Chapter Twenty-two | Down the Line

♫ Down the Line by Beach Fossils

Everybody knows the holidays are a hectic time to be a student. Professors cram in the last assignments and deadlines (things they want to get out of the way before Christmas, at least) and while your mind is halfway gone to Thanksgiving and New Years, it's as though a bunch of responsibilities are hot on your tail. You can physically hide your laptop and books, but the mental weight of your procrastination remains.

In a desperate attempt to save our grades, as he calls it, Milo's put out invitations for a 'super deep study sesh' at his place. Knowing him, though, he just wants to show off his finished apartment and gloat about it. I still would've showed up if he opened with that.

When I realised this'll be the first time I'm seeing Milo's place as he intends it to look, I knew I can't show up without a housewarming gift, so I got a plant on the way. Plants are a transfer of responsibility, sure, but he already has a bunch and they'll look nice in his industrial apartment. Also, I don't have any other ideas.

The only housewarming I've ever been to was of an older cousin of mine. That would've been a helpful experience in my gift-picking, if the only memory I have of that entire event wasn't my uncle gifting her a bag of toilet paper.

Though my journey of looking for a plant to gift Milo started out with me looking for a pretty, healthy-looking plant, I remembered halfway I'll have to drag whichever one I choose into the subway and all the way to Chelsea with me. Now he'll end up getting a lightweighted one that might look a little dead but is very easy to move.

I get him a teddy bear, too, since a plant feels too random and impersonal (especially since I won't be able to get a card and write something inside of it. I'll have to ask someone else, a total stranger, to write for me, and that just feels too humiliating for eighteen-year-old me). Then I take the subway to Chelsea.

It takes me a while to climb the Capitol's stairs with my hands full and my balance all messed up, but I manage it anyway. The elevator's been 'out of service' since Milo moved in weeks ago and I'm starting to think it's a scam.

Milo's front door is cracked open when I arrive on his floor, and inside voices are carelessly chatting and laughing. I adjust the plant and teddy bear in my arms (feeling slightly embarrassed about bringing them now, in front of all these people, but shrugging it off).

The apartment looks more settled in, is the first thing I notice. The wardrobe next to the front door is overflowing with coats and shoes are kicked off next to the welcome mat. The side table has mail strewn over its top and a bowl with Milo's keys in it, a mirror nailed to the wall right over it. I can just imagine him slipping on shoes and adjusting his hair before he heads out.

The living room is proof of his free-spirit living here, too. The wall behind the television is exposed brick, as are those framing the large, tiled windows facing the street, and the hardwood flooring is a warm brown, clad with a thick carpet underneath the coffee table.

The kitchen adjacent to the living space is still separated from it by two large archways on either side of it, but the wall between has been replaced by a bar with two wired stools. I don't know when Milo had the time to make such a renovation, but I assume his stepmother Vivian helped him out with that, too.

The host of the gathering finds me quickly, dressed in a regular burgundy tee and grey sweatpants hanging loosely off of his hips. "You're here," he simply addresses me.

I nod my head to the space. "It looks amazing."

Milo comes to stand next to me, inhaling deeply. "I know. I'm so proud. I'm never selling this place. It's too much of me." His eyes shift to my arms. "What'd you bring?"

"Oh, it's sort of a housewarming gift. I just wanted to congratulate you once again." I offer him a smile and drop my bag on the floor, turning to him to extend the plant and stuffed animal. "Congrats, Milo."

He surpresses a wide smile by biting down on his lip, hesitantly accepting my offerings. He holds the stuffed animal up to his face and then hugs it to him. "Thanks, Nova. You know, this is my first stuffed animal ever."

The smile drops from my face. "What?"

"Don't give me that look. I had toy cars and went to sleep with those, so it didn't really make that much of a difference. My point is, this is my first and I will protect him with my life."

"That just means you don't know about stuffed animal culture," I say. "You have to name it now."

"Hmm..." Milo trails off, considering it. "What were your stuffed animals named?"

"Well, I had a pig called Piggie. And a teddy bear, called... Teddy... I don't think I'm the right person to inspire you for this."

Milo laughs. "I expected more from you, Nova," he says playfully. "Come eat."

"Is this whole 'feeding Nova' thing still going on?" I ask as he helps me out of my coat.

"You know it."

There are a bunch of faces I don't recognize strewn across Milo's apartment as I follow him to the kitchen. So far I've only ever seen him hang out with Liz, Kaitlyn, Atlas and Maxwell, but I'm not surprised he has many friends. He's sweet and open to everyone he meets, and funny in a way that doesn't offend anyone (this seems to be a quality growing more and more scarce over time).

