ログインEMILY Fashion Week night smells like hairspray and nerves and the particular electricity of thirty people crammed into a space designed for ten, all of them moving too fast and talking too loud and checking their phones every forty seconds. Derek is at the garment rack with a steamer in one hand and a lint roller in the other, pressing and rolling and muttering about a crease on the charcoal blazer that nobody can see except him. "Priya, the hem on the green dress is pulling left," he calls across the room. "It's not pulling left." "It's pulling. I can see it from here." "Then stop looking from there and come look from here where it's straight." "If I come over there the blazer wrinkles." "Then the blazer wrinkles, Derek." They've been doing this for two hours, this back-and-forth that sounds like fighting and is really the sound of two people who care about the same thing being terrified it won't be perfect. I've learned to let them run. Derek catches what Priya m
He kisses me. Soft at first. Tasting like lime and chili. Then his hand slides to the back of my neck and the softness burns away and my hand finds his chest and his heart is hammering under my palm. He pulls back. “There’s a dressing room behind you.” “I know. I work here.” “Is it unlocked?” “We can’t—” “Is it unlocked, Emily?” His eyes are dark. The gold pressing through. “It’s unlocked.” He pulls me to my feet. Across the studio. Through the dressing room door. Small, dim, mirrors on three walls, a cushioned bench along the back. The door closes and his hands are on my waist and he lifts me and my back hits the mirror and the glass is cold through my shirt and his mouth is hot on my neck and I wrap my legs around his waist and grip his hair. “We have to be quiet,” I say. “Nobody’s here.” “The security guard—” “Doesn’t care.” He bites the spot below my ear and my hips rock against him and the sound I make isn’t quiet at all. He carries me to the bench. Sets me down. Pulls my shirt o
EMILY Nick is in my kitchen drying dishes while I sketch four dresses that will tell me who I can’t trust. Mia is asleep. Mason is in his room counting Legos that Mia definitely rearranged. The apartment is quiet except for the scratch of my pencil and the soft clink of plates. “I’m going to find the leak tomorrow,” I say. He sets a plate on the rack. “How?” “Four sketches. Four different finale dresses. I show each person privately, tell them it’s the real closer, tell them to keep it between us.” I finish the line on the third dress and start the fourth. “Whichever one shows up outside my studio tells me who’s been talking.” Nick picks up another plate. Dries it slowly. “Who are you testing?” “Priya. June. Lucia.” I add the hemline. “And Derek.” “You said three names and added Derek like an afterthought.” “Because he is one. I don’t need to check Derek.” Nick sets the plate down. Doesn’t pick up another. “Emily.” “He’s been with me since the beginning. He was there when the
EMILY Mason is sitting on my cutting table eating a peanut butter sandwich and supervising my hem work with the critical eye of a five-year-old who has opinions about fabric. "That part is wobbly," he says, pointing at the seam I just pinned. "It's not wobbly. It's gathered." "What's gathered?" "It's when you make the fabric bunch on purpose so it looks—" "Wobbly." Mia is on the floor beside him, cross-legged, drawing wolves on the back of my pattern paper. She's drawn fourteen so far. Each one has a name written underneath in her careful, crooked handwriting. The latest wolf is pink with yellow eyes and is labeled AUNT SAGE. "Wolves aren't pink, Mia," Mason says. "This one is." "That's not how biology works." "It's how ART works." "Art should be accurate." "Art should be PRETTY." She holds up the drawing. "Is this pretty?" Mason looks at it for a long time. "The eyes are good." "Thank you." "The body is wrong." "MASON." "I said the eyes are good.
NICKI hit the tarmac with Mason in my arms and my bare feet on the cold ground and I don't feel the cold. I don't feel anything except his arms around my neck and his heartbeat against my chest and the wet of his tears on my shoulder."I've got you," I say into his hair. "I've got you, buddy. You're safe."He's shaking. His whole small body is shaking against me and his fingers are dug into my shoulders and he won't let go. He's not supposed to let go. He can hold on as long as he needs to."You came," he says. Muffled against my neck. "You came, you came.""I'll always come. I told you. I promised."Headlights sweep across the tarmac. A car pulls up fast and the doors open before it stops moving. Emily is out first, running, her feet slapping the pavement, and she reaches us and her hands are on Mason's back and in his hair and on his face and she's checking him everywhere, her fingers gentle on his cheek where the red mark is."Baby," she says. Her voice breaks. "Oh, baby, your fac
MASONThe car stops and Jessica pulls me out and we’re somewhere with little planes.Not the big airport where Dad took me once to watch planes land. A small place with a fence and a gate and a man who waves Jessica through without checking anything. It’s dark and the lights on the ground are blue and white and the planes are small, the kind with stairs that fold down from the door.Jessica is pulling my arm and walking fast and I have to run to keep up because her legs are longer and she’s not slowing down. The suitcase is rolling behind her on the pavement, bumping over cracks.A car is parked beside one of the planes. A man is leaning against it. When we get closer I see him and my stomach drops because I know him.Alex.He looks different. Tired. His clothes are wrinkled and he hasn’t shaved and he’s looking at Jessica the way Mrs. Park looks at kids who do something dangerous on the playground.“This is a very stupid thing you’re doing, Jessica,” Alex says.“Move.”“You hit him.
Moving to Nick's estate wasn't possible according to the doctors, and honestly, I breathed easier knowing I would never stumble into Jessica in the home she once lived in. The familiarity of our building, our routines, Dr. Chen two blocks away — it was the right call medically. I told myself that.
They bring Mia into the ceremonial room at dawn. She’s still groggy from the medications, but when she sees me, she reaches out and I take her hand. “Mama? I’m scared.” “I know, baby. But Mr. Alexander is going to make you better. I promise.” Alexander kneels beside the gurney, meeting Mia
Nick and I stare at each other across the hallway. “We’ll use Alexander’s bond,” I say before Nick can speak. Dr. Harrison’s expression shifts to concern. “Ms. Winters, I need to be very clear about the risks—” “I understand the risks. Alexander will bond with her.” “Emily—” Nick starts.
My whole body tenses. “Stay away from her.” “How old is she?” I don’t answer. “How old, Emily?” “Six.” I watch him do the math. Six years. Six years since that Christmas morning. Six years since he destroyed me, and I left with his child growing inside me. His face goes pale. His hand







