For a second, she looks genuinely shocked. Then she laughs—low and delighted. “You think you can just quit?” She steps closer, voice dropping. “You’re already in it, Kieran.”
Her smile sharpens. “If you don’t finish what you started, she won’t hear it from you. You won’t get to control the version she hears.”
The anger flares—hot and instinctive—then collapses into something colder.
Not what this would cost me.
What it would do to Wren.
Isabelle slips past me and out the door.
I’m left standing there, rage burning uselessly in my chest.
9
BOUNDARY CONDITIONS (WREN)
The N train hums beneath me in long silver waves. By the time I climb the stairs onto 31st Street, dusk has settled over Queens—the sky the color of winter exhaust, the air sharp enough to sting.
The building hasn’t changed: chipped terracotta brick, broken intercom, metal banister cold against my palm. The smell hits before I reach the door—bleach, cabbage, and an industrial cloud of Sol de Janeiro body spray. Larisa’s signature.
I knock once.
“Cine e?” Aunt Dana’s voice cuts through the door.Who is it?
“Eu.”Me.
The latch clicks. “You finally came.”
She opens the door, exhaustion clinging to her skin. “Come in, it’s freezing. Shoes off, I cleaned yesterday.”
The apartment is small and overbright: kitchen light humming yellow, soup simmering on the stove, fighting a losing battle with Larisa’s perfume.
“Unchi Mircea’s still at work?” I ask, lining my boots by the radiator.
“Late shift. He’ll be home after midnight.” She gestures to the table. “Sit. You’re too thin. Eat.”
“I’m fine, really?—”
From the bedroom: “Mom! I can’t find my Summer Fridays—the cherry one! And also, I told Maya I’m bi!”
Dana freezes mid-ladle. “Ce? You told who you are what?”
“It’s not a big deal,” Larisa calls, utterly unbothered. “Maya’s pan. Half our class is something.”
My aunt exhales through her nose, setting the ladle down and continuing in Romanian. “When I was thirteen, I cared about homework, not…sexual orientation.”
“Times change,” I offer quietly.
“Change should have limits.” She glances at me, and I recognize the look—the one that always comes next. “Everyone wants to be different now.”
Different.
The word she uses when she doesn’t know what to do with something.
The word she uses when she’s talking about me, not Larisa.
“Your uncle says it’s imagination,” she continues, softer now, as if correcting rather than accusing. “A creative mind. But imagination doesn’t pass exams, Irina. It doesn’t keep scholarships.”
