The Fifth Member - Chapter Six
Pairing: Luke Hemmings x Reader
Genre/Themes: Friends to Enemies to Lovers
Warnings: Angst, Emotional Turmoil, Slow Burn
Word count: 6.598K
Synopsis: Y/N was always there. Before the sold-out arenas, the chart-topping albums, the global tours—she was there. A constant in the chaos, the fifth member who didn’t need a mic or a spotlight. She didn’t play an instrument, couldn’t carry a tune to save her life, but she was family. She was home.
To the fans, she was the girl in the background of every backstage photo, the laugh behind every chaotic livestream, the one who always seemed to be right where the band needed her. Until one day… she wasn’t.
No announcements. No explanations. Just gone.
Now, years later, the world sees the band rebuilding. But behind closed doors, there’s a name they still don’t say out loud. A silence heavier than any breakup song they’ve ever written. Because losing her wasn’t just a fallout—it was the unraveling of everything they used to be.
And for Y/N? Disappearing wasn’t the end of the story.
It was only the beginning.
That diner was nothing special.
Two blocks from the house, squeezed between a laundromat and a florist that always smelled damp. Vinyl booths cracked at the seams, mismatched mugs, a bell over the door that rang too loud every time someone came in. If we hadn’t lived nearby, we probably never would’ve noticed it.
But the cappuccino was good. And the pancakes were better.
We went there in the mornings, usually after a late night, when none of us wanted to cook and everyone pretended the day could wait. Same booth by the window. Same order. The waitress stopped asking questions after the second week.
Luke slid in first, hair still wet, hoodie half-zipped. Calum followed, quiet and half-awake. Ashton dropped into the seat across from me with too much energy for that hour of the day. Michael came last, already complaining.
“I don’t get it,” he said, staring at my mug when it arrived. “You hate coffee.”
“I don’t hate cappuccino.”
“No,” I said. “Coffee tastes bad. Cappuccino doesn’t.”
Calum snorted. Ashton shook his head like he’d heard this argument too many times.
Luke smiled into his plate, pouring syrup like there was no tomorrow. “Let her live.”
Michael leaned back, pointing his fork at me. “She just likes warm milk with denial.”
I kicked his shin under the table.
That was the perfect scenario: pancakes stacked too high, butter already melting, syrup everywhere. We ate like we’d earned it, talking about nothing — a lyric that wasn’t working, someone’s alarm not going off, who forgot to buy groceries again.
“Dude, you wanna switch places?” Michael asked Ash. “You keep looking at the waitress and I feel like I’m on the way. Any second now you’re gonna start drooling on my plate.”
“You should be used to it by now,” Calum added. “Ash flirts with the waitress everywhere we go. I’m starting to think he has an apron kink.”
“Not every waitress,” I said. “You never flirted with me when I worked at the diner.”
“That’s ‘cause you’re a keeper, baby,” Ash said easily.
“Speaking of which… I miss that diner,” Michael said, poking at his pancakes. “So many memories, dude.”
“Why did we stop going there, by the way?” Luke asked.
“Because just because I found my best friends there,” I said, “doesn’t mean I want to keep going back to the place where I used to be enslaved.”
“Awn,” Luke said, mock-soft.
“But when we weren’t there with you,” he added, smirking, “the only company you had was a passed-out truck driver and a mosquito.”
“Hey,” I protested, pointing my fork at him. “That mosquito was very emotionally supportive.”
Calum snorted, nearly choking on his coffee. “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“At least it listened,” I shot back.
Michael laughed, shaking his head. “You’re dramatic. That place wasn’t that bad.”
“It absolutely was,” I said. “I smelled like grease and burnt coffee every day.”
“And yet,” Ashton said, leaning back in his chair, “you survived. Built character.”
“Trauma builds character,” I replied flatly.
Luke grinned, unapologetic. “You loved us coming to get you after your shifts.”
I didn’t deny it. I just rolled my eyes and took another sip of my cappuccino — the one thing from any diner that had ever felt worth it.
The noise of the place wrapped around us: clinking cutlery, low conversations, the hiss of the espresso machine. Outside, the morning was bright and ordinary. No screaming fans. No interviews. No expectations beyond finishing our food and figuring out what the rest of the day might look like.