"I baked cookies, but cookies aren't a meal, so I prepped sandwiches, too." Milo retrieves two containers stacked atop of each other from the refrigerator. He momentarily puts his hands on his hips, then seems to remember something and dashes out of the room without saying anything, leaving me behind.

I peer into the living room, over the countertop of the bar. It irks me that there are so many unfamiliar people. I didn't come into this thinking I'd have to socialize with new faces or deal with their confusion, questions and awkward distancing. I've never felt as though I'm the kind of person to just fit into social situations, it usually takes me weeks — if not months— to assimilate and find my place, or make peace with the fact that I probably never will.

There have been times where I've wondered if I'm allowed to pride myself on my social life so far. I get along with everyone from Hyde's support group, but that was more because of our similar 'fates' and Hyde's guidance. Milo I guess I'm close to, but I still find it hard to connect with Liz and Kaitlyn. On top of that, I wonder if Olivia would be my friend or even look at me as casually as she does now, if she wasn't obliged to as my roommate. It's true that I've grown since high school when it comes to the amount of relationships in my life, but some part of me is still scared that it doesn't count. That it's all just situational, and that it's instable and fake, and that I'm fooling myself.

The thought dissolves into a familiar tension. I place two hands on the granite countertop in front of me to steady myself on my weak legs, swaying a little. If I need an excuse not to interact with tons of people today, I suppose I can always tell Milo I really do have a lot of work to get done.

He returns with a spring in his step, his hands clenched to fists that he holds out to me, his eyes sparkling.

For a moment, it breaks my heart how different he is from me, in his movements and his joy, and the carelessness hauling him through his days. Then, I shake it off and focus on his fists, still raised in the air expectantly.

"What do you want me to do?" I raise my own fists and slowly bump them against his. He vibrates with laughter.

"Pick one, dummy," he clarifies.

My mouth forms an 'o', accompanied by warmth spreading throughout my cheeks. I point to his left hand and he opens the fist.

"They're metal straws," Milo says when I stare at the light green box-shaped keychain. He pops open the lid to show me the two extendable metal straws.

"Are they for me?" I ask, shifting my eyes to his.

He nods. "Every time we go out and get a drink you ask for a straw and I'm sick of you single-handedly killing every turtle in the ocean."

I laugh in surprise, carefully taking the keychain from him. The lid seems to be magnetic and snaps shut easily, which will surely save me a lot of spastic fidgeting in the future. "Then, what if I picked your other hand?"

He opens the fist to show me the same exact keychain, but in blue. "I bought two just in case. You can have these, too."

The fact that he bought two just so he could give them to me by making me pick a fist (instead of buying one and just giving it to me) makes me laugh even more. I push his hand back to him. "No, keep it. We can match."

Milo smiles, then drops the keychain into the pocket of his sweatpants and refocuses on the containers he pulled from the refrigerator earlier. He sets up a plate for me with a pair of sandwiches and a few cookies, then holds up a finger, telling me to wait.

It audibly makes me groan when he retrieves his ugly cat-placemats (the tacky ones he got when he first moved in) from a cupboard, a misschieveous grin on his face. "Nova, you have to know your hatred for my placemats is like fuel to me," he says matter-of-factly.

"I do know," I mutter in response.

Milo and I sit at his little bar to have lunch. He even fixes us both up with glasses of water, filled to the brim, so we can try out our metal straws.

Only in that moment does it hit me how meaningful this is to receive as a gift — something that doesn't shy away from acknowledging my disability, but also doesn't emphasize it. Something that aids me without making me feel embarrassed for needing that aid to begin with. Something as small as a pair of metal straws in a keychain, that'll change countless experiences for me.

Usually it would feel like a confirmation of some sorts. Maybe I should be humiliated about Milo looking for this gift, or coincidentally running into it and buying it, because he knows and it's apparently visible how much I struggle with drinking from a glass or cup. I keep forgetting that's how we met that day in the introduction week, too, my fingers submerged in the drink because it was the only way I could lift a plastic cup from the tray he was holding.

I'm so sick of being embarrassed, though.

It's not even like someone's telling me to be. I consider it common sense to want to hide myself away after diverting from the norm and making people look at me weird. What even is embarrassment? Why am I so engulfed in it all the time? Why do I feel like that's normal?

"I still have something to tell you," says Milo, plucking me out of my train of thoughts.

