Chapter 8
EMILY
“I’m getting my surgery.”
My sister beamed through the screen, and my heart sank.
Not because I didn’t want her to have it.
God, no. We had been fighting for this for over two years, arguing with doctors, waiting on referrals, jumping through every hoop they threw at us, only to be told over and over that because it was considered non-critical, it could wait.
Except it never felt elective to Sophie.
It felt like pain. Limitation. Delay. Another part of her life put on hold while other people decided what counted as urgent.
“Really?”
She nodded so hard her messy bun wobbled. “Yes. We found out two days ago.”
“Two days?” I stared at her. “And you’re only telling me now?”
Her excitement faltered, only a little. “I was hoping you might still come for Thanksgiving.”
The words landed softly, but they hit.
Sophie shrugged like it didn’t matter, like she was only mentioning it in passing, but I knew her too well for that.
She had never been good at hiding disappointment.
As a kid she used to do it loudly, with tears and shouting and accusations dramatic enough to deserve their own soundtrack.
Now she did it more quietly, with fake shrugs and careful smiles and a voice just a little too bright.
And underneath it, I knew exactly what she was asking.
Come home.
The idea flared before the fear followed close behind.
Home.
Same streets. Same people. Same suffocating small-town familiarity. Same whispered loyalties. Same memories embedded in places that had done nothing to deserve the power they still had over me.
And him.
Still there. Still orbiting my family like he had every right to. My dead brother’s best friend. The police chief’s son. The golden boy with the easy smile and the poisonous hands.
Maybe I should?—
The thought died almost as soon as it formed.
Just imagining myself back in that town was enough to give me goose bumps, all those old instincts surfacing at once. The sting of long-faded bruises. The ache of cuts that had healed years ago. The terrible, humiliating fear.
I pressed my free hand flat against my thigh and forced myself to breathe.
“When is it?” I asked.
“December twelfth.” Her excitement flickered back to life, though not quite as brightly as before.
“They said I’ll need a few weeks after, but if it works the way they think it will, I should be able to—” She stopped herself, biting down on the rest, like saying it out loud might ruin it. “Anyway. It’s good.”
“It’s really good,” I said quickly, forcing warmth into my voice before she could hear anything else. “Soph, that’s amazing.”
She smiled, and I could see the little girl she used to be, all stubborn determination and gap-toothed hope. It made something ache in me all over again.
“You could come,” she said, trying for casual and failing miserably. “If you wanted. I mean, only if you can. Mom said your PhD stuff is intense.”
There it was.
Not pressure. That would have been easier to handle.
Hope.
I looked away from the screen, buying myself time. “I don’t know yet.”
Her face changed just enough for me to notice. “Because of school?”
“Yes,” I said too quickly.
It wasn’t entirely a lie. That was the problem with good lies. You could always build them out of something true.
Sophie’s gaze sharpened. She might have been fourteen, but she missed less than most adults.
“Emily.”
The way she said my name made my stomach twist.
“I’m thinking about it,” I said, softer this time. “I am.”
She nodded slowly, and I hated that I couldn’t tell whether she believed me.
“I just…” She looked down, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. “I want you there.”
That did it.
I pressed my lips together and looked down before she could see too much on my face.
“I know.”
“I’m scared,” she said in a rush, as if getting the words out fast would make them easier to survive. “I know I wanted the surgery and I still do, I really do, but it’s surgery, Em, and I just—” She stopped, breathing unevenly now. “I just wanted my sister.”
The guilt stabbed like a blade between the ribs.
“Oh, Soph.”
For a beat, neither of us said anything.
Then she drew in a shaky breath and straightened, recovering faster than I expected. Or maybe not at all.
“It’s fine,” she said. “Forget I said that.”
“I’m not going to forget you said that.”
“Great,” she muttered. “Love that for me.”
Despite everything, a tiny laugh slipped out of me.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said.
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
We said goodbye a minute later, neither of us sounding quite right when the call ended.
The apartment felt too quiet afterward.
I stayed sitting on the edge of the bed for a few seconds, phone still in my hand, staring at the dark screen without really seeing it. Then the first tear fell before I could stop it, hot and humiliating and stupidly overdue.
“Oh, come on,” I whispered to myself, swiping at my face.
That opened the floodgates.