They were loud and careless and happy, talking over each other, stealing bites off each other’s plates like this was something we could do forever.
The space of time between leaving Cecilia at school and coming here felt unreal, like my body had moved on its own while my mind lagged a few steps behind. I didn’t remember the drive. Not the turns, not the traffic, not even the moment I parked.
And now I was standing in front of the diner near the house we used to share.
I hadn’t planned it. I didn’t even remember deciding to come. But after everything that had happened over the last few weeks, it made a quiet, unavoidable kind of sense. My mind had taken me there without asking. Back to a place where things had once felt simple. Or at least survivable.
The bell above the door chimed when I stepped inside. The smell hit me first—coffee, sugar, butter. Too familiar. Too intact.
I chose a booth near the window, out of habit. Ordered a cappuccino I didn’t need. Wrapped my hands around the mug like it might anchor me to the present.
Michael stood a few feet away, jacket half-zipped, hair still damp—like he’d showered and left the house without giving himself time to think. He looked genuinely caught off guard, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to be here.
There was a pause. Brief. Uncertain.
“Can I… sit with you?” he asked. Not assuming. Not performing.
I let out a quiet breath, more tired than amused. Of course. I’d just turned Luke down earlier, and somehow the day still wasn’t done with me.
“Do I have a choice?” I said. “Apparently, if it’s not here, the universe makes sure we run into each other somewhere else.”
A corner of his mouth lifted, tired. “The universe, I don’t know. But we are still neighbors.”
“That,” I said evenly, lifting the cup to my lips, “can easily be rearranged.”
He nodded like he deserved it and slid into the booth across from me anyway.
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The diner filled the silence for us—cutlery clinking, the coffee machine hissing, someone laughing too loudly two tables over. Life continuing, unapologetic.
“This is the last place on earth I thought I’d see you again,” he said. “Especially after last night.”
“I could say the same.” I glanced around, then back at him. “I didn’t know this place still existed for you after all this time. But I guess life keeps moving. With or without us.”
He nodded once. “I don’t know about the others. But for me… it’s a safe place. Only when I need it.”
“I’m sorry about last night,” Michael said finally. No buildup. No defense. “The dinner. All of it.”
I didn’t answer right away.
“It was my idea,” he went on. “I thought—” He stopped, huffed a breath. “I don’t know what I thought. That putting everyone in the same room, with candles and decent food, might make things easier. Or fix something.” He shook his head. “It was stupid.”
“Optimistic,” I corrected. “Naïve.”
“I’ll take either.” His voice was quiet. “It wasn’t fair to you.”
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t.”
“And I shouldn’t have put Chelsea in that position either,” he added. “She meant well. I should’ve known better.”
“You should have,” I agreed. Calm. Not cruel.
Another stretch of silence.
“I also wanted to say…” He hesitated, fingers curling against the edge of the table. “I’m sorry about your husband.”
The sentence landed softly—but it landed.
“I know it’s late,” he said. “And I know there’s nothing I can say that makes it less awful. But I am sorry. Truly.”
I met his eyes then. Really looked at him. The sincerity was there—not loud, not rehearsed. Just present.
“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate that.”
After a moment, Michael leaned back slightly, exhaling through his nose. “I hate that this is how we’re talking again.”
“We should’ve done this years ago,” he said. “Not… whatever that was last night.”
“We?” I repeated, calm but pointed. “Think about that again.”
His jaw tightened. He nodded slowly, the admission settling in. “You’re right,” he said. “That was never on you.” A pause. “And somehow, I keep finding ways to make it worse.”
I studied him for a moment, then leaned back against the booth. “You weren’t the only one who stayed quiet,” I said. “But you were the one who decided silence was easier than asking if I was okay.”
He flinched—not dramatically. Just enough.
“I know,” he said. “And I hated myself for it. Still do, some days.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I told myself you’d come back when you were ready. That you needed space. That it wasn’t my place to chase you.”
“And it never crossed your mind that I was waiting for someone to?” I asked.
“It did,” he admitted. “That’s the part I don’t like remembering.”
The waitress passed by, topping off my coffee without asking. Muscle memory. Routine. The kind of thing that made the past feel too close.
