Annie pushes off the wall and crosses the room toward me, stopping just in front of me with those level, steady eyes. “Do you trust him?” she asks.
I meet her gaze without flinching. “Yes.”
She studies my face for a moment, reading it the way only Annie can, like a map she needs to memorize before navigating it in the dark. “Why?”
I hesitate for just a beat.
“Because Ryan trusted him. And so do I.”
That quiets the room in a way nothing else had.
Mom’s voice comes out trembling. “Honey, you’re grieving.”
“I know.” My voice comes out sharper than I mean it to, and tears start tracking down my face before I can stop them.
“Grief makes people make decisions they normally wouldn’t.”
I wipe my face with the back of my hand. “Maybe.”
Dad slowly shakes his head, his gray-streaked hair catching the light again as he moves. “Didn’t Ryan live in New York? I’m surprised that’s not where you want to go.”
“I did want to go there. Tate convinced me otherwise.”
“So Vegas is a better option.” It isn’t really a question. Dad’s voice has that flat quality it gets when he’s working very hard to stay measured. “What can he give you that we can’t, Sophia?”
“Dad.” I keep my voice as steady as I can. “Tate is Ryan’s brother. He promised Ryan he would protect me. And right now, being near someone who is a part of Ryan, someone who knew him, loved him… that means something to me that I can’t fully explain. This isn’t about control. This is my decision, and I need you both to understand that.”
Annie comes and crouches in front of me as I sink onto the couch, her eyes level with mine.
“Why aren’t we enough?” she asks.
I look at her, really look at her, and tell her the truth. “Because staying here feels like pretending Ryan never existed.”
Annie’s eyes fill with tears, and when I look past her, I see Mom’s have too. Mom sets the dish towel down and crosses the room, sitting beside me and taking both my hands in hers.
She doesn’t try to talk me out of it again. She’d already had that conversation with me, already lost it, and she loves me too much to put me through it twice.
“You could stay,” she says softly. “We can help you heal.”
I shake my head. “I’m not healing here, Mom.”
Annie tilts her head slightly, the way she does when she’s thinking something through to its end. “Are you running away from something…” she asks, “… or toward something?”
I meet her gaze. “I don’t know yet.”
Annie nods slowly, accepting that for what it is, honest, and the best I have.
Dad sighs deeply and heavily, the sigh of a man accepting something he can’t change and isn’t happy about. He pushes off the window and walks toward me, and I stand to meet him.
“If this Tate gives you any trouble…” he says, his arms coming around me, “… I’m on the next flight to Vegas.”
I laugh softly against his chest, the kind of laugh that lives right next to tears. “I think he’s more scared of breaking his promise to Ryan than anything else.”
Dad holds me for a long moment without saying anything else. Then Mom wraps her arms around both of us, and for a minute, the three of us stand there in the middle of my living room while everything quietly shifts around us.
Then Annie steps forward and doesn’t hug me straightaway. She stands in front of me and studies my face one last time, like she’s committing it to memory. “You want my honest opinion?”
“Always.”
