"It's what they said the fans wanted," Stephy replied, blowing on her wet nails.
"Fuck what they wanted," Ivy said bluntly. "What did you want?"
Stephy looked startled by the question. "I... I don't know. Nobody asked."
"Well, I'm asking."
“All done,” Sophia said softly, brushing a thumb over Stephy’s knuckles like she was handling something fragile and precious. “They look perfect on you.”
Stephy smiled down at her nails—soft pink, glossy, delicate—and whispered, “They’re beautiful.”
“So are you,” Sophia murmured, kissing her cheek before slipping back inside the house like the gentle whirlwind she was.
Ivy stood and stretched. “Think about it,” she told Stephy. “Whatyouwant. Not what the world expects from you.” Then she called toward the kitchen, “Wyatt! We’re leaving before your mother hands us a casserole big enough to feed the county.”
When the door closed and their truck pulled away, Stephy stared at her hands as if she couldn’t quite believe they belonged to her.
“Your family is…” she breathed.
“Chaos?” I offered.
She shook her head. “Good. Kind. They didn’t ask for anything. They just… gave.”
“That’s them,” I said quietly. “It’s always been them.”
Stephy’s voice went softer. “Thank you for bringing me here, Lee. You didn’t just give me a place to heal…you gave me a place to feel like myself again.”
I lowered myself onto the porch swing beside her, careful of her ribs, watching the way the warm light brushed across her face.
“Sophia seems convinced about a lot of things,” she said with a small, breathy laugh.
“She does,” I admitted.
Stephy lifted her eyes to mine—slow, steady, searching. “And what about you?”
For a moment, the air changed—thicker, warmer, weighted with something we weren’t pretending not to feel anymore.
I held her gaze. Didn’t look away. Didn’t soften. Didn’t hide.
“I’ve always known where you fit,” I said quietly. “I think you’re starting to feel it too.”
Her breath caught—small, sharp, real—and then she leaned into me, head fitting against my shoulder like we’d done it a thousand times.
“Yeah,” she whispered, the word barely a breath. “I think I am.”
We stayed like that while the sky went dark and the porch light hummed softly above us. The sounds of my family spilled out the windows—laughter, clattering dishes, the warm chaos of people who loved each other without conditions.
Stephy’s freshly painted nails glowed faintly in the last slip of daylight.
She wasn’t healed. Not yet. But she was healing.
With me.
And she wasn’t running from that truth anymore.
“Next Sunday?” she asked quietly, like she already knew the answer.
“Every Sunday you want,” I said.