I bent forward, pressing the heel of my hand against my mouth as the crying came properly. Sophie's face. The surgery. The thought of home. The thought of him.
The doorbell rang.
I froze.
For one absurd second I thought maybe Nora had come back early, but she always knocked like she was being chased by debt collectors.
The bell rang again.
Still wiping furiously at my face, I stood and crossed the apartment, grateful for the excuse to pull myself together.
It was probably a delivery. Or someone with the wrong unit.
Or one of those cheerful delegates from the building office who always wanted signatures for things no one remembered requesting.
I opened the door.
Pietro stood there as my brain failed to process him properly.
Dark coat. Cane in one hand. Hair damp from the outside. A faint crease between his brows as though he was already in the middle of a thought before I opened the door.
Then his eyes landed fully on my face and the whole expression changed.
“You’re back early,” I said, because shock had reduced me to stating the obvious.
His gaze moved over me once, quick and precise, taking in more than I wanted him to.
“You’re crying. What happened?” he asked, his voice lower now, stripped of everything but focus.
I opened my mouth, closed it again, and then noticed the bag in his hand.
He followed my gaze. “I came bearing gifts,” he said, as if that made his sudden appearance less alarming. “Chicago specialties. I was told this was a reasonable offering.”
Despite everything, my mouth twitched.
“What did you bring?”
“Garrett popcorn. Proper deep-dish pizza for later. And something with enough chocolate in it that I assumed it had to be useful in a crisis.”
That got a watery little laugh out of me before I could stop it.
“Very strategic.”
“I try.”
He stayed where he was on the threshold, though, and I noticed. He didn’t step inside until I moved back and said, “You can come in.”
He glanced around my apartment once as he entered, taking things in, before setting the bag on the kitchen counter. When he turned back to me, that same focus was there, quieter now but no less intent.
“Tell me.”
I wiped at my face with the heel of my hand and hated that my voice still sounded unsteady when I said, “My sister’s getting surgery.”
His expression softened, just slightly. “That sounds like good news.”
“It is.” I laughed once, humorlessly. “That’s the stupid part. It is good news. We’ve been trying to get this approved for years and now it finally is, but…” I pressed my lips together. “She wants me home for it and I just?—”
The rest stuck somewhere in my throat.
Pietro didn’t interrupt.
“My brother died in a car accident a few years ago,” I said at last, quieter now. “My sister survived, but she was badly hurt. She’s disabled now. The surgery could help, and I should be there, but I…” I looked away. “I can’t think about going back without feeling like I’m choking.”
He was silent for a beat, and when I finally forced myself to look at him again, there was nothing pitying in his face, only attention. Careful, controlled attention.
“If you need help getting there,” he said, “I have a plane.”
The words were so matter-of-fact that I blinked.
“You have a plane?”
One dark brow lifted.
I stared at him. “How rich are you?” Then I shook my head. “No, don’t answer that.”
“That is not the problem.”
“No,” I said, rubbing my hand over my forehead. “No. It isn't. Thank you, but that's not…it's not the getting there."
“What is it, then?”
I shook my head once. “I don’t know if I can explain it without sounding ridiculous.”
“Try.”
He said it so simply that I almost did.
He moved toward the sofa and sat a little awkwardly, and before I could think better of it, I reached out on instinct to steady the cane as he adjusted his position.
He let me.
That small thing, that lack of pride or flinching or dismissal, did something unexpectedly tender to my chest.
For a moment neither of us said anything.
Then he looked down at the cane between us and back up at me.
“I have cerebral palsy,” he said.
The directness startled me more than the words themselves.
He held my gaze. “You probably guessed some version of that already.”
I nodded slowly. “I guessed. I didn’t know if you wanted me to ask.”
“I didn’t.” There was no edge in it, only honesty. “But I’m telling you now.”
“My mother Lily,” he said after a moment, “is not the woman who gave birth to me. My father introduced us when I was ten.”
The way he said it made me smile a little through the ache still sitting in my chest. “She’s your mother anyway.”
He went still.
Then, very slowly, he smiled at me as if I had said exactly what he had needed to hear.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “She is.”
He looked down at his hands before continuing, and when he spoke again his voice was calm, but there was something deeper under it. The weight of old facts that had never lost relevance.