He sits alongside me the same way he did at the unveiling. Us eating together really seems to become a habit of his, or mine, or both.

"What is it?" I don't even know what he's referring to with the 'still'.

Just then, some guy clasps him on the back to pull him into another conversation. I'm reminded of our surroundings, his full apartment and the loud chatters, and the fact that I've already been hogging his attention since my arrival.

I lower my head to refocus on the food in front of me, allowing my hair to shield either side of my face so people don't have to see me eat. Again, it's a stupid and unnecessary thing to be embarrassed about, but in the moment I can't help it. I'll just avoid talking to people, eat lunch and get started on my coursework.

Lucky for me, some other people pick that moment to enter Milo's apartment and as he goes to greet them, his photography club disperses and leaves me alone, so I can finish eating and wash my dishes in peace. I don't go to see who just came in, which is my antisocial self taking control, and instead decide to wander further into Milo's apartment. He has a small hallway connecting his living room to a bedroom and a bathroom. Both seem to be rather small, but this is still New York. It's impressive to me that he has space to walk between different pieces of furniture at all.

His bathroom is pretty standard, with a shower curtain sectioning off the shower and no bathtub, but a pretty wide sink and a cupboard right over it. It smells so much like cleaning supplies that I keep the door opened as I peek inside.

The bedroom next to it is light and airy. The wide window leading to a red fire escape is cracked open and he has no curtains mounted in front of it, which seems daring to me. His bed's a thick mattress stacked on top of several wooden pallettes with a white duvet messily draped on top and not one, but two fluffed up pillows against the wall.

I run my hand over the desk installed by the window. He has an ancient typewriter in the upper right corner and an analog camera next to it. There's a bunch of envelopes and letters strewn over the rest of the desk space and a few uncapped pens scattered about, sticking out from underneath sheets of papers and laying on top. I can only guess he uses one, forgets where he put it, then uses another.

His closet is only half-shut, the clothes piling out of it bunches at a time. I recognize his schoolbag, an army-green canvas bag, at the bottom, next to the sneakers he often wears. I think he's been living here for about two months now, but it's nice to see how he's built it up into his own place. A place for his hobbies, his clothes, all of his opinions and favorites. It almost makes me jealous. I wonder how long it'll take me to have the same thing.

I'm reading the text of a poster on his bedroom door when it unexpectedly opens, causing me to stagger backwards. Atlas Wilder, who seems equally surprised to see me, appears in front of me. He's still dressed in a long coat and mittens, even, and has a scarf loosely wrapped around his neck, as if he walked here straight from the front door.

"Oh. Hello."

I step further into the room to allow him in. "Hey. I was just touring Milo's new place."

"That's fair. I was inside for literally two seconds when he ordered me to fetch his camera." Atlas points past me, and then steps up to scoop up Milo's camera from his desk. He turns back to me, fiddling with the buttons for a moment.

I wonder why we're both explaining ourselves.

I'm aware of what I told Milo the other day, about not knowing what I'm doing (which is still very valid) and not wanting anything yet, but standing in this small room across from Atlas Wilder is confusing.

He's still someone to look up to as he's so much taller than me, with a cheeky, dimpled smile and a honeyed voice. The fact that he's been so shameless with me before is confusing, too. He invited me to the gala but I had to hear from Olivia that it was a date. He told me he'd made up excuses to see me on several occasions, but he hasn't asked me out. And the moment Ramona Sinclair reentered his life, it was obvious he was shaken in a way that was deeper than family or friendship.

But I don't want to blame my reluctance on him. Even if I did get the impression that he was certain about me, I still wouldn't be certain about him. Or maybe it's better to say, I'm still not certain about myself. I've never doubted myself this way before.

My hands grow clammy the longer I stand there. When I'm with Milo or Logan, I never notice the proximity, but now that I'm with Atlas, I'm overly aware of the way I'm standing, the way my hands jerk and pull, the way my legs shake and tremble at the knees and burn in my thighs.

"I brought Ramona," says Atlas, then.

I look at him, trying to decipher the expression on his face. "Much to Milo's dismay?" I joke awkwardly.

He lets out a short laugh, agreeing, but it dies down quickly.

I'm unsure what he's trying to say, telling me he brought Ramona. This might be him rejecting me, but he's not saying anything else.

"I get it," I decide to say after mulling over the words for a bit. The room grows stuffier the longer I stand there with him. "There seemed to be a history."

Atlas nods, his face morphing into a more apologetic expression. "There is. It's still... we're..." He inhales sharply. "I'm sorry."

