And that made the fear sharper, not weaker. Standing there and watching her with the people I loved most, looking so alive and real and entirely herself, I felt a quiet, terrible conviction move through me.
This world did not deserve her.
My father glanced at me and, because he was my father, saw too much at once. I caught the knowing look he sent my way and hated him for it on principle.
I looked back toward Emily before he could say anything.
She turned at that exact moment, as if she had felt me there all along, and the smile that touched her mouth when she saw me was enough to make every warning my father had just given me feel very far away.
Victoria spotted us next.
“There you are,” she announced, as though our absence had been a personal failing. “Emily says my doll ranking system is intellectually valid.”
“I said it was impressively structured,” Emily corrected, though she was laughing as she said it.
“Same thing.”
My mother looked up then and her expression held too much understanding in it when it landed on me. Dad moved no closer, but I could feel him at my shoulder all the same, a silent witness to whatever choice I was about to make.
Emily stood as I came nearer, setting her tea down on the little table beside her.
“Is everything okay?” she asked quietly.
The question was simple. Careful. Open.
And for one suspended second, the truth stood there between us, fully formed and waiting. Adam. The Albanians. The risk my father had placed in my hands like a test I had already failed before I knew I was taking it.
I should have told her then, while she was looking at me like that, with trust still warm in her face and her hand already half reaching for mine.
But my mother was there. Victoria was there. The house was warm, the winter garden all glass and green around us, and Emily had only just begun to relax inside it. I did not want to put fear back into her eyes. Not there. Not yet. Not while she was standing in the middle of my family and choosing, however carefully, to remain.
So I smiled.
“Perfect,” I said.
She stepped closer and slipped her hand into mine, and I closed my fingers around hers automatically, hating the way the lie had already made itself useful.
That was the worst part.
Victoria, oblivious as ever, looked between us and made a face. “Disgusting.”
“Vicky,” my mother said.
“What? It is.”
Emily laughed softly and leaned into my side just enough that I could feel the warmth of her through my shirt.
My father said nothing.
He did not need to.
I could feel the weight of his knowing look without turning to meet it, and I hated that too, because he had been right. Not about Emily. Never about her. But about this. About how quickly love and fear and good intentions could twist themselves into silence.
I looked down at her hand in mine and understood, with a clarity that settled cold and heavy in my chest, that the moment had already passed.
The truth had been there.
I had seen it.
