Rome didn't wait for anyone to heal.
By the time Aaliyah stepped back into the world, the city had already decided to move on—headlines rotating, lights turning on, stages filling again. She walked through the front doors of their apartment like someone who had shed a skin. Her posture was straight, her face composed. Whatever had broken inside her, she no longer let it show.
The silence in the apartment was different now. Not fragile—controlled.
Damiano noticed it immediately.
She didn't flinch at the sound of her name. Didn't hesitate when her phone buzzed. Didn't ask for reassurance. She moved with intention, with a calm that felt rehearsed.
"I'm going back on stage," she said that night, not asking, not explaining. "Soon."
Damiano searched her face for cracks. Found none.
Only resolve.
Across the city, in a quieter pocket of Rome, Estrella stood barefoot on the balcony of Thomas's place, the city humming below like a secret. The night air wrapped around her shoulders, warm and heavy, and for the first time in days, her chest didn't feel like it was collapsing in on itself.
Thomas watched her from the doorway.
He hadn't left her side since everything fell apart—since the hospital, the panic, the truth she still didn't fully understand about her own beginning. He had been steady when everything else felt unstable. Too steady.
"You should sleep," he said gently.
She turned, leaning back against the railing. "I don't feel tired."
That was a lie. But it was easier than saying she was afraid of being alone with her thoughts.
Thomas stepped closer, close enough that the space between them felt intentional. Dangerous.
"You don't have to be strong here," he said.
The words landed deeper than he meant them to.
Estrella swallowed. "With everyone else, I feel like I'm constantly being watched. Like I'm a headline waiting to happen."
"And with me?" he asked.
She met his eyes. "With you, I feel… seen."
The air shifted.
Thomas should have stepped back. He knew that. He knew exactly where the line was—and exactly how close he was standing to it. Estrella was eighteen now, yes, legally an adult. But she was also vulnerable, raw, standing in the aftermath of truths that had shaken her entire identity.
And still… he didn't move.
Instead, he reached out, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face. The touch was light. Careful. But it lingered.
Estrella's breath caught.
"Thomas…" she whispered, not as a warning. As a question.
He answered it by closing the distance.
The kiss wasn't rushed. It wasn't reckless. It was slow, charged, filled with everything they hadn't said out loud. When it ended, they stayed there—foreheads touching, breaths tangled—both aware that something irreversible had just happened.
They had crossed the line.
Not in chaos.
In clarity.
Damiano felt it before he saw it.
The shift. The imbalance.
When Estrella came home later, quieter than usual, avoiding his eyes, something in his chest tightened. She wasn't doing anything wrong—he knew that logically. She was eighteen. Thomas was twenty-four. Nothing illegal. Nothing dramatic on the surface.
But Damiano wasn't thinking like a rational man.
He was thinking like a father.
And like someone who knew Thomas well enough to understand that lines, once crossed, didn't easily uncross themselves.
He watched Estrella disappear into her room and turned slowly toward Thomas, who stood by the door, tense but unashamed.
"You and I need to talk," Damiano said.
Thomas nodded. "I figured."
The conversation didn't happen then. But it was coming.
And it would not be gentle.
Later that night, Aaliyah stood alone on the balcony of their apartment, Rome glowing beneath her like a promise and a threat. Her phone buzzed with messages—offers, requests, noise.
She ignored them.
Her hand rested instinctively on her stomach, a ghost of a habit she hadn't yet unlearned. Her face hardened, not with bitterness, but with decision.
She had lost something irreplaceable.
But she was still here.
And she wasn't going to disappear.
Behind her, the city breathed. Ahead of her, a stage waited.
And somewhere between crossed lines, broken truths, and unspoken fears, everything was about to collide.