“I didn’t leave because I was fragile,” I said quietly. “I left because I understood something you didn’t want to look at yet.”
“That I was already alone,” I replied. “I just stopped pretending I wasn’t.”
The words settled between us. Michael stared at the table, jaw working.
“I thought if I kept the band together, everything else would eventually fall back into place,” he said. “Like you were a constant. Something unbreakable.”
I let out a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “That’s the problem with assuming someone is unbreakable.”
“And you were focused on something else too,” I added. “Chelsea.”
His jaw tightened, but he didn’t deflect. “At the time, everything was falling apart,” he said. “It felt like I was the only one who still had something good in the middle of the chaos. And I let that be my anchor.” He paused. “My escape.”
He glanced down, then back at me. “I don’t know if the guys will ever get the chance I’m getting right now. This conversation. But if we’re being honest—my dark years were the lightest. Not that that excuses anything. It doesn’t.”
Another pause, heavier this time.
“You don’t owe me anything,” he said carefully. “Not explanations. Not forgiveness. I just… needed you to know that I see it now. What we lost. And the part I played in it.”
And for the first time since he’d sat down, something in his shoulders loosened—maybe from finally being heard.
“I don’t expect things to go back,” he continued. “With any of us. As much as I wish that were possible.” He exhaled. “But if there’s a way to exist in the same space without making it worse… I’d like that.”
I considered him for a moment, then nodded once.
“For now,” I said, “let’s work with what we have. No promises about the future.”
He met my gaze, steady. “I can work with that.”
We stayed there a while longer after that. Not fixing anything. Not pretending we had.
Just two people finally letting the truth breathe.
The conversation with Michael left me lighter in a way I hadn’t expected. Not because of forgiveness—there was none of that—but because he finally named what had been wrong. There was something grounding about that. About not being asked to absolve him, not being nudged toward closure or resolution. Just the quiet acknowledgment that what happened had weight, and that weight had been misplaced for a long time.
It didn’t mean I suddenly wanted the same conversation with the others. Or any conversation at all. Especially not with Luke, who hadn’t shown much interest in recognizing his own mistakes the last time we crossed paths.
For reasons I hadn’t fully unpacked yet, talking to Michael had been easier than even imagining a conversation with Luke. Or Calum. Or Ashton. Somewhere along the way, I’d failed to notice that my resentment hadn’t been evenly distributed—that each of them occupied a different fault line.
Life kept going as it always did.
For a brief moment, I considered moving again. Leaving had worked wonders when I went to Boston. Distance had given me air, clarity, room to breathe. But things were different now. I wasn’t alone anymore. Cecilia had settled into her routine—school mornings, afternoon snacks, bedtime rituals that mattered more than I liked to admit. I couldn’t disrupt that just because ghosts from my past occasionally crossed the street in front of me.
Michael and I didn’t stay in contact. That would’ve been more than I was willing to give.
But when we ran into each other, we acknowledged one another. A nod. A quiet greeting. Nothing heavy. Nothing loaded. Chelsea too. Polite. Civil. Contained. Exactly where it needed to stay.
I didn’t see Calum again.
I assumed he’d changed his routes, adjusted his timing. Avoidance has a shape—you recognize it when you’ve lived inside it long enough. I told myself I didn’t take it personally. Or maybe I did, and simply let it rest where it belonged.
I saw him often. On walks. Sometimes alone, sometimes with people I didn’t recognize. He lingered more than the others, always hovering at the edge of a decision he never quite made. Every time our eyes met, I could see it—the impulse to cross the street, to say something, to do anything. And every time, he stopped himself at the last second.
I didn’t help him either way. That was his work to do.
Luke, however, was a much bigger problem.
I didn’t run into him every time I went out, but it felt like I did. Like he existed in the margins of my days—close enough to unsettle me without ever fully stepping into view. Always hovering. Present in a way that felt both accidental and deliberate.
The first time he saw me with Cecilia, time collapsed.
We were at the park near the house—late afternoon, quiet enough that the world felt manageable. Cecilia was laughing, chasing something invisible, her hair catching the light. Then Luke appeared with Petunia, and everything inside him seemed to short-circuit at once.
I watched it happen in real time.
