CHAPTER 20
Gianna
We started slow.
Coffee once a week at a place halfway between our apartments. Dinner at small restaurants where we learned from each other again from scratch.
It was different now—honest in ways it hadn’t been before.
We took it slow physically too. A month of coffee dates before I let him kiss me goodnight. Another two weeks before I invited him up to my apartment. We sat on my couch and talked until three in the morning about everything and nothing, and when he left, he kissed me at the door like I was precious.
“I’m not trying to rush you,” he said against my lips. “We can take as long as you need.”
“I know.” And I did. That was the difference now. He wasn’t pushing or manipulating or trying to control the narrative. Just being honest about what he wanted while respecting what I needed.
Two months after I’d walked into his nonprofit office, he asked if I’d come to Sunset Park with him.
“The building is having a welcome-back celebration,” he explained over coffee. “For the families who’ve returned andothers who might. I’m supposed to go and I want you there. If you’re ready.”
I looked at him across the table. He looked nervous, like he thought I might say no, like the building and everything it represented might still be too painful.
“I’m ready,” I said. “More than ready.”
Relief flooded his face. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Let’s go see what you built.”
The celebration was on a Saturday afternoon. The weather had finally turned warm, trees budding with that bright spring green.
The building looked different when we turned the corner.
It had been rebuilt from the ground up to match the old structure, but with modern safety standards and accessibility features. Same red brick façade, same number of units, but everything new underneath. The street felt different too, quieter and more residential, protected from the development pressures that had destroyed the original.
Bright paint covered the exterior in warm yellows and blues. A new playground sat where the parking lot used to be, already filled with children climbing and swinging. A community garden stretched along one side, raised beds bursting with early spring plants.
But the bones were the same. The shape of the building, the layout of the windows, the way it sat on the street corner. Familiar enough to recognize, different enough to feel like hope instead of grief.
Archer’s hand squeezed mine gently. “You okay?”
I nodded, not trusting my voice yet. We stood there for a moment, just looking, and I realized my chest wasn’t caving in. The building represented possibility instead of loss.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go inside.”
The lobby was transformed. Clean and bright, with new floors and fresh paint and a bulletin board covered in community announcements. Children ran past us laughing, chased by parents who looked happy instead of stressed.
Familiar faces appeared in the crowd. Mrs. Rodriguez who used to live two floors above us, now back in her original apartment. Mr. Nathaniel who’d been our neighbor for six years before everything fell apart, now home again.
And my mother.
Rosa stood near the community room entrance talking with Mrs. Rodriguez, and when she saw us her face lit up. She’d decided to come look at the building, to see the past reimagined, even though she wasn’t ready to move back yet. Maybe someday, she’d said. But not quite yet.
She walked over, looked between Archer and me—our hands joined—and raised her eyebrows in question.
I nodded.
Her face softened completely. She didn’t say anything, didn’t ask questions or make judgments. Just pulled us both into a hug that said more than words could.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she murmured. Then quieter, just for me: “Both of you.”
