Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
GAbrIEL | FLORENCE
I wake up to the rhythmic sound of the ocean through the open balcony doors.
Zalea is on her back next to me, quietly staring up at the ceiling deep in thought.
Even without touching her, I can feel the stress humming off her skin, and I know it’s because today’s the day she promised to answer my question.
She’s been coming completely undone over it since she made that promise, and a part of me almost wants to take it back and pretend I don’t need to know.
But I do.
Not just for me, but for her too.
Whatever this is, she can’t keep carrying it alone. And I can’t keep being the villain in a story I don’t fully understand, especially when her brother is convinced I ruined her life.
But this isn’t how I imagined our last morning in Positano.
This weekend was supposed to be a stress-free, laidback time with just the two of us.
When I started researching PCOS, every article said that reducing stress was key to lowering hormonal dysfunction, so that’s what I’ve been trying to do for her.
In just this week alone, I bought her a home so she’d never have to worry about money piling up in some hotel.
I put it in her name so she’d never doubt where she stood with me.
I planned this trip down to the smallest detail—a luxury resort, shopping, Vespa rides, pasta-making classes, a sunset cruise.
And yet somehow I’ve only made her more anxious.
I sit up and lean against the headboard. “You okay over there?”
Zalea turns her head toward me, and she looks almost too calm now.
“Want to go swimming?” she asks.
I arch a brow. “Swimming? Right now?”
She nods. “We used to do morning swims before we hit the waves.”
A slow grin pulls at my mouth. Some habits don’t die. “Let’s do it.”
Forty minutes later, we’re far enough from shore that the world feels small and distant.
Zalea flips onto her back and floats, arms loose at her sides, staring at the clouds in the sky.
It reminds me of a game we used to play as kids, lying in the grassy fields of Saltwater Springs and calling out the shapes the clouds would form above us.
“See anything interesting up there?” I ask, drifting beside her.
She points to a cloud above us shaped like a cat. “Banana.”
I bite back a laugh, quickly reminded that she was never good at this game.
I lace my fingers through hers and we float in comfortable silence, the water rocking us. For a moment, everything feels peaceful. The calm before the storm.
She releases my hand and fixes herself upright, looking at me differently now.
“I want to kiss you,” she says quietly.
I smile, trying to lighten the heaviness in her voice. “Since when have you needed my permission to kiss me, Z?”
She moves closer and grabs my face, pressing her mouth to mine. It starts off soft and hesitant, but when I pull her in, it turns desperate. Hungry. Like we’re trying to memorize each other.
As if this is the last one we’ll ever share.
When she pulls back, she rests her forehead against mine.
“I think I should answer your question now.”
My stomach drops and I pull back slightly, searching her face and seeing that same fear in her eyes that has been there since the first mention of this secret between us.
“You don’t want to wait until we’re back in Florence?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think I can.”
“Okay,” I say, carefully. “If that’s what you want, then I’m ready.”
There’s that split second before your world shifts when your body knows something is about to break before your mind catches up. My chest tightens, my ears ring, and the ocean suddenly sounds louder.
Zalea takes a shaky breath. “I never got the abortion.”
The words don’t compute as I stare at her, stunned, the roaring waves the only sound between us. What the hell does she mean she didn't get it? Do we have a fucking kid walking around this world right now that I have no idea about?
“I’m going to need you to say more than that,” I manage.
“My mom went with me,” she says, voice trembling.
“But when I got there and they told me about the procedure, I just couldn’t go through with it.
I didn’t know what I wanted, but I knew I couldn’t do it.
So, my parents said they’d help me.” The air feels thin. “I was alone, Gabriel. I was so alone.”
“I-I need to get out of the water before I fucking drown,” I mutter.
I turn and swim for shore, my arms feeling heavy and my heartbeat too loud.
When my feet hit the pebbles, I collapse into the shallows, the waves washing over my thighs. I can’t tell if I’m cold or just shaking from what she just shared.
Zalea reaches me a few minutes later and takes a seat beside me.
“S-so we have a kid?” My voice doesn’t sound like mine.
“N-no,” she whispers. “Or I guess…yes?”
My heart slams against my ribs. “What happened, Zalea?”
She stares at the horizon, tears streaking down her face.
“I started having back pain early on, and I thought it was normal pregnancy pains. But at four months I started bleeding,” she says, her voice small. “My parents rushed me to the hospital and the doctors said I had an incompetent cervix. It was too late to fix it.”
The words feel clinical and detached.
“I gave birth to a baby girl,” she says.
“You…you gave birth?” My voice cracks. “To a girl?”
She nods, tears spilling freely now. “She didn’t make it.”
Everything inside me stops.
“She was so small. She wrapped her tiny hand around my finger and wouldn’t let go. And then…” Her voice breaks. “And then she was gone.”
My whole world tilts on its axis, and my stomach lurches in response.
“The nurses dressed her, and took pictures for me,” Zalea chokes out. “I had a private burial for her at the cemetery in town, just me, my brother, and my parents.”
I stagger to my feet and throw up, the sound violently ripping out of me.
“How could you not tell me?” I shout, chest heaving, and she flinches.
“You weren’t there,” she says, climbing up too. “You were chasing your dream. You made it clear that was your priority.”
I feel like she’s split me open and ripped my heart out.
“If you had told me you needed me, I would’ve found a way to come,” I say.
“You should have known,” she fires back through tears. “I shouldn’t have had to beg you to choose me.”
