Sometimes we wrote every week. Sometimes months passed. We always came back.
She told me about her dreams of becoming an illustrator, about the small moments that made her feel alive. I told her about the pressure of inheriting my father's company, about feeling trapped between duty and desire.
We weren't pen pals because we wanted something from each other. We were pen pals because words on a screen created a space where we could be honest without consequences.
The cursor blinks in the empty reply field. She wrote to me yesterday—to Shay—about feeling uncertain, about wondering if she's losing herself in someone else's life. I should tell her it's me. I should close this laptop and walk twenty feet to her studio and say the words that will either save us or destroy us.
Instead, I start typing. Hey Anna, I know what you mean about feeling lost...
I delete what I wrote and close the laptop without sending anything.
The scotch has gone warm in my hand. I set it down and press my palms against my eyes, trying to push back the headache that's been building all evening.
Somewhere in my head, I can hear my father's voice: You're overcomplicating this, son. Business is simple—you identify the problem, you execute the solution, you move forward.
But this isn't business.
This is Rosanna.
I don't know how to fix things without losing her, and I've only just found her.
The scratching sound from her studio has stopped. I hear her moving around, probably stretching out the stiffness from sitting hunched over her desk for hours.
In a minute, she'll come looking for tea, and she'll poke her head into my office and ask if I want anything. She'll smile at me, warm and real, and I'll smile back and tell her I'm fine.
I don’t know which truth will hurt her more—that I’ve been writing to her as Shay, or that I’ve been sitting in boardrooms while my company still pushes to turn her storefront into a line item.
I should lay it all out and let her decide if any of this is salvageable.
But I can't shake the fear that once I start telling truths, the whole carefully constructed reality will collapse. That she'llrealize I'm exactly what she thought I was at that first community meeting.
And maybe she'd be right. Maybe the reason I can't tell her the truth is because I know that the truth will confirm her worst assumptions about me.
There's a soft knock on the office door, and Rosanna leans in, her hair escaping from the messy knot she'd twisted it into earlier. "Hey. I'm making tea. Want some?"
She's backlit by the hallway light, and for a moment she's just a silhouette—unknowable, unreachable, already slipping away. Then she steps forward, and she's solid again, real, close enough to touch.
"I'm fine," I hear myself say.
She smiles and disappears, and I'm alone again with the city lights and the hollow feeling in my chest and the certainty that I'm running out of time. Eventually, she's going to find out the truth—about Shay, about the development, about all of it.
The only question is whether I tell her myself or wait until circumstances force the revelation.
Chapter twenty-four
Rosanna
Today I'm finishing the illustrations for Chapter Three ofThe Garden Girl—the part where Mira discovers that her tiny planted seeds have started to sprout.
I'm working on getting the expression right.
I sketch and erase, sketch and erase, trying to capture the exact angle of wonder.
Seamus is in his office next door. I can hear the occasional rustle of papers, the quiet tap of his keyboard.
We've developed this rhythm over the past few weeks—working in parallel, close enough to feel each other's presence but separate enough to focus. Sometimes he brings me coffee without asking. Sometimes I stretch and wander into his space just to see him look up from his work with that small smile that seems reserved only for me.
It should feel perfect.
