She’s across from me—sunglasses pushed into her hair, her tone light—but her eyes are tracking me too closely.
I blink. “What?”
“You’ve been zoning out since the waiter left,” Valentina says from beside her, cutting into her pancakes with surgical precision. “That’s never a good sign.”
“I’m fine,” I say automatically.
They share a look. I see it: the silent exchange they think I won’t notice. They’ve been doing it for weeks. Ever since I stopped flinching at his name. Ever since I came back from Italy heartbroken and crying.
“Fine,” Alessia repeats, leaning back in her chair. “You say that word like it’s supposed to mean something.”
“It does. It means fine.”
“Uh-huh.” She raises a brow. “You sure about that?”
Valentina gives her a subtle look, the kind that sayslet it go,but Alessia never lets anything go. It’s both her most infuriating and most admirable quality.
“I’m not falling apart, if that’s what you’re asking,” I add, stirring the coffee I’ve barely touched. “I’ve just…made peace with things.”
“Peace,” Alessia echoes, like she’s tasting the word. “That’s one way to put it.”
Valentina sets her fork down gently. “Mara, no one’s asking you to fall apart. But you don’t have to perform being fine either.”
“I’m not performing,” I say. “I’m adjusting.”
“To what?” she asks softly.
“To reality.”
That shuts them both up for a minute.
Outside, the city hums in its usual rhythm: impatient horns, fragments of conversation, the scrape of chairs across pavement. The waiter passes by with a tray of mimosas and laughter thatdoesn’t belong to us. It all feels too bright, too normal, for how small the world has become.
Alessia sighs. “You’re really going through with it, then.”
“Of course she is,” Valentina says before I can answer. “What choice does she have?”
“Choice or not, it’s bullshit,” Alessia mutters.
“Alessia,” Valentina warns.
“What?” she says, exasperated. “I’m supposed to sit here and nod like we’re planning a spa day? She’s marrying a Chernov. I Googled him. The man has a reputation that precedes him, not to mention his psycho cousin.”
Despite myself, a small laugh slips out. “He probably does.”
“Not funny,” she says, though she smiles too. “You don’t even know him.”
“I don’t need to.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“No,” I admit, voice steady. “But I will be.”
Alessia studies me like she’s trying to find the lie. “You keep saying that. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll be okay.’ You do realize convincing us doesn’t mean convincing yourself, right?”
“Maybe I don’t need to be convinced. Maybe I just need to get through it.”
Valentina leans forward slightly. “And after? What then?”