The fact that he never explicitly asked me to be his date or asked me out should've been an indicator, but it would've been nice to be rejected with words, not just an apology.

Part of me is even bummed out about not being the one to do the rejecting myself. At least now I can stop being so nervous around him that my body becomes nearly inoperable, an extension of myself that's beyond my own control.

Milo's analog camera rattles when Atlas lifts it in the air, pointing it towards the door I'm blocking. "Are you coming back to the living room with me? Milo was about to show everyone his photos." He's not as smooth as he was before.

"I'll be out in a second." There's more I want to say. An explanation of some sorts (even if it would be a lie), like 'I'm looking for something' or 'I have to use the bathroom', but my body is getting so tensed up that the muscles around my mouth stiffen up and it gets hard pronouncing anything. I let Atlas past me, out of the room, and he shuts the door behind him.

It feels like I lost something that never really existed.

I'm not sure if I can be upset or offended about it, since this is the exact same thing I'd been planning to do to him. There's a difference, though. He'd insinuated it.

Ramona Sinclair.

He's fair about that, at least. He knows I could tell there was something there on Halloween and he has the maturity to not string us both along or give me false hope. All things considered, I do wonder if Ramona's the sole reason. If she was, her arrival would mark the beginning of Atlas' changed attitude towards me, but there wasn't much of a difference at all between how he was with me before and after her.

Which indicates that it might be me. Maybe he was always just curious about me, the girl he met in the maze, but he never liked me enough to go through with it. Something must've been holding him back.

I blink a few times, realizing I'm still standing in front of a closed door. I straighten my clothes and clear my throat before I leave Milo's bedroom and return to the living room.

Atlas and Ramona sit at the bar together, turned to the living room. Milo calls out to me before either of them notices I've walked in, and pulls me onto the couch next to him by my arm.

There's not much space on said couch, so I end up clamped between him and the armrest, but he puts his arm on the sofa behind me to give me more space and operates the camera with his left hand. I almost want to lean into him to the point of dissolving into him, aware of Atlas' eyes on us, but decide against it. I use my hair to shield myself.

"I'm leaving early today," I say to Milo. The words come out softly, but with the way I'm seated against him, he doesn't have to strain to hear me.

"What? Why?" Milo's eyes flicker between Atlas and myself and he absentmindedly hands the camera to the person sitting at his other side. "Did something happen? You'd tell me, right? I saw him come out of the bedroom, but I didn't know you were in there, too—"

I realize quickly which dots Milo thinks he's connecting and shake my head before he can finish talking. "No, no, don't worry about it. This just isn't much of a studying environment for me." I add somewhat of a joking tone to it and gesture to the crowded space.

Milo grimaces. "I know. I haven't even touched any of my books. But, wait." He stands abruptly, then bends down and grabs my wrist before he pulls me off the couch and with him to his bedroom, picking my bag up on the way. We pass Atlas and Ramona— it's a small apartment so not all that surprising, but still makes me cringe—, but Milo walks too fast to let me gauge their reactions.

"What's happening?" I ask as he starts to clean his desk, stacking up the papers and tossing his pens into a pencil case.

"I'm making you a study spot, obviously." He turns on his feet to face me. "Don't leave. Okay? I have to tell you about something but it requires a full conversation, so I want to talk to you when everyone has left."

"Is it a serious talk? You can't just tell me now?"

"No. This is a hostage situation, if you will. Please, just stay?" His eyebrows knit together, then he raises them, jutting out his lower lip in a ridiculous pout.

"Okay," I give in, suspiciously.

His face breaks out into a smile. "Just... relax and focus on your coursework like the responsible gal you are. My desk is your desk." He goes to walk out again, then turns on his heel to raise a daunting finger in my face. "And don't you dare leave!"

The sounds of the living room chatter muffles when he shuts the door. To anyone else, this might feel like him locking me out or excluding me from the party, but for the first time today, I feel my shoulders sag.

I can't remember the last time I sat in a room on my own, to work on school and have somewhat relaxed limbs. Olivia's always in the dorm and she often has people come over, and the library might be quiet but is still busy, resulting in my nervousness translating to uneasy movements and slower progress.

What would Milo be thinking? The fact that he wants me to stay so bad makes me want to cry. And the fact that he cleaned his desk for me to sit at, knowing it's the only way for me to relax, makes me want to cry even more.