I was leaving the next day when she told me she was pregnant, and I had convinced myself she understood.
“Is that why you stopped answering me halfway through the tour?”
“I stopped because every message from you reminded me of what I lost,” she sobs. “Of what we could’ve had. I didn’t want to be alive, Gabriel. I had to fight every day just to survive. I couldn’t surf. I couldn’t breathe. My family was terrified they would come home one day and I’d be gone.”
The ocean roars behind us, but it’s nothing compared to the sound in my head.
Our daughter. She carried our daughter. She lost our daughter.
And I was on the other side of the world.
How did no one tell me?
How did this happen without me knowing?
How did I miss the most important moment of my life?
“Gabriel?” she says, voice small..
I can’t look at her because every time I do, I see a tiny hand wrapped around her finger.
“I need…” My voice breaks. I drag a hand through my hair, pacing along the shoreline. “I need time.”
Her face crumples. “Gabriel—”
“I can’t do this right now.” I press my palms to my eyes like I can physically shove the images out of my head. “I just found out I had a daughter, and I just found out she’s dead. I need a second to breathe before I say something I can’t take back.”
The hurt on her face almost makes me fold, but the pressure in my chest is building, and if I don’t step away, I’m going to explode.
“I’m not leaving you,” I add. “I just… I need space to process.”
She nods slowly, wiping her cheeks. “Okay.”
I walk back toward the path that leads up to the road, my mind racing so fast I can’t catch a single thought long enough to hold onto it. For four months she carried our daughter. Four months. She went into labor alone. She buried her alone. And I was on a surfboard somewhere, chasing approval.
By the time I reach the road, my hands are shaking but I yank my phone from my pocket and scroll until I find Zale’s name.
He answers on the second ring. “What?”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I snap.
There’s a beat of silence. “Excuse me?”
“You knew,” I say, my voice rising. “And you didn’t think to tell me she was in a hospital giving birth to my daughter?”
His tone hardens. “You’ve got some nerve to come at me like that after you were the one that left her.”
“She was pregnant with my daughter!” I shout. “She gave birth, and she buried her, and I had no idea!”
Another pause. He exhales slowly. “She made me promise.”
My vision goes red. “Promise what?”
“That I wouldn’t tell you,” he says. “That I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
I laugh, but it sounds unhinged. “That wasn’t your promise to keep.”
“Of course it was, she’s my sister. She didn’t want you there out of obligation,” he fires back. “She didn’t want you showing up because you felt guilty. She thought if you wanted to be there, you would have been.”
The words hit exactly where hers did.
“You think I wouldn’t have dropped everything?” I demand.
“You didn’t,” he shoots back. “You left the next day.”
“I left because I thought she was fine!”
“And she thought if she mattered more, you would’ve stayed.”
The silence that follows is deadly.
“You don’t know what she was like after all of it,” Zale continues, voice pained. “She didn’t want to wake up. She barely ate. My mom slept in her room every single night because we were scared to leave her alone. She broke, Gabriel. She was completely and utterly broken.”
My chest caves in. “And you still didn’t tell me.”
“She made me swear,” he repeats through clenched teeth.
I can’t listen to another second, so I hang up. The world feels like it’s spinning too fast, and I can’t breathe, or think. All I can see is what I missed.
Our daughter.
Her tiny fingers.
Zalea alone in a hospital bed.
I scroll my phone again and call Reid.
He answers with his usual calm. “Everything okay?”
“No,” I say flatly. “I need out.”
A beat. “Out of what?”
“Italy. Today. As soon as possible.”
“What happened?”
“I just need to leave,” I shout, despite my effort to stay calm. “If I stay here right now, I’m going to lose my mind.”
Silence on his end, then the soft clicking of keys. “The best I can get you in the next few hours is Zurich. And it would be on a commercial flight. It’s messy, but it’s a seat.”
“Book it.”
“You sure you don’t want to wait fo—”
“Book it, Reid.”
“…Okay. The flight leaves in three hours from Naples.”
I nod even though he can’t see me. “Text me the details.”
When I hang up, I stand with my hand pressed to my chest, feeling the rapid beating beneath it.
After a few minutes, I slowly walk back down the path, and find Zalea still on the beach, sitting in the sand, knees pulled to her chest. She looks up when she sees me and the hope in her eyes makes this worse.
“I’m leaving for a while,” I say, forcing the words out before I lose my nerve.
“What?” Her face drains of color. “You literally just said you weren’t leaving me.”
“I’ll be back, but I need space. I can’t process this with you looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” she whispers.
“Like I’m about to disappear.”
Her chin trembles. “It feels like you are.”
I swallow hard. “I booked a flight out of Naples. Reid got me to Switzerland.”
“You’re leaving the country?”.
“Just for a bit.”
Her eyes close briefly, like she expected this.
“I’m leaving the car for you,” I add. “Drive back to Florence whenever you’re ready.”
“You’re just… leaving?” she asks. “Just like that?”
“I need time.”
“And staying in the same country as me is just too hard for you, is it?” she shoots back.
I don’t have an answer for that either, so I turn before she can see the doubt creeping in. If I look at her any longer, I’ll stay, and that might make this worse.
I call a taxi as I head back for the road, and when it pulls up, I don’t let myself second guess it as I get in.
As we drive away, I glance once in the rear window and find Zalea still standing on the beach—small and alone—and I hate that the first thing I do after learning she went through the worst day of her life without me…
…is leave her again.