The Arrangement

Chapter 21 - Return to Memory

The phone call came in the quiet of the afternoon, cutting through the hum of my new city like a sharp gust of wind.

It was her voice—warm, steady, but carrying a weight I hadn't anticipated. Ethan's mother.

"Sienna, it's almost been two years... we're holding a small remembrance for him. It wouldn't be the same without you."

Two years. I swallowed hard, a pang of grief stabbing through my chest, sharp and unrelenting. I had tried to carve a life forward, to create distance from the shadow of loss and the chaos that had followed in New York. And yet, here was a reminder, unyielding, pulling me back to the place where my heart had broken most profoundly.

I didn't answer immediately. My fingers trembled as I gripped the phone, thoughts racing. Returning meant stepping into the city that had nearly taken me, the city where danger had stalked me, where Lorenzo had hovered like a silent shadow, and where memories of Ethan's warmth and laughter haunted every corner.

But it was Ethan. His memory demanded me. His absence needed to be honored. And I could not, would not, refuse that.

The decision was made with trembling hands and a racing heart. I booked the flight back to New York, alone, without security, without notice. This was mine to face, and mine alone. For him. For my memory of him. For the love that had been stolen too soon.

As the plane lifted off, I pressed my forehead to the window, watching the city shrink beneath me. The weight of fear, PTSD, and unresolved tension with Lorenzo pressed lightly on the edges of my consciousness, but it was tempered by resolve. I had survived once. I would survive again.

Landing in New York, the familiar hum of the city wrapped around me like a cloak I hadn't realized I missed. The streets, the skyscrapers, the murmur of life—it all felt impossibly close and impossibly far. My fingers brushed my phone, instinctively checking, and I paused. I hadn't reinstalled the app. I wasn't under surveillance. This return was mine. I would reclaim it.

Her small voice echoed in my mind as I stepped into a cab. "We want to see you there, Sienna. He wouldn't forgive you if you stayed away."

Two years. Two years of love and grief, of memories that still burned with quiet intensity. Two years that had shaped me, changed me, hardened me, but also left room for the strange, lingering ache of the heart that Lorenzo had not yet touched—and perhaps never would fully understand.

I clenched my bag against me, feeling the tremor of fear that always came with the city, but also a strange thrill. I was returning to memory, to love, to loss. I was returning to the city that had shaped me, and to the people—living and gone—who had left indelible marks on my heart.

This visit was not about danger or protection. It was about honoring the past, confronting grief, and allowing myself, for the first time in years, to exist fully in the space between love, loss, and life.

The cab pulled up outside the familiar brownstone. I hesitated, hand on the door, taking a deep breath. Ethan's memory waited inside. And I, trembling but resolute, stepped forward.