Chapter 9 - ELIZABETH
Two years later, I finished nursing school.
My graduation badge said:
ELIZABETH HART, RN
I stared at it for a long time.
No Emma.
No hiding.
No borrowed identity.
My name.
Liam sat beside Alessandro in the audience.
Lucia, almost two, slept through most of the ceremony.
Typical.
When my name was called, Alessandro stood.
Not shouted.
Just stood.
His eyes were wet.
Afterward he handed me my mother’s silver nursing pin.
He had had it cleaned.
Nothing else.
“You kept it again?”
“I was instructed to return it on graduation.”
“By whom?”
“Liam.”
Traitor.
I pinned it inside my coat.
Then Alessandro asked:
“Dinner tomorrow?”
I looked at him.
“A date?”
“Yes.”
We had spent two years co-parenting.
Sometimes together.
Sometimes not.
We had kissed exactly once since Lucia’s birth.
Then stopped because neither of us wanted gratitude, fear, pregnancy, or crisis mistaken for a relationship.
Now I had my degree.
Job.
Apartment.
Money.
Name.
Life.
“Yes.”
That dinner became another.
Then another.
Slow.
Boring.
Good.
Before our first kiss the second time around, Alessandro asked:
“May I?”
I laughed.
“You’re learning.”
“I have excellent legal counsel.”
“Romantic.”
May you like
Then I kissed him.
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