The open window grants me the city noises of outside and the Empire State Building peeks over apartment buildings and street lights. Somewhere down the street a troubadour plays a saxophone (Paul Desmond, or Bill Evans, it sounds like), accompanied by a keyboardist and some person with a makeshift drumset on the street corner.

I wrap my hair into a comfortable, messy bun, sitting down at Milo's desk with one leg tucked beneath me and my laptop pulled from my bag. I try to focus on the words on my screen and in my textbooks, but the faint noises around me are far too relaxing, so I lay my head on my arms and close my eyes for just a second.

By the time I open them again, it's dark and quiet outside, there's no more chatter coming from the living room and there's a blanket draped over my shoulders.

Panic ignites in my chest when I realize my second of sleeping melted into several hours and I didn't get any of my work done. Additionally, a shooting pain runs through my neck when I raise my head. My position wasn't very graceful nor healthy, and I slept like that for the entirety of the afternoon.

I stretch my legs in front of me and stand, cracking the door open and poking my head out. From what I can see, my shoes are the only ones left at the front door and coats are no longer piling out of the wardrobe. A golden light emerges from the kitchen around the corner, along with the sound and smell of something sizzling in a pan, and I can tell the television's on by the noises of some cartoon and the rapidly changing lights casted onto the wall opposite of it.

Milo's in the kitchen, chopping up onions with a plain piece of bread clenched between his teeth. He doesn't notice me until I take a seat at the bar, rubbing the crusts out of my eyes.

He drops the bread from his jaw, onto the countertop. "Ah, you're awake?"

"Not really," I say, making him chuckle when I can't stifle a yawn. "Why didn't you wake me?"

"You looked like you needed the rest, you slept so peacefully in there. Are you hungry? I'm making some pasta."

"I didn't know you could cook." I watch as he slides the chopped onion into the pan with what looks like garlic. The smell is mouth-watering and reminds me of coming home to my mother cooking after a long day of school. It's strangely emotional stumbling upon a home cooked dinner again.

"Oh, no, I can't cook, this is actually my first attempt."

I think he's kidding at first, but his lip doesn't even twitch. "Well, it looks like you're on the right track."

He seems to agree with me on that, until he's finished the sauce and realizes he forgot to buy the pasta. His creativity peaks when he puts the sauce on buns and calls it an 'Italian Sloppy Joe', that we eat on his couch while we watch The Amazing World of Gumball and suppress our feelings of guilt over not getting any schoolwork done during what was supposed to be a super deep study session.

"You can tell me now," I say when we've finished our dinner.

Milo glances over at me. "Tell you what?"

"You said that you had to tell me about something and it required a full conversation," I recite.

His demeanor shifts to somewhat of a more vulnerable one as he remembers. It almost feels like he's about to confess something, like a murder or tax fraud. He even lowers the television's volume.

"Do you remember when I told you about my birth mom?" He starts.

I nod. He told me about her when he spoke about his dream, the day we took the subway to Brooklyn to meet my new physician and set up the gait analysis. It was a brief mention, but I remember he said she was Italian and lived near the Amalfi Coast, how he wanted to live a life like hers in the country.

"Sergei always had the same things to say about her," Milo continues. "That she was still relatively young and regret the pregnancy. That she signed a contract stating she didn't want anything to do with us, that in the end she did it for money, to attend college in Rome."

I do the calculations in my head. If she was a young student when she had the twins, it makes the situation so much more unusual (and a bit creepy, even) recalling that Sergei was forty years old when he decided he wanted kids at all.

"Our entire lives we had this image of her. Sergei used to address me in particular when he tried to defend himself over people thinking he considered us a product to be bought. He said that if I saw him as someone who'd see kids as wares, I'd have to see her the same way. But for some reason, I never could. Maybe it really was me idolizing the image of the mother I never had, or antagonizing the father I felt I was being punished with, but I didn't believe him.

"Contacting her or trying to find her in the first place has always been something he forbid us to do. He buried any record he had of her and kept insisting she didn't want us. And you know how Maxwell is, he went along with it and is still not interested in her. He started calling Vivian 'mom' the moment she married Sergei, and while I love Vivian and have a good relationship with her, I just never got it. You know?"

This is all leading up to something, I realize as I nod my head again. Milo confirms this.

"I've spent my teenaged years trying to find her, I hired PI's and asked around my Dad's social circle for anyone who knew him at this time and could've known my mother. But it was all just dead ends. Until last summer. I found her and reached out to her... and the story she told me was so much different than Sergei's.

