Chapter 208: They Aren’t Alone
Arianne’s chest caved.
She hadn’t let herself think it. Not fully. Every time she saw Alex and Layla in their faces she pushed it down. But now she couldn’t stop seeing it—Leo’s brow pulling down the same way Layla’s did when she was working something out. Lily’s head thrown back, mouth open, the exact way Alex laughed when he forgot to be careful about it.
She’d thought she was prepared. She wasn’t. She was nowhere close.
"I’m sorry," Jessica said. Her voice cracked on it. "I just—seeing them here, in this place—"
She stopped. Pressed her hand flat against her chest. Fingers curled into the fabric of her shirt like she was holding herself in.
"It felt like yesterday," she said. "The first time. After they started dating. He was so nervous. I had never seen him nervous before. He kept asking if the pie was good enough, if the coffee was fresh, if I thought she’d like him."
Arianne remembered.
Alex calling her at midnight. What do I say? What if she doesn’t like me? His voice had that particular edge it got when he was genuinely scared of something—not the performed worry he used to get attention, but the real kind. The kind he only let her hear.
She told him to shut up and be himself. He said being himself hadn’t worked so far. She laughed at him. He said thanks, you’re a real friend, Arianne, really helpful. She laughed harder. He hung up.
She should have told him he was enough. She kept waiting for a better moment. She hadn’t known she was running out of chances to say it.
"I made her a pie," Jessica said. Voice going unsteady. "Apple. The same one. And she ate the whole thing herself. Didn’t offer Alex a single bite. He sat there watching her like she’d hung the moon."
Jessica let out a breath that turned into something else halfway through.
"That was my girl. Stubborn. Fierce. She saw something in him right away. I didn’t understand it at first—he tended to be loud sometimes, messy, always joking. But she looked at him like—" Her voice broke. She pressed her knuckles against her mouth.
Arianne couldn’t breathe.
From the back, Leo laughed again. Shorter. Surprised.
Jessica’s face crumpled.
Just for a second. Just enough for Arianne to see it before Jessica turned away and pressed the heel of her hand against her eyes.
"I’m sorry," Jessica said again. Muffled. "I haven’t—I haven’t held them. Not once. I didn’t know if I was—if it was my place to—"
She couldn’t finish.
Arianne’s hands were shaking. She didn’t try to hide it.
"You don’t have to apologize."
The words came out rough. Not comforting. Just true.
Jessica let out a shaky breath. Dropped her hand. Her eyes were red. Her face was wet. She didn’t wipe it.
"I can’t imagine what it’s like for them," she said. "Or for you. Taking them in like that, out of nowhere. You didn’t ask for any of this."
Arianne picked up the fork. The metal was cold. Her hand shook. She set it back down.
"They’re not alone."
Her voice cracked. She didn’t care.
Jessica nodded. Swallowed. "I know."
She looked toward the back again. Her whole body leaned toward the sound. Then she looked back at Arianne.
"Thank you. For staying. For them." Her gaze held. "Franz told me—through a phone call. He said you just showed up. Didn’t ask. Didn’t hesitate. Just handled it."
Arianne’s fingers curled against her thigh under the table.
"He doesn’t do things halfway," she said.
Jessica’s mouth curved. Small. Tired. "No. He doesn’t."
She leaned back. Studied Arianne. "It must have been sudden. Finding yourselves in that position."
"It was."
Her hand moved back to the table. Found the groove without looking.
"I didn’t know what I was doing."
She didn’t clean the words up. She said them flat and let them sit.
"I didn’t know what they needed. How to—" Her throat closed. She stopped.
Jessica waited. She had the particular patience of someone who had spent years behind a counter listening to things people couldn’t finish.
Arianne exhaled. "They made it simple."
Her voice cracked on it. She let it.
"They’re not hard to love."
She hadn’t meant to say that either. It came out the same way—without planning, without calculation. Just truth that had been sitting in her chest long enough that it finally bypassed all her systems and arrived in the room.
She picked up the coffee. Her hand was steadier than it had been five minutes ago. She didn’t know when that had happened.
From the back—"Careful—Leo—!"
A laugh. Bright. Easy.
Jessica’s shoulders shook once. Then she pulled herself straight.
"They used to sit there," she said.
She nodded toward the window. "This table. You and Alex. Sometimes Gilbert." She paused. Her eyes went somewhere further away. "He was always so happy when you came. Alex. He never said it, but I could tell. The way he’d sit up straighter. The way he’d laugh louder. He loved you. All of you."
Arianne’s fingers went flat against the groove. Her whole hand went cold.
Jessica watched her. "You stopped coming. I understand why. With everything that happened, everything that came out after—" She shook her head. "We heard the news. We didn’t know what to believe. But I knew you. I knew something had to be wrong for you to disappear like that."
Arianne’s chest was too tight.
From the back—"Leo, wait—no, don’t—"
Another laugh. Louder.
She forced air into her lungs. "I had other things to manage."
Jessica tilted her head. "You always did."
Not an accusation. Not forgiveness. Just a fact about who Arianne had always been.
She sat with that. She had always had other things to manage. She had managed her way through her father’s death and the company and the board and five years of disappearance and coming back and the twins and a wall full of names. She had managed everything. She had managed herself into a woman who drove past this bakery four times before she could walk through the door.
Her fingers tightened around the cup. Loosened.
"He didn’t think so."
Arianne’s gaze snapped up.
"Alex." Jessica held her gaze. "He thought you were avoiding them. They were both worried about you. Layla too. She kept asking me if you were okay." Her voice wavered. "She said you were the sister Alex never had. That you meant everything to him."
The room tilted.
Arianne’s hand pressed into the table. The wood bit into her palm. She could feel the groove. Could feel where he’d carved it. Could feel him sitting across from her, stealing her fries, telling her she thought too much.
You’re gonna wear a hole in that table, he used to say.
She never told him why she kept touching it.
She never told him a lot of things. That she thought he was the most decent person she knew and that it scared her a little because decent people got used. That when he found Layla she felt something she didn’t have a name for—not jealousy, not exactly, just the specific loss of being the person who knew him best, until Layla knew him better. That she was proud of him for it. That she never said so because saying so would have required her to admit how much it cost.
He’s done, Gilbert had whispered, and he was right. Alex was done for.
And now both of them were gone and the twins were in the kitchen making noise and Arianne was sitting in the corner table pressing her palm into a groove he carved with a quarter to prove he could.
From the back, Lily: "Aunt Aria! Come see!"
Arianne didn’t turn.
Jessica leaned back. "He and Gilbert kept coming here. Even after you stopped." She paused. "They didn’t stay as long. But they came. They never stopped worrying about you."
The bakery hummed around them. Low voices. Chairs scraping. All of it far away.
Arianne picked up the cup. The coffee had cooled. She didn’t notice.
She was aware of all of it—Leo’s laugh cutting through from the kitchen, the smell of apple and sugar that had hit her when she walked in, the groove under her palm. She was aware of Jessica watching her with the same patience she’d had the whole conversation. The patience that said I have been waiting for you to come back for a long time and now you are here and I am not going to rush this.
Jessica didn’t look away. "We didn’t know how bad it was. Not then. Not any of us."
A pause. Long and heavy.
Arianne didn’t answer right away.
"Do you?"