C20 Alex..

Alex drove with one hand on the steering wheel, his attention fixed on the road even though his thoughts were somewhere else entirely.

Sam.

He hadn't expected to see her, much less find her standing outside the house where Joan had been visiting. But the moment he'd seen her, everything else had become secondary.

If Sam lived there, then Sierra did too.

The realization had come almost immediately, followed by an uncomfortable awareness of how close he'd been to her without knowing it. They could have passed each other on the road, stood in the same queue, or walked into the same place without realizing how little distance separated them.

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

Beside him, Joan watched for a while before finally speaking.

"So, do you mind telling me what that was all about?"

Alex glanced at her briefly. "What?"

She gave him a look. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Act like you have no idea what I'm talking about."

He returned his attention to the road.

Joan folded her arms. "You knew Sam. She knew you. And judging by the way you both looked at each other, I don't think that was a normal meeting between two people who happen to know each other."

Alex said nothing.

"How do you know her?"

"She's Chris's sister-in-law."

Joan turned towards him. "Chris? As in Elizabeth's husband, Chris?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

She seemed to consider that for a moment.

"Then you probably know her sister too."

Alex's fingers shifted slightly against the steering wheel.

"Yeah, I do."

Joan's eyebrows rose with recognition. "I knew I'd seen her somewhere before."

Alex didn't respond.

He was thinking about Sam's expression when she'd seen him. The surprise had been obvious, but there had been something else beneath it. Something that had made him wonder whether Joan had told her about his condition.

He wasn't particularly panicked by the possibility. Sam wasn't a stranger to Joan, and it wasn't as though his health was some great secret that could remain hidden forever.

Still, the thought made him uncomfortable.

He had never liked the way people looked at him after finding out. Some became overly careful around him, as though a normal conversation might somehow be too much for him. Others tried to hide their concern and only made it more obvious.

Then there was the pity.

That was the part he hated most.

He remembered the day Peter had found out. Peter had come to visit him, expecting an ordinary afternoon, only to find him in the middle of an episode. Alex could still remember fragments of what had happened and the look on Peter's face when he finally understood that something was seriously wrong.

Peter had tried to hide it afterwards, but Alex had seen it.

The shock. The worry. The helplessness.

He hadn't blamed Peter for any of it. If their positions had been reversed, he probably would have reacted the same way.

But knowing that didn't make it easier to bear.

He didn't want another person looking at him as though his life had suddenly become something fragile.

And if Joan had told Sam, then Sam might have looked at him that way too.

He replayed their brief meeting in his head, trying to decide whether that was what he'd seen in her expression. He couldn't be sure. She had looked surprised, certainly, but there had also been something familiar in her eyes, something he couldn't quite name.

Perhaps he was simply reading too much into it.

"You've gone quiet," Joan said.

"I'm driving."

"I can see that."

"Then why ask?"

She gave him a flat look. "Very funny."

Alex's mouth twitched, but he didn't answer.

Joan turned towards the window, leaving him to his thoughts for the rest of the drive.

Neither of them brought Sam up again.

But even after Alex pulled into their street, her surprised expression remained in the back of his mind.

And somewhere behind that memory was Sierra.

He hadn't seen her, hadn't spoken to her, and didn't even know whether she was home. Yet simply knowing that she was somewhere nearby had been enough to disturb the quiet he'd spent years trying to maintain.

He switched off the engine.

"Are you coming in?" Joan asked, already reaching for the door handle.

"In a minute."

She studied him briefly, but whatever she wanted to say, she decided against it.

"Fine. Don't sit out here all night."

"I won't."

Joan got out and shut the door.

Alex remained behind the wheel for a few moments before finally stepping out. He had no intention of looking for Sierra. He had made his decision years ago, and seeing Sam hadn't changed the reasons behind it.

At least, that was what he told himself.

---

Three months had passed since Elizabeth and Chris welcomed their baby boy.

