Chapter 69: Into Her World

Chapter 69: Chapter 69: Into Her World

Garrett woke up Tuesday morning and moved through his usual routine without much thought behind it.

While brushing his hair, he finally got a proper look at the haircut from the night before, the mirror catching it properly for the first time in decent light. He paused, turning his head slightly.

It actually looked good. Clean, sharp, nothing like the overgrown mess he’d been walking around with for weeks. He understood now why Freya had picked up on it so quickly last night, even with the compound lighting working against her.

He showered, brushed his teeth, straightened up a few things around the apartment out of a habit he adopted recently.

Pulling clothes out of his wardrobe, he noticed a few shirts starting to look worn at the collar, a pair of jeans faded in a way that had nothing to do with style. His wardrobe hadn’t exactly kept pace with everything else that had changed around him lately.

He didn’t dwell on it. Just made a mental note to sort it out over the weekend and kept getting ready.

University ran its usual course. Daniel was still absent, still at the hospital, and Garrett checked in during the morning break, getting back another easy, dismissive reply insisting he was fine.

Throughout the day, his mind kept drifting back to everything sitting unresolved. Brian. Whatever secret the system insisted was buried somewhere under Emiliana’s life. Her family, Raymond, the strange, layered influence surrounding her that seemed to run deeper every time he learned something new about it.

He didn’t spend the whole day turning it over. There wasn’t any point running through the same theories again when only one person actually had the answers.

He needed to hear it from Emiliana herself.

Garrett called her between classes.

"Where are you?"

"Campus. Why?"

"I want to see you. Today, if you can."

There was a brief pause on her end, something in his tone apparently registering. "Okay. The park?"

"The park."

She was already there by the time he arrived, sitting on the same bench they’d used before, hands folded loosely in her lap, watching a couple of kids chase each other across the grass a short distance away. She looked up when she heard him approach, something careful in her expression, like she’d already guessed this wasn’t going to be one of their easy evenings.

Garrett sat down beside her. He didn’t ease into it slowly this time, didn’t spend a few minutes on small talk before working his way toward the actual point.

"Someone contacted me Sunday night," he said. "Unknown number. Told me to meet them at The Ashford Grand at seven."

Emiliana’s expression sharpened slightly, her hands stilling in her lap. "And?"

"I went. Turned out Brian arranged it."

Her whole posture changed at the name. It wasn’t dramatic, nothing that would have caught the attention of anyone walking past. Just a tightening through her shoulders, her spine straightening a fraction, the kind of reaction that came from somewhere old and practiced rather than fresh surprise.

"Brian," she repeated quietly, like she needed to hear herself say it to actually believe it. "He came to you directly?"

"Sat right across from me. Ordered nothing, just talked."

She didn’t say anything for a moment, her gaze drifting toward the kids on the grass without actually watching them anymore.

Garrett watched her carefully before continuing. "He knew my full name before I gave it to him. Knew we’d been spending time together. Told me your future’s already been planned out, that your family’s got expectations for you, and that I’m not part of any of it."

"He said that? In those words?"

"Close enough. He wasn’t shy about it."

Emiliana’s jaw tightened slightly, though whatever she was feeling stayed mostly contained behind it.

"He wasn’t like Raymond," Garrett went on. "Didn’t threaten me outright, didn’t need to raise his voice. Just talked like his position made the warning enough on its own. Like he didn’t need to prove anything to make his point land."

"That sounds like him," she said, quiet, almost to herself.

"You want to tell me what that means?"

She didn’t answer right away.

Garrett let the silence sit rather than filling it for her, watching as something worked behind her expression, weighing, deciding, none of it easy from the look of it.

Emiliana didn’t get angry. Garrett noted that immediately, the absence of it almost more telling than if she had raised her voice the way she had over Raymond. Instead, she went quiet in a different way, her gaze drifting somewhere past him, processing something he couldn’t fully see the shape of.

"Who is he to you, actually?" Garrett asked. "Really."

She took a long moment before answering, long enough that Garrett wondered if she’d answer at all.

"He’s been connected to my family for a long time." Her voice had gone quieter now, more careful. "His position is... complicated. More than I can explain sitting on a park bench."

"Try me."

"Garrett." She looked at him properly now, something almost pleading behind the composure she usually wore so easily. "It’s not that simple."

"Was he telling the truth?" he pressed, gentler than before, but not backing off entirely. "About your future being planned out?"

She didn’t give him a clean answer to that either, her gaze dropping briefly to her hands before lifting back to his.

"There are expectations around me I haven’t been able to control completely." She said it slowly, like each word cost her something to admit out loud. "That part’s true. I won’t lie to you about that."

Garrett studied her, noting something more significant than the actual words she’d given him.

With Raymond, she’d been furious, immediate, decisive, ready to deal with him the moment she’d found out what he’d done. She hadn’t hesitated, hadn’t softened anything, hadn’t left Garrett wondering where he stood in the middle of it. With Brian, none of that same certainty showed up. She wasn’t promising to handle it. Wasn’t telling Garrett not to worry the way she had before. Wasn’t offering any of the easy reassurance that had come so naturally after the Raymond conversation.

That difference sat heavier with Garrett than anything Brian himself had said.

"I can’t explain all of it yet," Emiliana said finally, quiet, almost reluctant, her voice catching slightly on the admission. "I wish I could. I want to. It’s just not that simple, and I’m scared of what happens if I say too much too soon."

Garrett didn’t push her further, though the urge sat there, insistent, wanting the whole picture laid out plainly instead of these careful, half-lit fragments she kept handing him.

"I don’t need every answer right now," he said instead, steady, meaning it. "I just don’t want someone else deciding what my place is in your life. That’s not his call. Or theirs. Whatever this is between us, that’s ours to figure out. Not something Brian gets to draw a line around."

Emiliana looked at him for a long moment, something easing slightly in her expression, like she hadn’t fully expected him to leave it there without demanding more, without making her feel smaller for not having every answer ready.

"Thank you," she said quietly, and there was real weight behind it, more than the two words alone seemed to carry.

The heaviness of the conversation settled between them for a while, neither of them rushing to fill the silence that followed. A breeze moved through the park, carrying the distant sound of the kids still playing somewhere behind them, and for a moment neither of them said anything at all, just sitting there with everything that had been said and everything that hadn’t.

Then Emiliana shifted slightly beside him, something lighter creeping back into her posture.

"There’s something I want, though. Separate from all of this."

"What’s that?"

"I want to actually know you better." She looked at him properly now, something warmer replacing the earlier caution. "Not through university. Not through Brian, or my father, or anyone else trying to have a say in what happens between us. Just you and me."

Garrett waited.

"Can you come over on Saturday..." she said. "To My place?."

That caught him slightly off guard. "You sure?"

"Yes." No hesitation behind it, steady and certain. "I’m sure."

"Okay," Garrett said. "Saturday."

She smiled, small but genuine, some of the earlier tension finally leaving her shoulders.

Garrett sat with it for a moment after, turning the invitation over in his head.

This wasn’t going to be another quiet bench conversation, another stretch of careful, guarded talk about Brian or Raymond or whatever else circled her family’s name.

For the first time, she was actually inviting him into her world.