The color drained from his face. Then rushed back. Then settled into something faintly green, like his body hadn’t decided whether to panic or be sick. I could almost see the thoughts piling up behind his eyes, colliding, scrambling to make sense of a reality he hadn’t prepared himself for.
I didn’t give him the chance to come over. I didn’t even know if he would. I wasn’t interested in finding out.
I fake-called Leona—my voice light, practiced—manufacturing urgency where there was none. It gave me an exit. A clean one. I steered Cecilia away before she noticed the big white dog tugging at the leash.
Her brief interaction with Ashton and Calum still replayed in my mind sometimes—sharp, uninvited flashes. One with Luke would’ve been far worse. I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t sure I ever would be.
They filled themselves quietly.
A short trip to Boston for a business meeting—Nicholas and Charles managing everything with the competence I’d leaned on while grief hollowed me out. Suzannah and Leona flew in on alternating weekends, turning my house loud and familiar again. We shopped. We laughed. We reunited Serafina and Cecilia. We cried when they hugged without hesitation, like no time had passed at all.
And somewhere in the middle of all that—between routines and reunions, between grief and noise—my heart settled.
Steady enough to keep going.
I let Cecilia spend the weekend with Leona in Boston—her godmother being one of the very few people on earth I trusted, without hesitation, to take care of my daughter. Even so, I sent Margaret along for extra support. Leona was used to one child turning her house upside down. Two felt like tempting fate.
I was fresh out of the shower, hair still damp, mind already halfway inside a glass of red wine and the book I’d started earlier, when the doorbell rang.
I almost forgot to breathe.
He stood on my doorstep like something summoned rather than invited. My 2016 self would’ve closed the door in his face. My current self wanted to do the same—just with better manners. But then I really looked at him, and whatever reflex I’d been about to indulge stalled.
“Calum?” I said, neutral.
He looked skittish. Eyes too wide. Skin just a shade too pale.
“Is everything alright?” I raised an eyebrow.
He stepped inside but didn’t move past the center of the living room, like the space itself had boundaries he wasn’t sure he was allowed to cross.
“Sit,” I said, already moving toward the couch. “Whatever this is, it doesn’t need to be said standing.”
He followed suit. Sat. Stared at his hands.
Seconds stretched. Or minutes. Time did something strange—compressed and endless all at once—until he finally spoke.
“I’m going to have a baby.”
The room didn’t react, but my body did.
A sharp, irrational pressure bloomed behind my ribs, like I’d missed a step going down stairs. I inhaled too fast, corrected it just as quickly, and folded my hands together so he wouldn’t see them tense.
Now I was the one who couldn’t speak.
My mouth stayed closed, but I must’ve lost control of my expression. He saw it—the collision of what? and why are you telling me this?
“I just found out this morning,” he added quickly. “I—I haven’t told anyone else.”
“Right,” I said, still catching up to the moment.
“I don’t want anyone to know,” he went on. “Not yet. Not ever, if I can help it. I won’t let—” His voice cracked, then steadied. “I won’t let my kid grow up being watched. Measured. Chewed up.”
This wasn’t the Calum I knew.
Or maybe it was—stripped of everything he used to hide behind.
And I understood. As much as he loved the band, he had grown up under cameras and headlines, under judgment from every direction. I’d witnessed it for a long time. I knew what it cost him, how it shaped him—and, in quieter ways, how it ended up shaping me too. Fame always came with a price.
I schooled my expression. Grounded myself.
“Okay,” I said. “Is it Brooke’s?”
“No. We’re not together anymore.” He hesitated. “It was a one-night stand. The breakup is recent, and if this gets out…” He exhaled sharply. “I’ve been in this long enough to know exactly how it’ll look.”
He paused, choosing his words carefully.
“And the girl—the mother of the baby—she’s not a public figure. She doesn’t deserve to be dragged into this. Not now. Not ever.”
“You’re already thinking like a parent,” I said.
He looked up at that, startled—like the thought hadn’t fully landed yet.
After a moment, quieter, he asked, “Can you help me? You’ve been through this. Having a kid, I mean.”
“Why are you asking me?” I asked calmly.
He knew what I meant. We’d been strangers for a long time.
