She reached across the table and took Gia’s hand. “I’m always here to support you—except there’s just one thing to consider as you make your decision.”

“What’s that?”

“Pushing yourself to try new experiences is important. What seems comfortable and safe might seem…stagnating down the line.” She certainly knew that firsthand.

Gia crinkled up her nose. “What do you mean?” Dee delivered their pancakes, and Gia tucked right in to eating them.

Tessa suddenly heard Leo’s voice in her head telling her to treat her own sisters like sisters. And that meant sharing her own experiences.

She took a deep breath and plunged in. “You know my dad died when I was your age. It changed my whole life.”

Gia shook her head. “That’s really tough. I’m sorry, Tessa.”

“I took on a lot of responsibilities overnight.”

Gia kept eating pancakes, and Tessa wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear this or not, but she kept going. “I felt like I had so many shoulds. Do you know what I mean?”

“You stayed to help your mom, right?”

“At the beginning, she needed all hands on deck. I worked hard, took over what used to be my dad’s duties at the bakery, and tried to be there for my sisters when my mom couldn’t be.”

“Are you saying you should’ve left your family to go away to school when they needed you?”

Tessa sighed deeply. She hated using her own mistakes as an example, but…maybe it could prevent Gia from repeating them. “They did need me—at first, anyway. But after a while, I got comfortable. I started dating someone in town, and things fell into a routine. I think I used the same excuses to keep myself here long after I really needed to stay.”

She’d stopped growing.

It had been easy to blame that on her situation—even on Sam.

Seeing how Leo was unstoppable, how he reached for the stars with his out-there plans, and how he believed anything was possible, had made her understand that sometimes you had to do something desperate to get yourself unstuck.

“And then you met Leo?”

“Leo…” What could she say about this complicated situation? “A man isn’t a solution to any problem, Gia. But Leo is a big thinker, and he doesn’t understand the word impossible. All I’m trying to say is, don’t take the weight of the world on your shoulders when you don’t have to. Or use that as an excuse not to grow.”

Which, she could see now, was exactly what she’d done.

Gia was moving blueberries under an uneaten pancake, which Tessa translated to mean she might be thinking about what Tessa had just said. “I worry about my dad being alone,” Gia admitted. “And I worry about if I’d be able to handle my classes away from home. Leaving seems…scary.”