For the first time in a long time, I watched his shoulders finally drop. Tears spilled from his eyes — the kind of tears he never let anyone see.
The next day, I met Aira.
She was twenty-nine, shy, and clearly exhausted from life. Her clothes were worn, her shoes old, her hands fidgeting with the strap of her bag as if she expected to be rejected again.
“I… I’m sorry if I’m disturbing your family,” she said as soon as we met. “I didn’t ask him to—”
I didn’t let her finish.
I stepped forward and touched her arm.
“If you’re Adrian’s sister,” I told her, “then you’re my family too.”
Her eyes filled with tears immediately. Not loud tears. Quiet ones — the kind that slip out of someone who hasn’t been allowed to cry in front of anyone for years.
From that day on, we started over.
