Neither of them spoke for a moment.
The silence wasn't empty—it was full, heavy with everything they had never said.
"Are you well?" Xavier finally asked.
Isabella smiled sadly. "I was about to ask you the same."
He chuckled softly, the sound traveling through wires and distance and landing straight in her chest. It felt unfair how much she had missed that sound.
"I heard about the shop," he said. "I'm glad it's running again."
She nodded, then realized he couldn't see her. "It is. Papa is better. Andrea… he's grown."
"I know," Xavier replied quietly. "He writes."
That surprised her. "He does?"
"Yes. Mostly complaints. About school. And how you work too much."
She laughed—really laughed—for the first time in weeks.
"He worries too much," she said.
"He learned from you."
The words settled between them, warm and dangerous.
---
They talked about small things.
The weather.
Food.
How strange it felt to return to routines that almost disappeared.
But beneath every sentence was something else—missing, pulsing like an exposed nerve.
Finally, Isabella whispered, "The letter… the college…"
"Yes," Xavier said softly. "You deserved that long before now."
"You did this," she said. Not a question.
"I helped," he corrected gently. "You earned it."
Tears burned her eyes. "Why?"
There it was.
The question she'd avoided for months.
Xavier inhaled slowly.
"Because when I thought about the future," he said, "you were in it. Standing. Not struggling. Not waiting for life to be kind."
Her heart pounded.
"That scared me," she admitted. "Needing someone that much."
"I know," he replied. "That's why I left without saying anything I couldn't take back."
She closed her eyes.
"So what now?" she asked.
A pause.
Then, quietly—"Now, we stop pretending."
Her breath hitched.
---
That night, Isabella slept with the phone beside her pillow.
Not because she expected another call.
But because for the first time in a long while—
The emptiness had a voice.
And far away, in a place governed by orders and discipline, Xavier lay awake staring at the ceiling, knowing one thing with terrifying certainty:
Whatever battles lay ahead—
Loving Isabella Rossi would be the bravest thing he had ever done.