“Honestly?” he said. “I don’t know. I think I blacked out from the moment I found out until the moment you opened the door.” He shook his head once. “It just… seemed right.”
“Okay. I’ll give you my doctor’s contact,” I said, already reaching for my phone. “She’s competent. Discreet. That’s the first thing you’ll need. She’s in Boston—but if she can’t help, she’ll direct you to someone who can.”
I wrote it down and handed him the paper.
“Thank you,” he said, really looking at me now. I saw something shift in his eyes. “I know this can’t be easy. Doing this for me.”
“Not today,” I replied. “You don’t get to unpack eight years in the middle of a life-changing day.”
“I’m done avoiding it,” he said. “This situation just made that clear.”
“Calum,” I said evenly, “today is not about us.”
“It never is,” he replied. “That’s the point.”
I tilted my head slightly. “Be careful. You’re standing in my living room asking for help with news you found out about this morning. Don’t confuse urgency with entitlement.”
His jaw tightened. “You really think that’s what this is?”
“I think,” I said calmly, “that panic makes people reckless. And you don’t get to be reckless with me.”
Silence stretched between us.
“You didn’t go after me either,” he said finally.
I smiled—not kind, not cruel. Just factual.
“No,” I corrected. “There was no point. You stopped being my friend before I left.”
His expression shifted, something unsettled flickering across it.
“Do you remember the day you called me,” I continued, “asking to spend time together? Just the two of us. Like we used to. After months of distance.” I let the silence stretch. “Do you remember what you did that day? Probably not.”
I watched his face carefully.
“I remember what I did,” I went on. “I went to the supermarket. Bought all your favorite snacks. I was excited—because for the first time in a long while, I thought maybe I wasn’t alone in feeling that something between us was wrong. That you wanted to fix it too.”
“And then I saw you. In that same supermarket. Buying alcohol. On the phone. Talking about a party I wasn’t invited to.”
“You didn’t cancel. You didn’t text. You let me figure it out on my own.” I exhaled slowly. “Turns out I was wrong. You didn’t miss me. I was alone in that feeling the entire time.”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you.” He swallowed. “It’s hard to find the right words when you know you’re in the wrong. I was in a very dark place back then. I’m not even sure I ever got out.” He hesitated. “Not that it excuses anything. But if you gave us the chance to talk—really talk—you’d hear some version of that from all of us.”
“Some things don’t need an excuse, Calum,” I said evenly. “For a long time, I tried to invent one anyway. Something that would explain what happened. Something that would make it hurt less.” I paused. “Eventually, I understood the truth. You just didn’t care.”
“No, you didn’t.” My voice stayed calm. “Because if you had, you wouldn’t have done that to me. You wouldn’t have left me humiliated and alone when I was there the entire time—helping you from the very beginning. Do you really think that’s what I deserved?”
“It’s not about that, Y/N!” He stood abruptly. “We were rising—cameras everywhere, number-one songs, trying to make it last. The fame, the money. There were girls throwing themselves at us, alcohol and drugs everywhere we went, our idols in the same rooms as us.” He let out a short, bitter laugh. “I was barely twenty. I used to think anyone who fell for that was weak. Pathetic.” His voice cracked. “Until I was the weak one. Until I was the one drowning in it.”
He paced the room while I stayed where I was, watching in silence.
“It doesn’t excuse anything,” he went on. “Hell, it doesn’t even justify it. But it makes me human.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I was watching everyone fall apart—Ashton drinking himself numb. Luke stuck in a relationship so toxic Chernobyl wouldn’t come close. Michael trying to hold everything together, trying to keep the band from imploding.”
He hesitated.
“And you…” He exhaled. “Your life was so normal. I envied that. More than I ever admitted.”
I didn’t interrupt him. I let the words finish spilling, let the room absorb them.
When he finally stopped pacing, he looked at me like he was waiting for something. Understanding. Permission. Maybe relief.
“You’re right,” I said at last. “It does make you human.”
His shoulders loosened, just a fraction.
“But being human doesn’t absolve you,” I continued. “It just explains how you managed to hurt people without meaning to.”
“You keep talking about everything that was happening to you,” I said calmly. “The noise. The pressure. The chaos. And I don’t doubt any of it. I lived close enough to see the cracks forming.”
