Chapter 17 #3
She looked at Adam then, and I saw it clearly for what it was: caution. The careful awareness of someone who had learned the emotional temperature of a room too young.
Then she looked back at me and smiled, and that smile told me two things at once. She loved the idea, and she understood exactly what I was doing.
So did Adam.
He said nothing, but there was no missing the way his face tightened for a fraction of a second before he arranged it back into something pleasant.
No sneaking into my room.
No late-night apologies.
No forced nostalgia dressed up as tenderness.
I used to think those things were romantic.
I learned better.
“Great,” I said, already reaching for my suitcase again. “Then that’s settled.”
Adam’s smile thinned by a degree.
“Well,” he said, smoothing it back into place, “I should go anyway. Your mom needs help finishing dinner.” His gaze moved across the room, then settled on me again. “I’m working tomorrow, so I’ll make sure none of you need anything.”
I held his eyes and, to my own surprise, it felt good.
Powerful, even.
“I think we’ve got it from here.”
Something flickered in his expression then, dark and quick, but it was gone by the time he stepped toward me. He passed close enough that I caught the familiar cologne and nearly recoiled on instinct, but I held myself still.
Then he leaned down and brushed his lips against my cheek.
My whole body went cold.
“We’re not done, you and I,” he whispered.
Before I could move away, before anyone else in the room could even register what had happened, he straightened, winked at me like this was some private game only the two of us understood, and walked out.
The silence he left behind was thick and uncomfortable.
My mother let out a breath first. “Well. That was…awkward.”
I almost laughed.
Awkward.
“Yes,” I said. “That’s one word for it.”
She looked at me carefully, as if deciding whether I was being oversensitive again. “Emily, you know he means well.”
There it was.
Not cruelty. Not even malice.
Just the same old refusal to see.
My father rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “He probably shouldn’t have sprung himself on you like that the minute you got home. You clearly still have feelings running high.”
Feelings running high.
Not fear. Not memory. Not years of keeping my mouth shut until leaving became the only thing I could still do without breaking.
Just feelings.
I could have tried. Laid every bruise and every lie out in the middle of the living room and watched them frown through it, gently unconvinced.
But I was too tired to put my pain on trial again for people who had already chosen the easier story.
So I let it go. Not because they deserved that mercy. Because I did.
“It’s fine,” I said, and this time I almost meant it. “I’m not here for that.”
My mother looked relieved, which told me everything I needed to know.
Sophie was already hovering near the hallway, wide-eyed and tense in a way I knew too well. I picked up my suitcase and gave her a small smile.
“Come on,” I said. “Sleepover.”
That got her moving.
Her room still looked familiar enough to make my chest ache.
The same books. The same old cushions. The same ridiculous lamp she once insisted made her feel like a woodland princess.
Only now there were pill bottles on the dresser and mobility aids tucked neatly into corners, the shape of illness and recovery folded quietly into a room that was still trying to be young.
She climbed into bed while I wrestled the inflatable mattress into place.
For a minute neither of us said anything.
Then, very casually, she asked, “So…is your boyfriend around?”
I looked up so fast the mattress pump almost slipped out of my hand. “How do you know?”
She squealed and slapped a hand over her mouth. “I didn’t! I was hoping!”
Despite everything, I laughed.
“I didn’t tell Mom and Dad,” she said quickly. “They’re still weirdly obsessed with that loser.” Her expression darkened for half a second. “Can I meet him, though? Please?”
I hesitated only long enough to recognize that there was no reason to.
Sophie had always been better at seeing people than the adults in this house.
And I already knew Pietro would adore her.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll sneak him in after your surgery when Mum and Dad are gone, okay?”
Her whole face lit up.
“Okay,” she whispered, like I had just promised her something magical.
I looked at her then, really looked at her, and felt something settle inside me. Tomorrow would be awful. The surgery. Adam. The town itself. But this, at least, I could still give her.
Something good.
By the time the mattress was ready and the lights were out, Sophie was whispering questions into the dark, half sleepy and half thrilled.
I was answering less and listening more when my phone lit up on the nightstand.
I’m here if you need me.
Just that.
No pressure. No demand. No claim on my attention.
I stared at the words for a long second before setting the phone back down.
Tomorrow would ask more of me than I wanted to give. But tonight my sister was safe in the next bed, Pietro was close, and Adam's presence no longer felt like the center of my world. That had to be enough.