But Sofia … her reaction was nearly imperceptible.

She turned toward the stairs and hurried up with me close on her heels, which was good because she attempted to slam her bedroom door in my face. Fortunately, I managed to get my foot through the threshold before it could shut and forced my way inside.

“You work for him, don’t you?” she hissed, chest bobbing with her ragged breaths. “Is that why you left? You chose your career over me?”

“Of course, it wasn’t that simple. None of it was my choice. And don’t you go acting all self-righteous when you were hoarding secrets of your own like a goddamn squirrel getting ready for winter.” I shot back my response in an equally hushed tone, both of us attempting to keep our argument from being overheard.

“Telling you about Marco wouldn’t have changed anything,” Sofia responded. “And it wasn’t my place to tell you about my father.”

“Oh, but I should have told you about him? That sounds like quite the double standard.”

“Not my father. You should have told me about you. You were the one I loved. You should have trusted me.”

“It had nothing to do with trust and everything to do with protecting you. I told you that already. I wasn’t going to drag you into that world.”

“But you knew—you knew my father was involved and that I was already neck-deep in the mafia, but you pushed me away anyway. Is that right?” Her eyes blazed, and I could feel solid metal doors closing between us.

“I knew your father was connected, yes.”

“So instead of trusting me with the truth, you walked away.” With those words, the locks slid shut. Nothing I could say would penetrate.

“I did what I thought was best when backed into a terrible situation at the age of sixteen. If that’s something you can’t forgive, then there’s nothing else to say.” I turned my back and walked from the room, my heart hardening to reinforced concrete when her voice never rang out to call me back. We’d both been equally at fault for the way our relationship had unfolded, and if she couldn’t see that, there was nothing I could do.

“Three whole months of summer apart, then I’ll be in the high school wing and will hardly even see you at school. It sucks.” Nico took black paint and wrote out the word “sucks” on his blank canvas. Our art teacher had given us free rein to paint during the last week of school after we had taken our final exam. I was happy for any opportunity I could get to paint, but Nico was only in the class to spend time with me. While I worked on capturing the shimmer of stars in a night sky, he was airing his frustrations about our limited time together.

“We’ll find a way to see each other, and there’s a slim chance we could have the same lunch period next year.” I turned on my stool to face him, unable to hide my smile at his uncharacteristic pout.