She wasn’t embarrassed, just exposed, the way you feel when someone walks in on you mid-change, even if you were doing nothing wrong.
Mercifully, the conversation shifted once more to lighter things. U of T holidays were ending soon, so everyone had final plans before classes resumed. Her old friends included Gage in their chitchat, asking if he’d been to this restaurant or that gallery.
Midway through, Gage flagged the server. Ten minutes later, a bottle arrived—red, deep, and expensive. A cheeseboard, too, artfully arranged, which the girls immediately exclaimed over. A step up from wedges and sweet potato fries, but not obnoxiously so. He knew exactly what he was doing.
Logan lifted his glass to Gage. “Nice of you.”
Gage met his eyes. “It’s a good night.”
That was all. No rivalry. Recognition. Logan saw what Bea had become part of. Gage saw that he saw it. That was enough.
Bea floated above the conversation, watching herself perform it—laughing, answering, sipping, smiling. She didn’t know which version of herself they were all looking at. Only that, to her, Gage felt like the most real thing in that moment.
She was sitting between two worlds: the one she’d come from, and the one that now sat beside her, unmoved by the one that came before.
The house was quiet when Bea came in, just the soft tick of the hallway clock. She unbuttoned her coat slowly, hanging it in the dark. The scent of simmered tomato and bay leaf still clung to the kitchen, earthy and bright. Whatever it was, it would taste better tomorrow.
The kitchen light was still on.
Her papa sat at the table, sleeves rolled, glasses low, reading a thick packet. Old habits—he never read anything serious on a screen. A mug of something dark and lukewarm sat untouched by his elbow.
Bea paused in the doorway.
He didn’t look up. “You’re back late. Gage drop you?” His voice was deep, lightly accented. The same voice that had walked her through bike falls and high-school algebra.
“Yeah. We ran into some friends.”
He turned a page. “Good ones?”
She shrugged. “Old ones.”
That made him glance up.
She stepped into the room and took the seat across from him, the one she used to curl into after school, and spring from when he walked through the door at night.
“Papa…the internship starts next week,” she told him. Then she watched as he folded the papers. Just once, a clean crease down the middle. “I think I want to take it.”
“You should.”
“It means I’ll be going back early, though.”
He studied her then. Really studied her, like he was trying to match this version of her to the girl who used to fall asleep in the back seat on the way home from tutoring.
“You’ve always done the right thing,” he said. “You’re like your mama that way.”
Bea smiled faintly. “Not always, Papa.”
He didn’t argue. “You’ve never just taken the easy way. Even when it’s hard, you work for what you want.”
Her eyes stung, sudden and uninvited.
Then he said, like it had been waiting inside him all this time, “But you don’t have to carry it all, mija. You never had to be enough for two.”
She went still.
“You’ve already given us so much to be proud of.”
A tear escaped, ran down her cheek.
