Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty Five
Teresa
The look on his face almost undoes me.
It is not dramatic. Vito is not a dramatic man, not in that obvious way. He does not stagger back or let the hurt spill out where anyone can easily see it.
It happens in smaller ways than that. The drop in his expression. The way something that’s open in him folds back in on itself with abrupt, painful control.
The way his mouth tightens at the corners as if he is physically stopping words before they can reach the air.
For one terrible second, I hate myself.
Because I can see it. I can see exactly what my answer did to him.
He wants to argue.
I know he does.
I can feel it in the tension that moves through him, in the way his chest lifts and holds, in the restless set of his shoulders, like some instinct in him is rising to meet resistance and only barely being forced back down.
He wants to tell me the drive is manageable. That twelve months is not forever. That what we have is worth trying for.
And then, visibly, he stops himself.
His throat works once.
He looks away for half a second, then back at me, and when he speaks, his voice is controlled so carefully it hurts to hear.
“I understand,” he says.
I know what that is costing him.
He adds, quieter, “I had to try, though.”
The honesty of that lands right in my heart.
“Yes,” I say softly. “I know.”
There's a brief moment of silence.
It is not the same silence as before. This one is weighted now. Bruised. Full of the thing I have just done to him and the thing he is trying very hard not to show me.
Which is exactly why I keep going.
Because if I stop here, if I let him sit in that answer without the rest of it, then I really will have hurt him for nothing.
I draw in a breath and say, “I stopped by my office this afternoon.”
His brows furrow immediately.
Confusion cuts through the disappointment just enough to interrupt it.
“What?”
“I went in for a couple of hours,” I say. “I had some things to handle, and I met the psychologist I’m planning to hire in person.”
That gets his full attention.
Not the soft, wounded kind. Sharper and alert now.
He stares at me. “Why would you hire another psychologist?”
The question is so immediate, so genuinely confused, that under different circumstances I might laugh.
Instead, I just look at him.
Because really.
Because for all the brilliance he is fully capable of, this is somehow the part he has not put together.
“It would be pretty hard to keep running my practice while living in Pennsylvania,” I say.
He goes still.
I can almost see the exact second the words process and begin working their way through him.
So I keep going before he can interrupt.
“It’s kind of a face-to-face thing,” I say, dry enough that under any other circumstances it might qualify as teasing. “Clinical psychology? Patients? Office? Actual physical presence generally helps.”
His eyes lock on mine.
There is no mistaking the sharpness in them now.
No mistaking that he is beginning to understand, and does not trust the understanding yet.
“Teresa,” he says.
My name is a question, a warning, a fragile hope all at once.
I don’t let him stop me.
“And besides,” I say, because now that I’ve started, I am committed, “I spoke with the dean of the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Carnegie Mellon.”
That one hits even harder.
I watch it happen.
His whole expression changes—not quickly, not all at once, but with a kind of stunned lag, like his mind is trying to catch up to the words while another part of him has already leapt ahead and is afraid to believe what he’s hearing.
He just stares at me.
I cross my arms lightly over myself, more to contain my own nerves than because I need the barrier.
“It seems,” I continue, and now my voice is steadier than I feel, “that with the classes I’ll be teaching for the next couple of semesters, I’m going to have a pretty full workload.”
He is still staring at me.
Actually staring.
Completely speechless.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so thrown in all the time I’ve known him. Not even on the island. Not even in his father’s office.
This is different. Bigger somehow.
He says nothing.
I let him have the silence for one beat.
Then another.
Still nothing.
So I lift one shoulder and say, because evidently, I am capable of only so much vulnerability before my mouth starts protecting me with sarcasm, “It would be a shame to waste the opportunity.”
His mouth parts.
Closes.
Opens again.
When he finally speaks, his voice is rough. “You—”
He stops.
Starts over.
“You talked to the dean.”
“Yes.”
“At Carnegie Mellon.”
“Yes.”
“About teaching.”
“Yes.”
He just keeps looking at me as if repetition might somehow make the thing in front of him less impossible.
I understand that.
Because the truth is, even for me, saying it out loud still feels a little surreal.
It had happened quickly once I allowed myself to act on it.
