“You can stay in the guest house from now on. Fuck whoever, whenever. Not in my house. Not in front of my children.” She threw her hand in the direction that the nanny had gone. “And Erin’s no longer on my payroll.”

My father finally lost his cool. “It’s not your f**king payroll, Sophia,” he shouted. “I’m the one who brings the goddamn money to the household.”

“Is that so? And just how is it that you have companies to run in the first place?”

“Yes, yes. You’re right. I owe you every f**king thing I’ve ever earned. I forgot.” This wasn’t the first time I’d heard this argument from my parents. It had been my mother who had the money when they’d married. My mother who’d given him the companies that he’d turned into Pierce Industries. And she never let him forget it.

My father scrubbed his hands over his face. This seemed to calm him. “Look, you can yell at me about this all you want, Sophia. Tomorrow. Later tonight, even. But now, we have a garden full of guests that I’m going to tend to. With or without you.” He turned away from her and headed toward the patio doors.

“I’m serious about the guest house, Jack. Don’t even try to come back in here to sleep tonight,” she yelled after him, but he was already gone.

I watched her as she fell apart. Her face contorted and she doubled over as if in physical pain. The sob she let out was shattering. This because of love.

Thank God I was incapable of that. My parents were the best example of look-what-you’re-not-missing that ever existed. Maybe I owed them more than I thought.

“Do you think you should go to her?”

I’d forgotten about Celia until that moment.

“Not my problem.” It was more callous than I wanted her to believe I was. I backtracked. “I didn’t mean that. I just don’t want to embarrass her by letting her know we saw that. I’ll go in a minute.”

“I’ll help,” Celia offered.

“No. No, let me. She’s drunk. You don’t need to deal with that.” It was a humiliating scene. I hated that Celia had witnessed it.

I glanced toward her and found her biting her lip.

“Did your dad really…” She took a deep breath. “Did he really sleep with the nanny?”

It wouldn’t have surprised me. I had little confidence in my father’s fidelity. Really, I didn’t blame him. My mother was not the easiest woman to live with. If I had to blame anyone for the lack of humanity that existed in me, I’d blame her. She taught me to be cold. She forced me to put up that wall.

But Celia didn’t need to know all my family secrets. “I don’t know,” I mumbled. “Like I said, my mother’s drunk. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

Celia cleared her throat in a way that let me know she didn’t believe me.

Then her hand settled softly on my back. “I’m sorry, Hudson.”

I forced myself not to tense under her touch. It was harder than it should have been. She’d touched me a lot recently, and it never bothered me before. Right then, though, when I wasn’t in control of the connection, when I was on the verge of some kind of vulnerability that I couldn’t explain—then, her hand on me was difficult to tolerate. But pushing her away would undo all the work I’d done that summer. So I endured.

Then the strangest thing happened—a wave of grief rolled through me like a bout of nausea. Like my mother crumpled over in front of us, I felt like any moment I could fall apart. I had a strong urge to turn to Celia, to let her hold me, let her comfort me. As if I were Chandler, crying at the sight of my mother’s tears. It was the most concrete emotion I’d had in longer than I could remember. I was out-of-control. I was fragile. It was horrible.

I had to make it end. I had to get away whether it ruined all my work on the project or not. “I’m going to her now.” I didn’t turn around, didn’t let Celia see what was in my eyes, too scared of what she’d find there. “I’m helping her to bed, and then I’m going to bed myself. I’ll see you at the Brookes’ tomorrow. Goodnight, Celia.”

I took a step toward the kitchen and was stopped by Celia’s hushed call of my name. I stayed but didn’t turn to her.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay to feel.”

Fuck, what did she think she knew about me? It angered me, which only added to my grief. I wanted her to go, to stop assuming she understood. If this was what it was like to feel, I didn’t f**king like it one bit. But she was right that it was okay. I would get control back. This wouldn’t overcome me. I’d get past it.

Now if she’d just f**king leave, it would be so much easier.

But she didn’t. “And I understand if you need to go through this alone. I’m here for you when you’re ready, Hudson. I love you.”

I nodded once, acknowledging her declaration. I didn’t attempt to speak. I wasn’t sure I could. Her words were at once frightening and exhilarating. They burned me and freed me and, above all, confused me. I’d wanted those words—they were the words that led to confirming my hypothesis. But there in that moment, they threatened to destroy my other theory. Because a part of me wanted to return those words to her. A part of me believed that I might be able to love her back.

The mix of so many warring emotions paralyzed me. The grief, the pain, the joy, the release. So, I simply stood there, frozen, unresponding.

In front of me, my mother recovered enough from her breakdown to right herself. I’d waited too long to help her. She was going to help herself. She did that by heading to the counter where she refilled her glass from a bottle of vodka that she thought she kept hidden from us under the kitchen sink.

I realized that was how she did it. When the cold-hearted woman that was my mother felt a shred of anything—which was rare—that was how she suppressed it. She drank. She drank to ease her torment. To quiet her sorrow. To kill her love.

I understood her motivation. But the pathetic creature she’d turned into because of it was not someone I ever wanted to be.

Right then I vowed that I’d be stronger than that. I wouldn’t need alcohol to stop the feeling from creeping in. I could control it on my own. Just like I could control everything and everyone else around me. The greatest example of that was still standing behind me. Celia had just declared her love for me.

Clueless about the power of the moment or her impact on it, Celia whispered a goodnight. The flip-flip of her feet in her shoes told me she was leaving. The silence that followed said she’d left.