“But while all of that was happening, I was still there. Showing up. Making excuses for you when you didn’t bother to make them yourself. Waiting.”
“I wasn’t asking you to save me,” he said.
“I know,” I replied. “That’s what makes it worse. I wasn’t trying to be your lifeline. I was trying to be your friend.”
The word landed between us. Heavy. Uncomfortable.
“You don’t disappear on someone you respect,” I went on. “You don’t leave them to piece together their own humiliation and call it collateral damage.”
He dragged a hand over his face, breathing out hard.
“I didn’t know how to balance it all,” he said. “I didn’t know how to be who everyone needed me to be.”
“That’s fair,” I said. “But you don’t get to rewrite the damage just because you were overwhelmed.”
Silence stretched again, thick with everything he hadn’t said back then.
“I’m telling you this,” he said finally, quieter, “because I don’t want to be that person anymore.”
“I believe you,” I said. And I did. “But believing you now doesn’t change who you were then.”
He nodded slowly, like each word cost him something.
“I don’t expect forgiveness,” he said.
“Good,” I replied. “Because that’s not what this conversation is for.”
“Then what is it for?” he asked.
I considered him for a moment. The boy he’d been. The man he was trying to become. The distance between them.
“It’s for clarity,” I said. “So we stop pretending this was a misunderstanding.”
His mouth pressed into a thin line.
“Now,” I said evenly, “you take responsibility for the part you played. You don’t minimize it. You don’t ask me to soften it. And you don’t expect access to me because you’re finally ready to look at it.”
The words sat between us, fragile but sincere.
I was about to stand, to signal the end of the conversation, when something on his wrist caught the light.
It was subtle—easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it. A thin, worn bracelet. Dark cord, frayed at the edges. Familiar in a way that made my chest tighten before my mind could catch up.
For a moment, the room blurred—not dramatically, not painfully. Just enough for memory to slip in.
My apartment.
The box by the door.
Everything the boys had left behind, folded and packed with more care than necessary.
Me handing it to the doorman, casual, detached, telling him to keep it—just in case.
Knowing no one would come.
“This…” I said before I could stop myself.
My voice trailed off. I didn’t need to finish the thought.
He followed my gaze. His hand stilled at his wrist.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I—I went to your old apartment. Turns out I was too late.”
The admission landed softly. No drama. No defense.
“Why didn’t you correct me,” I asked, “when I said you didn’t look for me?”
He hesitated, then met my eyes.
“Because it doesn’t change the fact that I was one of the reasons you left.”
Silence settled between us again.
“I should go,” he said finally.
“Yes,” I agreed. Then, after a beat, I added, “If things get complicated—medically, legally, or otherwise—you can come back. About the baby.”
“This doesn’t reopen anything,” I said calmly, before he could misunderstand. “And it doesn’t change where we stand. But I won’t pretend I don’t know how isolating the beginning can be.”
He nodded slowly, absorbing that.
“Thank you,” he said. Not hopeful. Just grateful.
He left quietly, the door clicking shut behind him.
I stood there for a moment longer than necessary, listening to the house settle around me.
The bracelet lingered in my mind— not as absolution. Just as a fact I hadn’t known before.
I turned back toward the living room, toward the life I’d built in the years since we stopped speaking.
Some stories don’t end when you think they do.
Leona and Suzannah stared at me in silence for ten full minutes.
“Do I need to call a doctor or something?” I asked eventually. “You’re not even blinking.”
“That’s not the question,” Suzannah replied. “Why would you be the first to know?”
Leona decided to bring Cecilia back to L.A. after the weekend she’d spent at her place, and Suzannah—surprising no one—came too. I nearly collapsed when I opened the door, grateful not to be left alone with my thoughts after Calum’s news.
Now we were in my living room, watching Cecilia and Serafina play house on the floor, the bunny dragged into it like a willing accomplice. The normalcy of it felt fragile, almost deliberate.
That was when I finally told them what had been keeping me awake.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Honestly, I lose the sense of certainty I used to have a little more each day I wake up here.”
“You wake up here because you want to,” Suzannah said. “I’ll never understand why you chose to come back to L.A.”
