Chapter 24 The Walk Home #2
The window slammed shut. Sophia stared at it for one second. Then she started laughing. Not much or pretty. Enough that she had to cover her mouth. Vinny stared at her like the laugh had hit him in the chest. Then he laughed too, short and embarrassed.
“I deserved that,” he said.
“You really did.”
“I think she would have come down.”
“She absolutely would have.”
The laugh faded, but it left the air a little easier to breathe.
Sophia looked at him. “I need to keep walking.”
He nodded. “All right.”
“Alone.”
His face tightened, but he nodded again. “All right.”
She took one step back. He didn’t move. Right.
Then he said, “Wait.”
Sophia stopped.
His hands came out of his pockets, empty, palms loose at his sides. “I need to say one thing. Not to make you answer, not to make you forgive me, and not because I followed you. I know this is bad timing, and if you tell me not to, I won’t.”
Sophia’s heart started pounding for a different reason. She knew. Maybe she had known since table seven. Maybe since the apartment. Maybe since the picnic, when he had waited for a real yes and looked proud of himself for being trusted.
“Say it,” she whispered.
Vinny’s throat moved.
“I love you.”
The words came out rough. Not practiced or pretty.
Just there. Sophia closed her eyes. Her whole body reacted, and none of it was simple.
Warmth, hurt, want, anger, relief, and fear hit all at once.
All of it hit at once, crowding her ribs until breathing felt unfair.
Vinny spoke quickly, but not in a panic.
More like he needed to make sure the words didn’t land wrong.
“You don’t have to say it back. You don’t have to do anything with it tonight. I should have said it another time, maybe, but hiding it would have been another way of not being honest with you. I love you, and I still messed up. Those are both true.”
Sophia opened her eyes. He looked terrified. He also looked like he meant every word.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said.
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“I care about you.”
His face shifted. Painful hope. She shook her head once, not because she was taking it back, but because she needed him to stay with her in the hard part.
“I care about you so much. And I might…” She stopped. Her voice failed for a second. “I might love you too. But I can’t use that to skip over this.”
Vinny nodded, eyes wet now.
“I don’t want you to.”
“You followed me.”
“I did.”
“You scared me.”
“I did.”
“You said you love me after doing something that proves you still have work to do.”
“I know.”
“And you’re not allowed to make me feel bad for needing more time.”
“I won’t.”
Sophia believed that too. For tonight. That had to be enough.
She looked down at her bag, then back at him. “I read your first letter.”
His face changed. “You did?”
“Yes. It worked.”
He closed his eyes for one second.
She kept going before he could say it was too much. “Not enough to fix everything. But nice.”
“I know.”
“And if you write another one, don’t bring it to me. Use Antonia or Victoria or my mom.”
He nodded. “All right.”
“I’m not promising I’ll read it right away.”
“I know.”
She gave him a look.
He swallowed. “All right. I’ll stop saying that like it fixes anything.”
“Thank you.”
A tiny smile touched his mouth and disappeared.
Sophia stepped back again. “I’m walking home now.”
“All right.”
“Don’t follow me.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t trail me from a distance and call it not following.”
His face flushed. “I won’t.”
“Don’t text Victoria to check if I got home.”
He hesitated. Sophia lifted her eyebrows.
He closed his mouth, then nodded. “I won’t.”
“I will text her. She will probably tell Gia. Gia will probably tell the whole building by accident. You will survive.”
“That is a very accurate chain of communication.”
“Goodnight, Vinny.”
The word goodnight slipped out before she could stop it. Both of them heard it. It wasn’t the old goodnight. Not a couple goodnight, not fixed, and not easy. Still, his face softened.
“Goodnight, Sophia.”
Not Soph. Sophia turned and walked away.
This time, the footsteps behind her didn’t follow.
She checked once in the bakery window. Vinny was still standing where she had left him, hands in his pockets, head bowed.
Then he turned the other way. Good. Sophia walked the rest of the way home with her pepper spray in her pocket and her heart too full for one feeling.
At her building, she stopped on the steps and texted Victoria.
Sophia: Home.
Victoria answered fast.
Victoria: Steady.
Then:
Victoria: You all right?
Sophia looked up at her apartment window. The kitchen light was on. Constance was awake.
Sophia: Not really. But I’m home.
Victoria: Do I need to kill anyone?
Sophia almost smiled.
Sophia: No.
Victoria: Annoying.
Sophia: He told me he loves me.
The typing dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Victoria: Oh.
Sophia: Yeah.
Victoria: Are we happy oh or panic oh?
Sophia stood on the step for a moment, cold air around her and the pepper spray still in her coat pocket.
Sophia: Both.
Victoria: I hate both.
Sophia: Me too.
She put the phone away and went upstairs. Constance opened the door before Sophia could knock, as if she had been waiting nearby.
Sophia told her the short version: Vinny followed her, she yelled at him, he apologized, he explained, and he said he loved her.
She had not said it back because she was still mad, even though she might love him too.
Constance called that honest and let it be awful.
Sophia wrote the facts in her green notebook before they could soften into something easier: he followed me, I got scared, he admitted it was wrong, he said he loves me, I didn’t forgive him tonight, I still love him.
Across town, Vinny returned to Bella Luna for his keys and found Antonia waiting in the kitchen.
He admitted he had followed Sophia after being told not to. Antonia made one thing plain: staying at a distance did not make it better. He had listened when Sophia told him not to follow the rest of the way, which was the only reason the conversation wasn’t worse.
When he said he had told Sophia he loved her, Antonia asked whether it had been pressure.
“No,” he said. “I wanted it to make everything better. I knew it wouldn’t. I said it because not saying it would have been another lie.”
Antonia told him to write the second letter only if Sophia wanted it and left him with one sentence: “She may love you and still need you to change.”
At his mother’s house, Anna and Mary were awake long enough to call him stupid, confirm he had not brought food, and push the notebook toward him.
He wrote the first line before bed:
I followed you because I was scared. It was still wrong.
Then one more:
I love you, but that doesn’t make me right.