Chapter 21 Alex
ALEX
Emma is still asleep when I wake up, her body curled against mine like she belongs there.
Her face is peaceful in a way I rarely see. It’s soft and relaxed, her lips parted slightly as she breathes steadily. Her hair is a mess, fanned across my arm and tangled from sleep. I swear, I’ve never seen her more beautiful than at this moment.
I don’t do anything but watch her.
The morning sun barely peeks in through the blinds, casting soft golden stripes across her bare shoulder.
I still remember how her skin felt under my palms, how she whispered my name in that broken, breathless way that damn near undid me every time.
I think about how she looked up at me, like I was the only person in the world who had ever made her feel like that, made her feel alive, like she is mine.
I swallow hard, then exhale slowly.
Fuck.
These past couple days have changed everything, or, at least I want to believe they did.
I’ve wanted her for so long and now that I’ve had her—touched her, felt her, made her fall apart for me—I know I can’t lose her again.
I tighten my arm around her waist and pull her closer, burying my face in her hair. I breathe her in. I don’t know how the hell I went so many years without this, without her. I press a kiss to her temple and glance at the clock. 7:22.
Emma is always slow to wake up. I’ve known that since we were young. I could be out and back before she even stirs. Sophia’s bakery opens early. I could bring back her favorite croissants, a caramel macchiato, maybe even a little cinnamon bun for myself.
She deserves that: A warm morning. A slow wake-up. A reminder that she’s safe.
That’s really the least I can do. She deserves more than that. She deserves everything.
I ease out from under her as gently as I can, tucking the blanket around her body. She barely moves, only sighs and turns onto her side, curling into the spot I left behind. I slip on my hoodie and grab the keys from the entryway table.
It won’t take long. I’ll be back before she wakes up.
I leave the bakery with a bag full of pastries, her favorite sugary coffee, and a black one for me, balancing it all with one hand as I jog up the front steps of her house.
I’m grinning like an idiot, thinking about the way she’s going to scrunch her nose at me when she sees how many sweets I brought. I imagine her rolling her eyes and stealing bites off my food, acting like she doesn’t want it even though I know she always does.
“Em?” I call out, pushing the door open with my shoulder.
No answer.
I step inside and place the coffees on the table in the center of the living room, the bag of pastries beside them. The room is quiet. The blanket on the couch is crumpled where we slept, where I left her twenty minutes ago.
But Emma isn’t here.
I frown, calling her name again. I check the hallway, the bathroom, the bedroom, the studio.
Nothing.
She’s gone.
A sharp unease grips me, threading through my spine.
I wasn’t gone that long.
Where the hell would she go?
I pull out my phone and call her, but the sound of her ringtone stops me in my tracks. Her phone’s still in her purse on the counter and I hear it buzzing faintly, muffled under the leather flap.
She wouldn’t go anywhere without it.
Something is wrong.
I’m about to call Cam when my phone vibrates with a text.
Liv
Emma’s in the hospital. Get here now.
My blood turns to ice. For a second, I feel like I can’t move, my body frozen in place. The words don’t register, like they belong to someone else’s nightmare.
Then everything inside me collapses into fire.
I don’t remember the drive, only the way my foot stayed slammed on the gas pedal and the tires screeched around corners. Every second felt like a goddamn eternity. My chest felt like it was caving in on itself.
When I finally barrel through the ER doors, I’m out of breath, shaking wild with panic. The sound of my pulse pounding in my ears is the only thing that registers.
“Emiliana Diaz,” I yell at the nurse sitting behind the front desk. “Where is she?”
She barely gets the room number out before I’m sprinting down the hall, weaving between stretchers and nurses and patients.
I round the corner and see Cam standing outside the door. His arms are crossed across his chest, his expression is dark and almost numb.
“What the fuck happened?” I demand, voice sharp with panic, but weak and breathless at the same time. I can barely control the rage and fear boiling over me.
Cam looks up and his eyes narrow when they meet mine. “Calm down, Alex.”
I almost punch him.
“Don’t fucking tell me to calm down,” I snap, stepping closer. “What the hell happened to her, Cam?”
Cam doesn’t answer right away. He sighs heavily and runs a hand along the length of his face, he’s trying to calm himself down before he explodes.
“I went by the house early before work this morning to drop off a painting of Mom she wanted. When I got there, I found her collapsed on the floor, unconscious. I called an ambulance and they brought her here.”
I stagger back a step, feeling the blood drain from my face. My heart pounds in my chest as every word hits me like a punch in the gut.
I imagine Emma lying there alone, struggling and scared.
I wasn’t there.
A cold sweat breaks over me.
“She’s in heart failure, Alex.” Cam adds quietly.
It feels like a bullet and hits me like one too. A hit I’m not braced for.
