Page 126 of Shades of Grey & Gold

Because apparently, dating a mob boss means that now I need protection.

Correction:dated a dead mob boss.

Chapter Forty-Five

Max

Thehotelbecomesahabitat.

Gio and Rudi ferry my life across town in Target bags and garment boxes a piece at a time like contraband. I tell them once to take the long way, so we don’t pass the penthouse, and from then on, they pretend it’s because of traffic and I let them.

School keeps happening because it is something that has an end, and I decide to move toward endings.

One month left.

Spring break came and went without any fanfare.

I finish outlines in the quiet hours and don’t say ‘bar exam’ out loud. I’m not borrowing July’s worries today. I barely bother with today’s.

At night, the ear-ringing comes back if I listen for it.

I sleep with the TV on mute, the subtitles like someone else’s life scrolling past.

There is a fire video I play sometimes—fake fireplace, endless loop—because the real one made me jump and the fake one is honest about what it is.

People talk around me.

People talk to me.

People try not to say his name in past tense and do anyway.

I hear all of it. I register all of it. I choose what I actually listen to.

I keep the moon phases necklace in my pocket. I touch it when the door in my chest feels closed from the wrong side.

A few weeks after the funeral, Sophia texts me.

She doesn’t ask if I’m okay, likely because she knows the answer and still isn’t okay herself.

She just says:Mom is making Sunday dinner. You don’t have to come. But we’d really love it if you did.

I stare at the text for a long time.

The hotel is behind me and Becca sits across the small kitchen table of the apartment we found two weeks ago—third floor walk-up, two bedrooms, a kitchen the size of a large closet, radiators that clank at three in the morning and windows that stick. Nothing like the penthouse. Everything like what I can actually stand to be inside of right now.

I haven’t seen Nico in weeks, but Gio and Rudi still take shifts sitting outside the apartment. Following me to classes. Following me home. Following me and Bart, who loves the smells of the city, as we walk through the park at night.

It bothered me at first. Felt like I was a burden just because someone important loved me. Just becauseheloved me.

I tried to slip away from them two weeks ago; went through the back of the library and was walking down a back alley.

And then that alley started to feel really small. And really… alone.

I had a panic attack and called Nico.

He got there faster than Gio, who was probably just around the block.

I think Nico was more panicked than I was.