A few calls. A few emails. A conversation that turned into a longer conversation once they looked at my credentials and realized I was not, in fact, some random woman half out of her mind calling from New Jersey on a whim.
The dean had been warmer than I expected. Curious. Practical. Open in a way academia rarely is, unless it sees immediate use in you.
And there is use in me.
That sounds colder than it feels, but it is still true.
Experience. Publications. Clinical work. Prestige. Youth, once weaponized against me, is now a distinction.
It turns out there are institutions that know exactly what to do with a woman like me.
More importantly, there are students who might too.
And once I heard myself discussing courses, classroom structure, temporary faculty housing, commuting versus relocating, I realized how badly I wanted it.
Not only him.
Not only us.
That life too.
Vito takes one slow step toward me.
Then stops, as though even now some part of him is wary of moving too fast and somehow breaking the moment.
“But—” he says, confused. “How did you— I just told you I was going. I only just made the decision myself.”
I smile and shake my head.
“You made the decision a long time ago. You just finally admitted it to yourself.”
His eyes stay on mine, still searching, still a little disbelieving.
“You…” His voice catches slightly. He clears it. “You’re coming with me. To Pennsylvania.”
It is not quite a question. Not yet a statement either.
More like disbelief.
I tilt my head. “It would be pretty hard to teach there if I didn't.”
This time, the sound he makes is almost a laugh, except there is too much emotion under it to fully become one.
He looks raw but elated now. Then his expression dims, and he asks quietly, “Why?”
“You are not the only one whose life changed on that island,” I say. “You are not the only one who came back and found everything here too small or too wrong or too ill-fitting.”
His gaze doesn’t leave mine.
I take the last half step and finally put my hand against his chest.
His sweater is soft beneath my palm. The body under it is not.
“I have my own life,” I say. “That part is true. My own work. My own identity. My own decisions to make. I am not following you there because I got swept up in your plans.” I pause. “I’m choosing it too.”
That matters.
I need him to understand that it matters.
Not as reassurance for him. As truth for me.
His hand comes up slowly, like he’s not entirely sure he’s allowed, and closes over mine where it rests against him.
“I’m choosing you,” I say.
His voice, when it comes, is low and uneven in a way I almost never hear from him.
“You’d really do that.”
“Yes.”
For a second, he just looks at me.
Then something in his face gives. It just… opens. The last of the disbelief drains out of his expression and leaves something so raw and unguarded behind that it makes my chest ache.
I slide my hand higher against him, feeling the steady, hard beat under my palm.
“Yes,” I say again, softer now. “I would.”
His fingers tighten over mine.
And because there is no point holding the last of it back now, because we are already standing in the middle of too much truth to retreat from the biggest one, I take a breath and say, “I love you, Vito.”
He goes completely still.
I keep my eyes on his.
“I know none of this started the way it should have,” I say quietly. “I know it’s complicated and messy and morally insane in ways I’ll probably be unpacking for years. But that doesn’t make this part less true.”
My throat tightens, but I force the words out cleanly. “I love you. I think I did before I was ready to call it that. And I’m done pretending otherwise.”
His mouth parts slightly.
I have never seen him look at me like this. Not even on the island. Not even in bed, stripped down to the parts of himself he tried so hard to hide. This is deeper than hunger. Deeper than relief.
Almost reverent.
“Teresa,” he says, and my name sounds wrecked coming from him.
Then his free hand comes up, careful and almost disbelieving, and cups the side of my face.
“I love you too,” he says.
The words are rough but immediate. Like they’ve been waiting to burst out for a while.
“I love you,” he says again, stronger this time, his forehead almost touching mine now. “I knew it that week without you. Maybe before that, if I’m being honest. But this past week…” He lets out a shaky breath that is almost a laugh, and not at all amused. “Everything felt wrong without you in it.”
My eyes sting a little at that.
He brushes his thumb under one of them before anything can spill.
“I didn’t know if I got to say it,” he murmurs. “Didn’t know if I’d earned the right to ask anything from you after how this started. But I love you. I’m in love with you. And I don’t want a version of my life that doesn’t have you in it anymore.”
That does it.