“I’ve already told you,” I replied. “Boston—and every other place I went with Stefan—is full of memories of him.”
“And yet,” she said evenly, “you chose a place full of memories with them.”
She didn’t soften it. She never did when she thought the truth mattered more than comfort.
“You’re lying to yourself.”
“Suzannah…” Leona said quietly, her eyes flicking toward the girls on the floor.
Suzannah followed her gaze, exhaled through her nose. “Right. I’ll keep my mouth shut,” she said. Then, softer, almost to herself, “for now.”
The room settled again, filled by the low murmur of Cecilia and Serafina negotiating bedtime rules for the bunny. I watched them longer than necessary, the way children turn everything into something survivable.
“What’s been keeping me awake,” I said finally, “is that I carried that anger for so long it became part of me. Something I learned how to move with.”
I folded my hands together, feeling the familiar tension in my chest.
“Stefan made it possible to live with it,” I went on. “He taught me how not to drown in it. How to build a life that wasn’t ruled by what I lost.” I swallowed. “But he didn’t make me let it go. I don’t think that was ever his job.”
Suzannah watched me closely now. Leona didn’t interrupt.
“And now I’m back here,” I said, gesturing vaguely around us. “In this city. In these rooms. With the past brushing up against my present like it never left.” I shook my head slightly. “Closure. Resolution.”
I let out a breath that felt like it had been trapped for years.
“I don’t know if I want that,” I admitted. “I don’t know who I am without the anger that carried me through it. And I’m terrified that if I let it go now, it won’t be peace I feel.”
The girls laughed at something again. The sound cut through the heaviness, grounding and absurd all at once.
“I’m afraid,” I said quietly, “that it’ll be grief all over again.”
“Y/N,” Nicholas said from the other side of the screen, his voice already tired in the way only men who know they’re losing can sound, “when are you giving us our wives back?”
“And my daughter?” Charles added, his voice drifting in from somewhere off-camera, like he’d leaned in just to make sure he was heard.
“If you don’t come here and take them from me,” I said sweetly, “never.”
“No—don’t do this to us,” Nicholas groaned.
“She’s joking, mon cher,” Suzannah said, sliding into view behind me, one hand already fixing her hair in the camera’s reflection. “She’s not strong enough to keep me away from you.”
“Suzan—wow,” Nicholas said, squinting at the screen. “Where are you going looking like that?”
“Out,” she replied simply. Then, with a shrug, “A nice place my cousin told me about. Not exactly a club, but there’s dancing. And drinks.”
Leona appeared beside her, already half-smiling like she knew this was a bad idea and was choosing joy anyway.
“Oh no,” Nicholas muttered, his head tipping back in defeat.
“We’ll be there in an hour,” Charles’s voice said confidently, still refusing to show his face.
“Don’t you dare,” Suzannah snapped, pointing at the screen.
“Yes, ma’am,” Nicholas said quickly. Then his tone shifted, losing the teasing edge. “All jokes aside—be careful. And have fun. All of you deserve it.”
Suzannah softened immediately. “Thank you, babe,” she said. “I’ll be back in Boston soon to bring all this chaos into your life again.”
“Give Serafina a kiss for me,” Charles said, finally stepping into frame. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Leona replied, blushing like she’d never heard it before in her life. As if he hadn’t said it a thousand times already. Typical.
I watched them for a second longer than necessary—this strange, beautiful normal they’d built—and then leaned closer to the screen.
“Well,” I said, “I love you both too. Thanks for asking.”
I ended the FaceTime call before anyone could respond.
“So,” Suzannah said, already reaching for her clutch, “are we ready?”
“I just gave Margaret the final instructions,” Leona replied. “We are.”
“I’ll just retouch my lipstick,” I said, turning toward the nearest mirror.
It was Friday night, and Suzannah had decided we were going out. There was very little Leona and I could—or would—do to challenge that. Plans took shape quickly once she set them in motion.
Dinner first. An Italian restaurant discreet enough to value silence over spectacle. After that, a place just private enough to pretend it wasn’t exclusive—dim lights, expensive drinks, music we’d grown up with, curated to feel effortless.
By the time I stepped back into the room, everything had settled into place.
