Chapter Twenty
Nico
She’s still standing there with her palms pressed to her temples like she’s trying to keep her skull from splitting open.
Her shoulders rise and fall too fast. Her eyes are glassy. Her mouth is tight, trembling at the edges like she’s fighting the next wave.
I’ve seen people panic before. I’ve watched grown men fold when the numbers don’t add up, when the police lights hit the windows, when they realize their luck has run out.
This is different.
This isn’t fear with an exit strategy.
This is a person who held herself together with pure stubbornness until the second she got inside her own house, and there was no one left to pretend for.
Her words are still hanging in the room, hot and raw. No one down the hall. No one coming. No one sitting in the hospital. No one. No one. No one.
Bitter words from a place of deep loneliness.
She used that loneliness and that bitterness as a weapon. Against me.
And then she did something I didn’t expect.
She turned it on herself.
She apologized like she was trying to scrub her own skin off. Like if she could make the apology big enough, it would erase the fact that she said anything at all.
And still, she’ll punish herself for it because that’s the kind of person she is. Because she doesn’t like hurting other people.
Yes, her bitter words came from loneliness and jealousy.
But her apology came from her heart.
It was sincere, which is not something many people can achieve.
I told her it was fine because I needed the situation to end. I needed to put everything away and put space between us.
Because she hurt me.
It doesn’t happen often, and not many people have the power to do it, but she does. That’s something I’m going to have to think more about later.
But I told her about my mom, which I don’t do. Ever. And also something I’m going to have to think more about later.
I did the one thing I’ve never done for anyone else except family: I gave her the power to hurt me.
And she did. Swiftly.
Then she put a cork in it almost as soon as it happened.
Still, she’ll hate herself for it. It’s going to cause her more hurt, and that is something I’m sorry for.
Because, for me, it’s done. I know she won’t understand that, or she’ll think I’m hiding it and lying. But what happened just now? It’s behind me.
It did give me something useful, however. It showed me exactly how close to the edge she is.
I was prepared to come when she needed me, and I had a feeling it would be today. Or sometime around her father’s surgery. But when she called me, I knew immediately it was much worse than I’d anticipated.
Her voice wasn’t the one she used at the office. It wasn’t the one she used in the hotel room when she was under me. It wasn’t even the one she used when she was crying in my arms afterward.
This was the sound of a person breaking.
And now I’m watching her break again, just in a different direction—guilt instead of fear and shame.
I do know what’s wrong with her.
It’s not that she’s cruel.
It’s not that she’s weak.
It’s pressure. Grief. Shame. Exhaustion.
It’s too much for one person to handle, and she’s bottling it all up inside.
And the part she hasn’t said out loud yet—the part she’s circling because she’s not ready to admit the truth yet.
She’s not ready for that conversation.
But she’s going to have to be. Soon.
Maybe as soon as tonight.
Because if she keeps swallowing it like this, it’s going to rot inside her and spew out the way it just did.
She whispers, “I’m sorry,” and fresh tears track down her cheeks.
Then, quieter, wrecked, like the words weigh too much. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
I step closer. Not too fast. Not abruptly. I keep my movements steady because she’s already spiraling, and if I come at her too quickly, she’ll flinch and fight and make it worse.
I reach for her wrist and wrap my fingers around it, firm enough to get her attention, gentle enough not to feel like I’m forcing her.
Her hand comes away from her head. Her fingers tremble in the air for a second, like they don’t know what to do without the pressure.
She looks up at me and sniffles, eyes red—yet impossibly blue—lashes clumped, face blotchy from too much crying.
“Remember during my interview when you asked me if I could handle pressure?” she murmurs.
“Erica,” I murmur, because she’s teetering and she needs an anchor more than she needs another apology.
Her throat works. She swipes at her face with the back of her hand, uselessly.
“I think we have our answer,” she says mournfully.
I tilt her chin up with my fingers. “We’ll call this a special circumstance,” I say. “Come on.”
I direct her out of the kitchen and into the living room before she can find another corner to fall apart in.
She moves like she’s underwater.
I sit her down on the couch and pull the throw blanket from the back, shaking it once before I drape it over her lap.
Her hands go to it automatically, fingers curling into the fabric.
“Stay,” I tell her, and then I turn back toward the kitchen.
I can feel her eyes on my back for a second.
I open her freezer.
It’s half full. A bag of frozen peas. Ice trays. A box of waffles nearly frozen to the side. The brown bag I put in there earlier.
