Emilia
Three Years Later
I looked out at the dreary winter sky, taking in New York with new eyes.
I hadn’t been here in three long years.
I’d changed, but New York hadn’t, and something about this brought on a wave of melancholy inside of me that I didn’t want to address.
I let out a sigh as I pushed through the front door of my apartment building. I lived on the fourth floor of this tiny New York apartment. It was worlds away from my previous New York apartment, the one my brother-in-law had bought for me. But this one was my own, and what was more, I got it on my own merits.
“Where do you want this, brat?” my brother asked, carrying in two moving boxes in his arms.
I rolled my eyes. “I think you should stop calling me brat.”
He chuckled before placing the boxes down on the kitchen counter, and turned to me. His forehead was sweaty from having done most of the moving himself. I felt bad that I wasn’t helping him out more, but Ethan had been insistent that I let him do most of the work.
My brother was nothing if not protective over his two younger sisters, but he was almost unbearable with me since the accident.
Ethan’s phone chimed, bringing us out of the little standoff. He let out a small sigh before pulling his phone out of his pocket and looking at it.
“Annoying,” he muttered to himself before putting the phone back.
“Hey, I am not annoying,” I huffed, indignant.
He rolled his eyes at me. “I wasn’t talking about you, brat. Though you are that.”
“What’s wrong?”
He shook his head, his green eyes softening as he took me in. He tugged on my hair playfully. “Nothing you need to worry about. How are you feeling today?”
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. I had moved back home to Boston after the accident, trying to gain a new perspective on the reality of my life after the accident, much to Evelyn’s protest.
She wanted me in New York with her so she could take care of me, but my big sister was a worrier. I should have known my brother and my dad would be just as bad.
They had treated me like glass since, and I was tired of it.
It was one of the many reasons I’d decided to move back.
“I’m okay. You don’t have to worry. You didn’t even have to travel to New York to help me move.”
He shook his head. “Really? And have you hire some strange men to come help you? Over my dead body. You’re a single girl living in New York alone.”
“I wouldn’t exactly say I’m alone. Evelyn and Jace are like twenty minutes away from me.”
He looked at me skeptically. “I would feel better with you in Boston.”
I let out a small chuckle. “And what, stay with my brother well into my thirties?”
He didn’t laugh; in fact, his face turned thoughtful. It still surprised me, even after all these years, how similar Ethan looked to our late mother. Everyone always said I was a spitting image of her, but I always thought it was because we were so similar in personality. It was also true that I took after her more than I did my dad, but Ethan was like the male version of our mom. He shared more physical attributes with her than I did, from the shape of his green eyes to the side dimple on one cheek, and he even the mischievous way one side of his lip would curve up whenever he found something amusing.
A few years after my mom’s death, I had trouble looking Ethan in the eyes. They were nothing more than a painful reminder of all that we’d lost, and I’d known Ethan felt the same way, too, when a couple of months after, I’d discovered he had covered the mirror in his bathroom.
“That’s not a bad idea. Besides, you’re only twenty-seven. Still got a few more years until you hit your thirties,” Ethan said. I couldn’t tell if he was playing or not.
“What about you?”
“What about me?” he asked, looking way too innocent.