Leona looked me over once more, the way she always did before we stepped out together—quick, precise, approving without ever saying it out loud.
“Good,” she said. “Let’s go before Suzannah decides we’re late.”
“As if being late has ever stopped me,” Suzannah replied, already halfway to the door.
Outside, the night was warm, forgiving. As the house disappeared behind us, something in my chest loosened—not relief, not escape, just the quiet permission to exist somewhere else for a few hours.
Suzannah smiled to herself.
“Now,” she said, “let’s see what trouble we can get into.”
Dinner was fantastic. The restaurant was chic but cozy, the kind of place that made you forget time existed the second you sat down. The food tasted like it had been pulled straight from my happiest days with Stefan, from our countless trips through Italy—long lunches, too much wine, nowhere else to be. But the place Suzannah’s cousin had recommended was on an entirely different level, the kind of spot that makes you feel slightly underdressed no matter what you’re wearing.
We were already a couple of drinks in, voices louder than they had been at the start of the night, elbows resting on the table as if we’d been there for hours. Gossip flowed as easily as the wine, jumping from topic to topic without ever really finishing one before the next began. Somewhere between a dramatic retelling and a very strong opinion I was forming, I realized I really needed to pee.
“Girls, no need to come with me,” I said, pushing my chair back. “I already know how this one ends.” They groaned in protest, but I lifted a finger. “Just hold the comments until I’m back. I have a very important point to make about it.”
I made my way through the narrow space between tables, the hum of conversation and clinking glasses following me. The lighting was soft and warm, flattering in a way that almost felt intentional, like the place wanted everyone to look a little better, a little happier than they actually were. I caught my reflection briefly in a mirrored column and smoothed my dress without really thinking, taking a breath that felt heavier than it should have.
The hallway to the bathrooms was quieter, cooler, and for the first time all night, I was alone with my thoughts. And that, I realized, was exactly when they tended to get loud.
Inside the bathroom, I rested my hands on the cool marble of the sink and looked at my reflection, really looked this time. Nothing was wrong, not exactly. My hair was in place, makeup untouched, posture impeccable—Leona would have approved without a single note. Still, something beneath the surface felt unsettled, like a faint vibration I couldn’t quite locate. Lately, moments had been stretching too long or slipping by too fast, memories resurfacing at inconvenient times, emotions arriving without invitation.
I exhaled slowly and straightened, giving myself a small shake, as if that could physically dislodge whatever was trying to creep in.
Not tonight, I decided. Tonight was for good food, expensive drinks, and women who loved me enough to tell me the truth even when it stung. I retouched my lipstick with care, pressed my lips together once, and smiled at myself—convincing enough.
On my way back, I took the longer route without really meaning to, passing by the bar that hummed with a different kind of energy than the dining room. Lower voices. Dimmer light. Less performance, more intention. I was halfway past it when something—or someone—made me stop.
He was seated alone, elbow resting on the bar, fingers loosely wrapped around a short glass of whiskey. The drink was untouched. He wasn’t looking around, wasn’t scrolling on his phone, wasn’t even pretending to be distracted. His gaze was fixed on the amber liquid like it held the answer to a question he wasn’t sure he wanted to ask.
Seconds passed. Then more. Nearly a full minute of watching him stare at the glass, his jaw tightening and relaxing as if he were working through an argument only he could hear. His thumb traced the rim once, twice, never quite lifting it. It felt… intimate. Too intimate for a moment I hadn’t been invited into, and yet couldn’t seem to look away from.
My body moved before I had the chance to reconsider.
I crossed the small distance between us and slid onto the stool beside him without asking. Before he could fully register my presence, I took the glass straight from his hand. In one smooth motion, I downed the whiskey—no hesitation, no pause—letting the sharp burn bloom in my chest before settling into something warm and steady.
I placed the empty glass back on the bar.
“Thank you,” I said lightly, turning toward him.
He stared at me, utterly astonished. Mouth slightly open. Eyes wide. As if the moment had short-circuited every composed, clever response he might have rehearsed for a stranger.
I tilted my head, meeting his gaze without flinching.
“How did you know my throat was dry?”
Silence lingered between us, thick and charged, the kind that promised the night was about to take a very different turn.
