Chapter 21 - The Boston Apartment
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Lily stood in the center of the small, second-floor apartment. The wooden floorboards creaked under her heavy boots. Through the small window, the Boston skyline was a jagged silhouette against the gray afternoon sky. It was loud here. Sirens wailed in the distance, traffic rumbled on the street below, and muffled voices bled through the thin plaster walls.
It was absolutely perfect.
Victoria had offered her a sprawling brownstone in Beacon Hill. A fully furnished, historic home with a private chef and a security detail. Lily had refused immediately.
"I need to know what quiet looks like when I make it myself," Lily had told her grandmother in the grand foyer of the estate.
Victoria had not argued. She had simply transferred a modest allowance into an account Lily controlled and stepped back. It was a fragile truce, built on mutual grief and the tentative hope of a future neither fully understood.
Lily set her single suitcase on the unmade bed. She unzipped it and pulled out the few things she had taken from the estate. A few thick sweaters. A worn copy of a poetry book. And the small, polished wooden box containing Elena's letter and the silver bird pendant Mia had given her.
She placed the box carefully on the windowsill, right where the morning light would hit it.
A sudden knock at the open door startled her.
A girl roughly her age, with bright pink streaks in her dark hair and a grease-stained pizza box in her hands, stood in the hallway.
"Hey. I’m Sarah. From across the hall. I heard someone moving in and figured you hadn't bought groceries yet. Moving sucks."
Lily hesitated. She was not used to casual, unprompted kindness. In Dominic’s world, every gift was a calculated transaction. Every favor was a heavy debt waiting to be collected.
"I'm Lily," she said cautiously, stepping toward the door.
"Well, Lily, do you like pepperoni?"
"I... yes. Thank you."
Sarah walked right in, set the box on the bare kitchen counter, and grabbed two paper plates from her own tote bag.
"Starting college?" Sarah asked, handing her a warm slice.
"In the fall. I'm taking the summer to get settled and learn the city."
"Smart move. I rushed into freshman year and spent half of it completely lost on campus. What’s your major?"
May you like
Lily looked at the wooden box on the windowsill. For seventeen years, she had been a ghost, a secret kept locked in a dark room beneath a mansion. Now, she was standing in a sunlit kitchen, eating pizza with a stranger, holding the absolute power to decide exactly who she would become.
"History," Lily said, a small smile touching her lips. "I want to study what people leave behind."
