FAZER LOGINOlive stayed after Maya fell asleep.Olive and I migrated to the back porch. It was cold enough to need the blankets Maya kept in the basket by the door, and we took one each and sat in the old chairs that had been on this porch since Maya moved in.Neither of us spoke for a while.Olive was good at silence, the kind that meant I'm here and I'm not going anywhere and you can take whatever time you need. She'd always been like that, even in school, the quiet one in a group of people who were always loud.It was why I was grateful to have her here."I don't know how to say it to him," I said eventually.Olive pulled her blanket higher. "Say it to me first."I looked at her."Practice," she said simply. "I'll be Enzo. Say it to me the way you need to say it to him.""Olive…""You just told me and Maya the whole story," she said. "But that was different. That was telling your friends. Telling him is a different thing entirely." She looked at me steadily. "Practice it. Get the words in you
Maya made tea.That was the first thing she did when we got inside, before questions or anything else.I sat at her kitchen table.Olive arrived twenty minutes late and we sat with our tea in silence.Then Olive said, quietly, "Whenever you're ready."I started at the beginning.I told them about our apartment in New York.How it had started well, the two of us building something together, his company in its early stages, both of us working, tired, and telling ourselves that the long hours were temporary, a season, something that would ease when the next milestone was reached.H
It’s been four days since the Wednesday dinner, and I am still not myself.It probably wouldn’t be visible to people that didn’t know me, but for someone like Enzo, it was impossible to hide from him. I could see the effort he put into not pushing for me to share, whatever it was that was making me pull away. I appreciated it, and it was also making everything harder.It was Saturday morning, Enzo was at my apartment because we'd planned to go to the farmers market. We had breakfast.I was present enough to answer questions and pour coffee and perform the basic tasks, but something on my face must have shown exactly the kind of pressure I was putting on myself, because he was looking at me like he was running out of patience. "Elena," he said."Mm.""What did I do?"I turned to look at him.He was holding the dishtowel and looking at me."Nothing," I said."Something is wrong. It's been days, and you're…" he stopped, then continued, "...you're here, but you're not here. And I've bee
It was a Wednesday.I remember that specifically because Wednesday had become our dinner night. He cooked. He always cooked when we were at his place, which was fine with me because Enzo in a kitchen is one of my favorite things and a perk of being in a relationship with him. He cooked the way he did everything he cared about, with full attention and the results were extraordinary in a way that made my own efforts little.Tonight was pasta again. This one is different from the last one, something with a sauce that had been simmering long enough to make the whole apartment smell like somewhere in Italy.I was sitting at the kitchen island watching him finish it, wine in hand, enjoying the view.I'd been working up to it all week.Telling him.After the conversation about Felicia, after the days of quiet and the evening on the couch where he'd held me without asking anything, after thinking about everything thoroughly, I'd arrived at a decision.He needed to know.The pregnancy was the
The thing about carrying something heavy was that you got used to the weight.I'd been carrying the story of the hospital for five years and in that story Enzo had known. He'd known and made a choice and that choice had been the final confirmation of everything I'd believed about where I ranked in his life. That was the version I knew and held on to. This new version had me rethinking everything I thought I knew.This version had a woman named Patricia making decisions she had no right to make, and Enzo in an office somewhere not knowing.I didn't know what to do with this version.So I did what I always did with things I didn't know what to do with.I went quiet.It wasn’t even intentional, it just happened that way. Less talking at dinner, more time working and reading. Enzo noticed soon enough.We were at my apartment, Tuesday evening, finishing dinner, and I was doing the thing where I thought I was hiding, sitting across from him with my fork moving but my head somewhere else e
It started as a perfectly ordinary conversation.We were at his place, a quiet Sunday evening, the kind that had become familiar enough that I'd stopped noticing how comfortable I was in his space. He was on the couch with his laptop doing something he'd described as just a quick look that had already consumed forty minutes, and I was in the armchair with my book.He closed the laptop eventually.Stretched, rolled his shoulders, and smiled at me."Tell me something that has nothing to do with work," I said, without looking up from my book."I've been thinking about expanding the Hong Kong office.""That's work.""It's also geography."
When I pulled into his driveway, his car was there. Lights on in the living room so I knew he was home.I sat in my car for five full minutes, trying to work up the courage to get out.What if he slams the door in my face? What if he tells me to leave? What if he's already decided I'm not worth the
I didn't sleep.Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him walking away. Saw the look on his face, hurt, angry, done."I'm done chasing you."The words played on a loop in my head, taunting me, accusing me.By the time my alarm went off, I'd been staring at the ceiling for three hours, my phone clutche
After we hung up, I sat there staring at my phone, feeling something warm blooming in my chest.This was getting out of hand. I was getting out of hand.But I couldn't seem to stop.I was shelving books in the romance section, ironic right, when Maya came running over, phone in hand."Elena."Somet
The next morning, I woke up feeling…okay-ish. Not happy or even peaceful, just functional. And honestly, with all the chaos Enzo was causing in my life, that felt like a miracle.I brushed my teeth, packed my hair into a ponytail, stepped outside to grab the mail…And froze.Because sitting in my d