I pop the ice tray, dump the cubes into a plastic bag, and then I wrap a dish towel around the whole thing.
I knot it so it stays together.
It’s not pretty.
It doesn’t need to be.
When I walk back in, she’s staring at nothing.
Her hair is a bit unruly after her shower, and she’s swallowed into that Rutgers sweatshirt like another blanket.
Her face is swollen from crying. Her eyes are red-rimmed and glassy, and her mouth is a little puffy, like she’s been biting it.
Despite all that, she’s still stunning.
She looks at the towel-wrapped bag like she doesn’t know what it is.
I set it in her hands.
“This is for your face,” I murmur. “Just move it around a bit, okay? Your eyes. Your cheeks. It’ll help and also feel good.”
She blinks, slowly.
Then she nods once, small, and presses it to her cheek like she’s following instructions in a language she barely speaks right now.
I grab the remote off the coffee table and put it in her other hand.
Her fingers close around it without thought.
“I have to put the food away,” I tell her. “You find something to watch in the meantime.”
I turn back toward the kitchen.
“Nico.”
The way she says my name stops me.
It’s quiet.
It’s… uncertain.
I don’t let her build another sentence.
I step back to the couch, lean down, and kiss her.
Gentle. Brief.
Her lips taste like tomato sauce and tears.
Her breath catches, and I feel cold against my chest as her hand comes up, clearly forgetting the ice pack clutched in it.
When I pull back, I keep my forehead close to hers for one beat.
“No more apologies,” I say in a low voice.
Her brows pinch. “But—”
I cut her off before she can spiral again. “If you apologize to me again,” I say, tone flat like I’m delivering a command, “I’m not going to share my gelato with you.”
She frowns, confused, but I see the flicker of interest anyway. It’s tiny. It’s there.
It makes her pause.
“Gelato?” she repeats, like she’s testing the word.
“Homemade,” I say. I brush my mouth against hers again, lightly.
Then I straighten and head back toward the kitchen before she can think on it any longer.
By the time I’m back on the couch, the kitchen is back to looking like it did before I walked into it—clean counters, dishes cleaned, containers stacked in the fridge for later.
I don’t feel any better.
I just feel like at least one more thing won’t be waiting to jump her later.
She’s still where I left her, tucked into the corner of the couch under the throw like she’s trying to disappear into it. The ice pack is in her lap now instead of on her face, and the remote is on the cushion beside her as if she forgot why she has it.
Her eyes track me when I come in.
They’re calmer.
Not calm.
Just not actively drowning.
I shift the throw and sit down beside her. Her shoulder tenses automatically, and I hate it, but I ignore it and just continue.
I set the paper bag on the coffee table, along with two spoons, and pull out the gelato.
Three containers.
Two I asked for. One Bianca decided I needed, whether I said so or not.
Pistachio.
Lemon.
And the third one—stracciatella—because she’s a menace and she knows I won’t say no to it.
I line them up and hand Erica a spoon.
She takes it without speaking, like she’s waiting for the next instruction. So I oblige her.
“Pick,” I tell her.
Her gaze drifts over the containers like it’s a bigger decision than it is.
“Vanilla,” she says finally, quietly.
“Stracciatella,” I correct, slowing down so she can hear the Italian pronunciation.
She blinks at me, then at the container.
“Stracci… what?” she asks.
“Stra-cha-TELL-a,” I say, slow and clipped.
Her brows knit. “Stra… cha… tell… a.” It comes out careful and a little wrong.
I tap my spoon against the rim of the container once. “Close,” I say. “Straht-chah-TELL-ah.” Then, softer, because she’s still raw under the throw. “You can just call it the good one.”
That gets a smile out of her. I realize with a start that it’s the first one I’ve seen since the fake smile she had plastered on her face on that damn stage when those men were shouting lewd comments at her. And the first real one I’ve seen since before then.
It turns into a frown of consideration.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, wanting the smile back on her face.
“Wait, isn’t stracciatella,” she says, doing her best to pronounce it correctly… and failing, “cheese? Is this cheese with chocolate?”
She points at the container with her spoon.
Oddly, stracciatella is the name of a few different foods. None of them related.
Of course, Erica wouldn’t know this, but that doesn’t mean I have to let her off that easily.
I stare at her for a beat, then huff out a quiet breath through my nose, like I’m dealing with someone particularly dumb.