"She was an aspiring college student at the time. She told me that she worked as an au pair in New York for a couple of years to earn the tuition money, specifically for richer families. She had thousands of dollars saved up when she got scammed and lost all of it, ended up on the street. Sergei had long before noticed her in the homes of friends with kids. He'd made several moves on her that she rejected, even though he was rich and offered her a lot of money for a single night at his place. She said that everything about him felt sleazy and off, that she was young and scared. Then he came with an offer she couldn't refuse.

"He'd pay for her trip back to her family in Italy and her college education, and he'd give her an additional fifty thousand dollars if she'd have his kid. She came from a large family that had lived in poverty for generations and struggled making the decision. I mean, she'd be able to provide for everyone and ensure this beautiful future where she'd be the first in her family to attend college and earn good money. But she also spent ages agonizing over the idea of having a child and not knowing them. Having to give them away and living with the knowledge that the person she carried in her womb for nine months was out there, living, and not knowing who she was.

"When her mother in Italy got cancer, Sergei threw in the promise of paying for her treatment, and she started to see it as a trade. She'd trade her child for her mother's life. And with all the money in the world, Sergei could make any demand. She stayed at his place for the entire pregnancy and a few weeks after our birth. She wanted to take one of us, but the contract had been signed long before we even arrived, and with her young age, her mother's situation and her large family needing her and the money she got from this, the chances of her winning any claim on us were pretty much nonexistent.

"Though Sergei kept his promise and put her through college, paid for her mother's cancer treatment and gave her fifty thousand dollars, he forbade her of ever seeking us out or contacting us. There was an incident around the time we were five years old, when she was in the city for a work thing and she came around the building we lived at. Sergei's doorman mentioned a strange lady hovering around the premises and he came down and berated her so much that she got scared of ever returning."

Milo dips his head. In the slight tremble of his hands, I can see both the rage and the sadness he feels. Five years old was the age he was at when his father started neglecting him. I can't imagine how it must feel, knowing it was also the age he was at when his mother was so close, and longing for him so much.

I allow a beat or two to pass before I speak. "But you found her," I offer.

He inhales. "Yeah. I found her. She studied art history at Sapienza University of Rome and worked as a museum curator for a couple of years. She started making art of her own when she turned thirty, and has a few succesful galleries around Europe. On top of that, her mother's cancer-free, all of her nieces and nephews are in college, and her younger brother is studying to be a doctor." Milo smiles to himself.

"She didn't go into much detail about what Sergei said or did to her that day, but it had such a big effect on her that even if she wanted to, she was so afraid to come see us. Whether it was up close when we turned eighteen, or from afar when we turned ten. When I reached out to her and started talking to her, I learned she kept pictures of us framed in her home, and most of her art pieces were named after us or incorporating us in some way. There was never a single moment where she could live and not think of us as she did it."

"She sounds like an amazing person."

"She is. She helped pay for this apartment and she's actually the one who encouraged me to start taking those photography classes. And she wants me... us, to come to Italy and meet her."

I smile when Milo smiles, his anger and his sadness making place for excitement as he tells me about his mother. But the moment he mentions the word 'us', I realize there's a part of the equation that won't be as open to the whole story as Milo. "What does Maxwell think of all this?"

Milo's eyebrows shoot up and he fixes his eyes on the ceiling as he lets himself slide down on the couch. "Maxwell's... not much different than he usually is. Stick up the ass, tie around the neck, frown on his face, my father's hands around his throat." He turns to see my sour facial expression. "I'm kidding, of course! I can't even finish an entire sentence if I mention her. He's so steadfast in the idea that Sergei told us the truth, the idea that he doesn't want to have anything to do with a woman who supposedly doesn't want to have anything to do with him. If it was just about me I'd have let it go ages ago, but this is not just about me. It's about our Mom. It's about the lies we were told and the pain we all went through because of Sergei. From what you've seen you probably think Maxwell hates me as much as Sergei does, and maybe he does, but I really do want the best for him. And I think, knowing the truth, knowing our mother, is what's best for him."

I rest my head on the backrest of the couch, searching for the words.

But the conversation's over, Milo abruptly decides, because he turns his head to me and asks, "It's late. Are you staying over?"

My answer gets interrupted by a knock on his front door. He groans and rolls off the couch, dragging himself to the door to open it. "Did someone forget someth—"

I turn my head, curious to see who got Milo speechless, and find my stomach dropping.

Sergei Macarevich walks right past him, into the living room with his chin tipped up. His disapproving eyes scan the room and land on his son. "What?" He asks. "I'm here to see the apartment I paid for."

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