
We're leaving in two days. Callahan is picking me up before dawn, a packed bag already in his trunk, a hotel booked in Baltimore where nobody knows our names.
My first interview at Hopkins is Thursday, and he's going with me and for three whole days we get to exist in a world where we're just two people who want each other.
I let myself want it, fully and without apology. I let the excitement sit right next to the guilt, both of them taking up space they have equal right to.