I can feel my knees buckle and take a step back to offset it. My head spins. “No… No, she—she would’ve told me. She would’ve—”
“She didn’t want you to know.”
That lands harder than the bullet.
I look up at Cam, but he won’t meet my eyes.
“She’s been sick for months. Alex. She’s been hiding how bad it is for a while, apparently. She didn’t tell anyone outside the family. Not even Liv or Sophia knew until recently.”
No one told me. She didn’t tell me.
My throat is dry and I feel like I am gasping for air.. “Why wouldn’t she tell me?” My voice is raw now. “Why wouldn’t she fucking tell me, Cam?”
Cam’s eyes finally find mine. They are full of so much contempt, it makes my stomach turn.
He tilts his head and his eyes darken into two pools of molten lava as he studies me.
“It’s not like you guys have been on the best of terms the past fifteen fucking years.
I’m sure you were the last person she wanted to know. ”
I don’t even think before the words are out of my mouth.
“I’ve loved her for fifteen fucking years, Cam!”
Cam’s expression hardens. His fingers twitch at his sides like he wants to hit me. “You’ve what?”
I drag a hand down my face, trying to breathe, trying to find the words that make sense when everything inside me feels like it’s falling apart. “I’ve loved her,” I repeat, quieter this time. “Since before I even know what that meant. Since we were kids.”
Cam takes a step closer, eyes burning into mine. “Shut the fuck up, Alex.”
“Cam, I’m serious—”
He cuts me off with a sharp wave of his hand. “No, Alex. Don’t sit there and tell me you’ve loved my sister. You’re going to tell me the relationship you’ve had with my sister all these years is your definition of love? You must be really fucked up, man.”
“You know nothing about our relationship!” I lash out.
“Alex, you can’t rewrite the story now just because my sister is dying.”
“Shut up and listen to me, Cam!” I hesitate before continuing because I know there’s no taking it back once I say it. “After your mom died, we spent a lot of time together. We didn’t tell anyone. We didn’t want to.”
Cam stares at me like I’ve confessed to something unforgivable. His mouth opens, the shuts again. He takes a step back, shaking his head. “No. No, that’s not—”
“We were all fucked up and grieving, but Em and I found peace in each other. It wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did. We loved each other, Cam.”
He laughs, empty and bitter. “So, you supposedly loved her but still let her leave?”
I don’t flinch. “She left me.”
Cam blinks, momentarily thrown off.
“You want to talk about abandonment?” I go on, my voice is quieter but no less sharp. “She walked away without even saying goodbye. One day she was mine, and the next, she was in a car to Manhattan with some bullshit story about needing a fresh start.”
“She did need one,” Cam bites back. “She was barely eighteen, grieving our mom, scared out of her mind—”
“So were you! And Leo and Frankie. And so was I!” I explode.
“And then I lost her too. I waited for a call, a text, a letter, anything so I could beg her to come back and just talk to me. She ignored every single fucking message. You all let me be the villain in her story when I was the one standing there, watching her walk away.”
Cam’s eyes flash. “Because you let her. You let my sister leave heartbroken and alone, and now you have the nerve to stand here, in this fucking hospital, and tell me you’ve loved her all long. If you really loved her you would’ve stopped her or followed her. You could’ve—”
“I tried!” I shout. “I went after her. I went to New York to see her, but she looked so fucking happy at one of her art shows that I believed she was better off without me.”
Cam doesn’t respond. There is only silence except for the steady hum of machines throughout the hall.
I swallow hard, my voice breaking as I lower it.
“She made me believe she hated me. And she probably did. Maybe I was just this reminder of everything she wanted to escape. So I stayed away after that. For her.” I take a shaky breath.
“And now she’s in there, hooked up to a dozen machines, and all I can think about is how I wasted all those years trying to pretend like I didn’t still love her. ”
Cam’s jaw twitches. “You should’ve tried harder.”
He’s right. I should’ve tried harder, fought harder. But I let my own shit—my fears, my insecurities, the fucked up way I’ve always handled my feelings—get in the way.
“I didn’t stop loving her,” I say quietly. “But she didn’t want to be loved back then. But now I can’t fucking lose her again.”
The anger is Cam’s eyes soften for a second, long enough for me to see the fear underneath. “She could die, Alex,” he says quietly. “She could die. And now you’re telling me this, after all this time?”
My throat is too tight, no words forming in response.
Cam stares at me for a long moment, then looks away, jaw clenching. “You need to figure out what the hell you’re doing here, Alex. Because if you’re just gonna break her again, you need to leave before she wakes up.” He pauses. “If you do, you won’t just lose her again, you’ll lose me too.”
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes, trying to hold myself together.
I need to see her.
I move toward the door, but Cam steps in front of me. “Alex, wait—”
I shove past him, throwing the door open.