I laugh once, soft and watery and helpless, and then I’m the one closing the last inch between us.
His mouth meets mine like he’s still half afraid I’ll disappear if he moves too fast, but the second I kiss him back, that restraint frays.
His hand slides to the back of my neck, mine fists lightly in the front of his sweater, and suddenly we are both fully present, kissing like we were suffocating, and this is the first breath we've taken all week.
When we break apart, his forehead rests against mine.
“I love you,” he says one more time, like he still can’t quite believe he gets to say it out loud.
I smile against his mouth.
“Good,” I whisper. “Because you’re stuck with me now.”
He pulls back a little, his brows furrowing again. “But what about your practice? You love it. You're going to be giving it up for a year.”
“A lot longer than that,” I whisper.
He pulls back fully, his lips turning down into a frown. “What do you mean?”
I shrug one shoulder. “I just don't think it's a good idea.”
I pull something out of my back pocket, but leave it hidden. “Considering this new dynamic, I'm just not sure me being in a room with violent offenders is a very good idea.”
His frown deepens. “Well, yeah, I understand.
Once it gets out that we're together, it'll be difficult for you to continue as you are, but it won't be impossible.
Some of your patients are definitely opportunists, but I don't think that's the case with most of them, right?
We'll have to get you some good security.
Make sure you're never in the office alone with a patient.”
I look down at my shoes and nod. “Yeah, we could do that, but I still wouldn't want to risk it. If it were just me, sure…”
I shrug. “But it's not just me anymore.”
And then I lift my hand, showing him the pregnancy test I’ve been hiding.
His reaction is not immediate. His gaze just stops on the thin plastic stick in my hand, and for one long, terrifying second, there is nothing on his face at all.
No emotion. No understanding. Just a blankness that is worse than any confusion I have ever seen from him.
Then, slowly, something begins to dawn in his eyes.
Not comprehension. Not yet.
Something deeper, older, more primal.
And then he whispers, “Is that what I think it is?”
My throat is so tight I almost can’t speak.
I nod.
A long, long silence.
It stretches between us, not like the silences before—awkward or uncertain—but like the whole world has just stopped and is waiting for him to take the next breath. My whole world, anyway.
He takes a step back.
He looks from the test in my hand to my face and back again, as if he’s checking to make sure both of them are real.
Another step back.
He’s not recoiling. Not in disgust or fear. It’s more like he’s being physically pushed backward by the sheer size of the information.
“Vito?” I whisper.
He looks at me, and the shock on his face has started to shift into something that looks a lot like awe.
“Are you—” He stops, clears his throat, and tries again. “Are you sure?”
“I was feeling off. Not sick. Just… different,” I say, my voice soft. I swallow nervously. “To be honest, I took, like, five of them,” I admit.
His eyes stay on mine.
“I’m sure,” I say.
He walks back toward me. Slowly.
He stops in front of me and doesn’t say anything.
He just looks at me.
And then he smiles.
It starts small, hesitant, and then it breaks across his entire face, and I have never seen anything like it.
“Oh my God,” he breathes. “We’re having a baby.”
Then he sweeps me off my feet and kisses me. Again and again. Full of wonder and relief and awe.
I laugh into the kiss and wrap my arms around his neck as he turns me in a circle.
When we break apart, he rests his forehead against mine, and I can feel the laughter vibrating in his chest.
“We’re having a baby,” he says again, and he sounds so damn happy it makes my heart ache.
“You’re okay with this?” I whisper, because I have to hear him say it.
He pulls back to look at me, and his eyes are shining.
“Okay with it?” he repeats. “Teresa, this is…” He trails off, looking for the word, then shakes his head, giving up. “This is the best news I have ever heard in my life.”
He looks at me for a long moment, and the smile on his face softens into something more serious, more profound.
Then he says, “Now we’re really doing this.”
“Now we’re really doing this,” I agree.
He takes my face in his hands and looks at me like I’m the only thing in the world.
“We’re going to have a family,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say, my own smile breaking free. “We are.”
And then he kisses me again, and this time it’s not soft or slow. It’s deep and hungry and full of everything we’ve been holding back.
This is it, I think as I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him closer.
This is the start of everything.