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CHAPTERONE
Emma
I watch the East Coast buildings flit by the window, much grayer and bleaker than the West Coast. Maybe that’s just my mood, and I can’t brand theentireEast Coast this way.
I’m sitting in the back of a chauffeured car sent by my bestie, Rosa. She was the one who held me tight as I cried so hard I thought my chest was going to bust open eighteen months ago when Mom died. Then it was life on the West Coast with my stepdad.
Now? He’s found another woman, and I don’t enjoy hanging around the house when I can tell they don’t want me there. It’s nothing they’ve said explicitly, more a general mood. It’s a look my stepdad gets in his eyes sometimes as if he’s silently saying,When can I start my new life?Honestly, I get it. I’m a reminder of everything he’s lost, and it’s not like we were ever super close.
We stop at a red light, the midday sun shining down on a construction site. I wonder if Rosa’s dad, Leo Esposito, is involved in the project. He’s been a top construction manager in the city ever since I was a kid, hence the car and the big townhouse it’s taking me to.
I was seventeen when I left, but as the car carries me closer to the house, I feel like I’ve aged more than eighteen months. It’s like I left seeing the city through childish eyes, everything big and imposing, but now it’s shrunken down and nowhere near as impressive. Maybe that’s grief, still clinging, dulling everything. Whatever, at least the sun’s shining. I can’t let myself fall into self-pitying crap.
Soon, we arrive at the townhouse. “Thank you, Francesco,” I say.
He turns and smiles. His bushy gray mustache and the shocks of hair forming a crescent around his head bring me back to childhood. He’s been the Esposito driver for as long as I can remember.
“Of course, miss. I can’t call youlittle ladyanymore, can I?”
This might seem suggestive coming from somebody else, but Francesco is a good man and happily married. Anyway, nobody eversuggestsmuch to me, not that I’m looking.
I walk up the long stairs to the townhouse, immaculately swept, the door twice my height. After pressing the doorbell, I remind myself I’mnothere to ogle Rosa’s dad, Leo. I never had a crush on him, but I did look from time to time. It was impossible not to.
Luckily, I didn’t see him much growing up. Sometimes, he’d say a quick hello, but that was it. It gave me the space I needed not to let this feeling grow, whatever it was, the small ball of potential light inside me. It’s a good thing, and I plan on keeping it that way. Just because Leo makes me ache in a way I don’t fully understand, it doesn’t mean I have to feed those feelings. Just like the feelings of grief, too. There’s no need to throw wood onthosefires.
I almost cry when Rosa throws the door open. It’s how she reacts, her face crumpling in emotion, her hands flying up to cover her mouth as if shocked at my presence. She’s tall and thin, wears an artsy top and torn jeans, and has her deep brown hair cut into a confident fringe.
“I’m so happy to see you.” She hugs me tightly. “I feel like it’s been forever.”
I hug her just as tight. “That’s because it has. I’m still angry at you for not visiting.”
I mean it as a joke, but then her grip on me tightens.
“Hey, I’m just kidding. I knew you had school.”
She’s studying English literature and poetry, which suits her perfectly. I’m going to be an accountant one day, lost in the boring world of profits and sums and the clean sense of the numerical world.
As she leads me into the house, I don’t mention that she refused to visit even during the holidays, and when I mentioned coming here, she became awkward. I’ve wondered why, but I can’t figure it out. Sometimes, I feel like I’m missing something obvious.
“Look who’s back, Mom,” Rosa says, stopping in front of the shrine to pay her respects.
This is another reason I can’t ever think about Leo Esposito. I can’t let my mind stray to his height. He must be at least six and a half feet, a giant compared to most men. I can’t think about his hair, mostly silver but with flecks of obsidian here and there, or his intense eyes, which seemed to consume me the few times I saw him as a kid. They fascinated me, too, one stark blue and the other brown. I can’t think about trailing my hand down his arm, feeling his muscles, strength, and how his confident smirk shapes his lips.
I stop in front of the shrine. It sits beneath the double staircase, photos of Angelica, Rosa’s mother, filling it, flickering in the light of the lit candles. She died in a gas explosion when Rosa was fourteen, a few years before I lostmymom.
So much tragedy. Oh, God, this is bad. For a second, a shameful one, I feel almost jealous of this woman. She got to kiss Leo, hold him, and be with him.
“Emma?” Rosa says, jolting me out of the fantasy.
No, not fantasy. Notthat.
“Yes?”
“Hungry?”
* * *
“Hey, I’ll have you know poets can make fortunes, some in the tens of dollars.” Rosa grins as she gestures with her toast, much happier in the rooftop garden. “Oh, to wish I had a dish, maybe with somefish… Are you hearing this? I’m going to be talked about for generations.”
