Page 46 of Marry Me in Rome

“Do what?”

“Manage to make it soundworsethan it was.”

“I don’t know. It sounded pretty bad.”

Kennedy reached behind me and smacked Alexis in the arm. “Some sister you are.” She paused. “Look, I?—”

“No, I get to go first,” Alexis said, her grin fading. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to say. Jillie, I didn’t leave you two alone yesterday because paint balling is my favorite thing. I left because the sparks were so strong between you and Matteo, I thought one of you would catch on fire. I thought I was holding you back. Major third wheel moment. I had to let you guys . . . I don’t know. Burn off some steam or kill each other, one of the two.” She eyed me. “Did you? Burn off some steam at his house?”

“What does that even mean?” I lifted a hand to stop her. “Actually, I don’t want to know.”

“So now that it’s over, I’m curious,” Kennedy asked. “Was he a deep river, or a shallow one?”

Alexis gave her a questioning look, but Kennedy didn’t explain. In my case, she didn’t need to. The very thought of my misplaced lecture in Paris about the French real estate agent made me groan. I’d told her that some rivers were shallow but fun and it was okay to enjoy them for a while. In my defense, Ididn’t realize at the time that the guy was trying to seduce her. Then again, Hunter had swooped in and rescued her, so maybe it all worked out for the best.

“Matteo is not a river,” I told her. “He’s a freaking waterfall. Like, you stick a toe in and get pulled under. There’s no coming up from that.”

“Dang,” Alexis muttered. “I need to find me an Italian.”

Kennedy reached over and squeezed my hand. “Waterfall or not, this is awful and you have every right to feel sad. You were finally ready to love, and he betrayed that. Even worse, we weren’t there for you when you needed us, and we should have been. I’m so sorry.”

I sniffed, feeling the waterworks a blink away, and opened my mouth to dismiss everything yet again. The old Jillie would have done that—covered up her feelings, smiled, and pretended all was well. But tonight, I couldn’t do that. It had only been a few hours, but I missed Matteo. I wanted to tell him about Dad, and this new revelation with my mom, and how it felt to be reunited with my sisters once again. But I would never have that chance.

“Yeah, the timing wasn’t great.” I shrugged. “I hate being left behind. Right now, I just want to curl up under the covers and stay there for a month. Love hurts. I don’t think I can do this again.”

Kennedy started rubbing my back like we were kids again, but Alexis straightened. “You have to.”

I looked at her. “What?”

Alexis shook her head, sounding more serious than I’d seen it in a while. “I’m one of the people who abandoned you, so you have no reason to listen to me. But I’ve cut ties with everyone I loved, Jillie. I’ve lived that life, where nothing mattered but me and what I wanted. I traveled the world alone and avoided relationships. I ignored the phone when you two and Momtexted, trying to check in on me. I thought that cutting myself off from everyone would mean no more pain.” She studied her fingernails. “I was wrong.”

Kennedy stared at her in disbelief. This was more than Alexis had said on our entire trip.

“Dad told me what Mom did,” I said softly. “I know about the soccer coach.”

Kennedy went positively rigid now. “Wait, what soccer coach?”

“I get it, why you left,” I continued, hoping Alexis would see my earnestness. “Mom betrayed all of us, but especially you. I can’t imagine discovering what you did and feeling trapped like that. I’m just saying that I understand, and I’m sorry.”

Alexis’s breath caught for a moment. “Thank you, Jillie, but this one’s on me. It wasn’t until I lived with Dad and saw what he was like through adult eyes that I began to see what Mom put up with all those years. Dad may not have slipped up with someone else, but he never really offered her his entire heart, either. At least Mom understood what it meant to be part of a family. I think that’s the message Grandpa was trying to teach us, sending us on this trip. You may not have needed that lesson, but I did.”

This felt like more than an apology for her emotional distance as we traveled. It felt like an apology for all of it—keeping secrets from us, leaving on my birthday, ignoring my texts when I reached out from a place of desperation and loneliness. Leaving Kennedy and me to deal with Mom’s illness. Holding herself apart and aloof at the funeral and afterward, when we tried to put the broken pieces of our family back together, they wouldn’t fit because she was missing.

My brain scrambled for a response, but there was none. Not to that. So instead, I pulled her in for a huge bear hug.

Alexis stiffened as she always did. Even as a child, she hadn’t liked embraces. But then she relaxed. Her arms slowly, carefully slid around my back.

“So Mom had an affair with a soccer coach,” Kennedy said, kneeling on the bed and wrapping her arms around the both of us. “Um, I have some questions . . . but I guess those can wait. What kind of hug is this, exactly?”

“A forgiveness hug,” I said.

“I like the sound of that.”

“Can we make it an air hug instead?” Alexis’s voice asked, muffled against my shoulder. “Because I can’t breathe.”

We pulled apart and giggled. I still had questions as well, but this was a great start.

“You know what the funny thing is?” I asked them as we settled into our places on the bed. “We’re more alike than we want to admit. Losing Dad, losing Mom, trying to forge something new. Find love and a new life. How much better would it be if we did all that together rather than apart?”

---