Chapter 1

When I returned to my seat, Lorenzo was talking to someone nearby. He looked up at me and asked, as naturally as ever, “Where are your sunglasses?”

I rubbed my eyes. Sunlight poured through the window, leaving them dry and aching. “I can’t find them.”

When I was ten, I had pushed Lorenzo out of the way during an attack meant for him. The explosion shattered the car windows, and flying glass damaged my eyes.

The doctors had managed to preserve most of my vision, but bright light still made it difficult for me to keep my eyes open. After dark, I could barely distinguish anything beyond vague shapes. They had always said further surgery would have to wait until my eyes had fully developed.

He frowned slightly, rose, and drew the curtain beside me. Once the glare was shut out, I could finally open my eyes properly.

“Don’t forget your appointment after school.” He sat down again and, without looking, nudged the water glass I had failed to find toward my fingertips. “I’ll meet you at the clinic and take you home.”

The movements came too naturally to him. They were the same small gestures he had made thousands of times before. For a moment, I almost convinced myself that I had misunderstood what he had said during the photograph.

After class, Lorenzo took a phone call.

“Go ahead without me,” he told me, already walking toward the stairs. “I’ll be there before your examination is over.”

The family driver dropped me at the eye clinic. Since Lorenzo had promised to bring me home, I told him he did not need to wait.

The examination took nearly two hours. The specialist tested my light sensitivity, adjusted my prescription, and gave me a new course of eye drops to prepare for the next stage of treatment.

The driver was waiting outsid.

“Close your eyes.”

He opened the pharmacy bag, found the cooling eye pads the doctor had prescribed, and carefully placed them over my eyelids. His fingers adjusted the edges until no light could slip through.

Then he unfolded the instructions.

“These drops start tonight,” he said. “Twice a day until your next assessment. Don’t stop using them just because your eyes feel better.”

“I know.”

“You always say that, and then you forget the evening dose.”

He took my phone, set two daily reminders, and placed it back in my hand.

The entire time, his movements were patient and familiar. He knew which lights hurt me, which instructions I was likely to forget, and exactly how much pressure he could use around my eyes without causing pain.

For the rest of the ride, Lorenzo barely spoke. Most of the time, he was answering messages, and every now and then the corner of his mouth lifted.

His phone had never buzzed this often when it was only the two of us.

Leaning back against the seat, I caught a faint trace of cedar on his clothes. It was the incense used at the Romano family’s private club. He had not smelled like that when I saw him that morning.

So while I had been waiting at the clinic, he had gone to the Romano club.

When the car stopped outside the Bellini estate, several young people were standing on the corner. I could not make out their faces, only their blurred silhouettes.

One of them called Lorenzo’s name. “We thought you weren’t coming back.”

It was a beautiful female voice: composed and bright, with the easy confidence of someone born to command a room.

I recognized her.

Bianca Romano, heiress to the Romano family. She was not only beautiful but brilliant as well. For the past year, she and Lorenzo had managed the academy’s youth charity initiative together. Nearly everyone considered them the two most outstanding students in our class.

The same cedar fragrance clung to her.

Lorenzo took two quick steps toward them. “What are you doing here?”

“The club is right around the corner,” Bianca said. “We came to collect you on the way back.”

Another boy laughed. “You’ve already driven her home. Don’t tell me you still have to walk her from the car to her own door.”

The girl beside Bianca gave a mocking little sigh. “Be careful. Apparently, she can manage perfectly well all day, but the second it gets dark, she suddenly can’t see anything.”

The boy clicked his tongue. “Bianca’s birthday dinner started two hours ago, and Lorenzo has already missed half of it playing chauffeur. Serena could have called her own driver instead of making him leave.”

“Enough.” Lorenzo’s voice hardened. “Her night vision is poor. Don’t turn it into a joke.”

The group fell silent for a beat.

He had defended me, yet I felt no relief. He had corrected what they said about my eyes, but he had not denied that I had deliberately kept him from Bianca’s birthday.

Lorenzo came back to me. “I’ll walk you in.”

“You don’t have to.” I tightened my hand around my cane and tried to keep my voice even. “Go with them. I can manage.”

He hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve lived here for years.” I forced a faint smile. “I know the path.”

Lorenzo stood there without immediately agreeing. I did not wait for him. I turned and entered the courtyard alone.

Their voices soon rose behind me.

“I have to ask, Valenti. Is saving your life worth a wedding ring?”

Someone else laughed. “Is that how this works? She takes the glass for you at ten, and you repay her by marrying her at eighteen?”

“Your families already treat her like the future Mrs. Valenti.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lorenzo cut in. “I’m not going to marry Serena to repay a debt. She’s my closest friend.”

My closest friend.

I faltered.

In the past, whenever people teased us, he had never bothered to correct them. The jokes had meant too little to deserve an answer.

But now he cared enough to deny them.

Was it because Bianca was there?

The courtyard stones were being replaced, and the staff had moved several planters during the day. I had memorized the old route, but I did not know a low temporary barrier had been placed across the path.

My cane failed to find it in time.

My shin struck the barrier, and I pitched heavily to the ground. My palm scraped across the rough stone, pain flashing through it.

I sat there, dazed.

Lorenzo had not always been like this.

Before we were ten, we went to school together and came home together every day. When I awoke in the hospital after the attack, Lorenzo lay beside my bed, clutching my hand and crying.

After that, he truly became my second pair of eyes.

In unfamiliar places, he memorized routes for me in advance. When the light was too strong, he closed the curtains before I had to ask. At night, he slowed his pace until I caught up. Whenever someone mocked my vision, he stepped between us.

“Serena!”

Rapid footsteps sounded behind me.

Lorenzo reached me quickly and bent to help me upright. “Where are you hurt?”

His voice was tight. Instead of hauling me immediately to my feet, he crouched and carefully examined my ankles and knees. Once he was certain nothing was broken, he took my scraped hand in his.

“This is what you call being fine?” His tone was stern, but his touch was as careful as ever. “The courtyard is under construction. Why didn’t you wait for me?”

He supported me as we continued inside. Bianca and the others were still waiting by the gate, yet he did not hurry me once.

He warned me whenever the light grew dim and kept one hand ready beside me when we reached the steps.

Just as he had for so many years.

The care still warmed the part of me that had loved him for far too long.

But it no longer gave me the answer I wanted.

Lorenzo could forget our appointment and still remember every dose of my medication. He could resent having me beside him and still run after me the moment I fell.

Perhaps caring for me had simply become a habit.

Perhaps it was gratitude, responsibility, or a debt he had been taught to repay.

Whatever it was, I could no longer convince myself that it had to be love.