“Mom, seriously... it’s nothing. I just want to shower. It’s not a big deal.”
I hold his gaze. “You’ve always been honest with me, Ethan. Don’t shut me out now.”
He sighs, running a hand through his hair.
“We were playing at the court near Conrad’s, and that jerk from school showed up, the one who freaks out every time he loses? He grabbed his phone and...” He looks away. “He pulled up a screenshot of that article from December. Nothing new. People have shoved that in my face before or talked about that nonsense. But then he started talking shi—talking about you,” he corrects quickly. “I don’t care when they talk abouthim, ‘cause they’re not lying. But you? I’m not letting anyone talk crap about you.”
His jaw sets into that stubborn line, protective in a way that ages him beyond his seventeen years.
“Come here.”
I pull him gently by the arm until we reach the small bathroom beside my office. Ethan sits on the bench, and I grab the first aid kit from under the sink.
“I know how hard this is,” I say as I start cleaning his knuckles. “And I’m not telling you to just not stand up for yourself. But I don’t want you getting into trouble, or giving exactly the attention a boy like that is trying to get. What happened to using your brain instead of your fists?”
Ethan leans his head back, hitting the wall, and closes his eyes. He doesn’t even flinch when I dab healing ointment onto the torn skin.
“He was asking for it for a long time. And everyone thinks the same. That’s why they took forever to pull us apart—they were all just enjoying the show.”
I notice a faint bruise on his left jaw, but nothing else. When I ask if he hurt himself anywhere else, he opens his eyes and tells me no, looking right at me. And I believe him. Teenage years really can be a nightmare.
Once I’m done caring for his hand, I tell him to go shower while I make him a sandwich.
Back in the kitchen, ingredients scattered across the counter, I catch myself wondering when our lives will feel peaceful again, the way they once did.
Ethan returns after I’ve already eaten more than half of my sandwich, and sits across from me at the kitchen island.
“The admission decision letters are going to start arriving soon,” I say, placing my plate in the sink and grabbing the cookie jar for him. “Are you nervous?”
He applied to NYU, Columbia, and Cornell. And years ago, Yale was on that list as well, as a way to include his father in his future, even knowing he’d never follow the same path into economics or business.
But when the time came... he didn’t. And I don’t blame him.
“Yes and no,” he says, grabbing a cookie. “I’ll be happy with any of them, but... I’d prefer NYU.”
My alma mater.
I reach out and touch his wrist gently, careful to avoid the injured hand. “With your academic record, any of them would be lucky to have you. You’re going to be an incredible architect in a few years.”
He smiles, and something in me loosens.
My boy is going to be okay. I know he is.
“I didn’t even know what to do or say,” I confess. “Except for those harmless shirt-pulling scuffles when he was small, Ethan has never been the type of boy who gets into fights.”
I look out the window of my bedroom, the view perfectly aligned with the new moon hanging over the backyard.
“Speaking from experience,” Alexander says, his voice calm and deep in that way that always centers me, “boys that age have little control over their tempers.”
“You’re telling me you were a hothead who went around picking fights?” I ask, smiling.
He chuckles. “Not exactly. But I didn’t run from a fight when it came to me either.”
I try to picture a younger version of the polished, composed man I know now—fists clenched, arguing in a schoolyard or on some street corner—and I can’t. It doesn’t fit. I tell him that, which makes him chuckle again before he exhales.
“There’s a fair amount you don’t know about me, Cecily,” he says, his tone turning serious. “Of course I don’t have the same mindset I had back then—that would be embarrassing at my age. But there are parts of me you haven’t seen yet.”
“Well... there are parts of me you don’t know either,” I say, finishing the thought for him.