For Sierra and Sam, the arrival had been an excuse to spend a few days with their sister, fuss over their nephew, and temporarily abandon their usual routines.

They had stayed for a week.

Sierra had spent most of that time insisting that Elizabeth should have waited a little longer before giving birth.

"You couldn't have held on for a few more days?" she had complained one afternoon, sitting beside Elizabeth's bed while the baby slept nearby.

Elizabeth stared at her. "Sierra, are you seriously complaining about when my child was born?"

"I'm saying it would have been convenient."

"For whom?"

"For me. We could have been birthday mates."

Elizabeth blinked at her before bursting into laughter.

"You wanted me to postpone having my baby so you could share a birthday?"

"When you say it like that, it sounds unreasonable."

"Because it is unreasonable."

Sam, who was sitting nearby, didn't even look up from her phone.

"She's been saying this for days," she informed Elizabeth. "I've stopped trying to understand her."

Sierra turned towards her. "Nobody asked you."

"And yet I contributed."

Elizabeth laughed again, careful not to disturb the sleeping baby.

For those few days, life had felt simple. There were family conversations, meals that took longer than necessary because nobody wanted to leave the table, and the occasional argument over who had been holding the baby for too long.

Sierra enjoyed it more than she expected.

It was nice to spend time with Elizabeth without having to squeeze their conversations between work schedules and other responsibilities. Sam enjoyed it too, although school soon began calling her back, while Sierra had to return to work.

So, after a week, they packed their things and went home.

Life returned to normal.

Or, at least, it had seemed that way.

Until yesterday.

---

Sierra sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the phone in her hand without really seeing the screen.

Sam's words had been simple enough.

I saw Alex today.

That was all it had taken.

One sentence, and suddenly Sierra had found herself reacting to a name she had spent years trying not to think about.

She let out a quiet breath and dropped the phone onto the bed beside her.

"Seriously?"

The word came out louder than she intended.

She leaned back on her hands and stared at the ceiling.

I mean, this guy dumped you a long time ago. So what's your deal?

It was a fair question. One she would have asked anyone else in her position.

Alex had made his choice. He had looked her in the face and told her they couldn't work. She had spent a long time trying to understand what had happened before eventually accepting that she might never get an explanation.

She had built a life after him.

She had her work, her friends, her own place, and Miles.

Miles.

The thought of him made her reach for her phone again.

Things with Miles had been going well. He was easy to talk to, thoughtful without making a show of it, and genuinely interested in getting to know her. She liked spending time with him. She liked that he made her laugh and that being around him didn't feel like work.

She had even started looking forward to seeing him.

So why had hearing Alex's name made everything feel uncertain?

Sierra frowned at her phone.

It wasn't as though she had suddenly stopped liking Miles. That wasn't it. She couldn't explain what it was, exactly, but something about the situation felt wrong now, as though she had overlooked a question she should have asked herself a long time ago.

Perhaps she was simply unsettled by the surprise of hearing that Alex had been so close.

Perhaps seeing him again would have been worse.

She wasn't sure she wanted to find out.

Her mind returned to the way Sam had described their encounter. Alex had looked at her, gone quiet, and then told her it was nice to see her.

Sierra pressed her lips together.

She almost laughed, but the sound never came.

The truth was, she hated how easily he could still get under her skin without even being there. She hated that his name could bring back feelings she had convinced herself were no longer important. Most of all, she hated that a part of her still wanted to know what he had been thinking when he walked away from her.

She had thought she was past all of that.

Apparently, she wasn't as past it as she wanted to believe.

Sierra picked up her phone and opened her messages. Miles had sent her something earlier, a casual message about his day. She read it again, then typed a reply.

She wasn't going to let one unexpected reunion—or the possibility of one—decide what happened next in her life.

Miles deserved a fair chance, and so did she.

But as she sent the message and placed her phone aside, the uneasiness remained.

She could keep telling herself that Alex belonged to the past. She could remind herself of how long it had been and how much had changed since then.

What she couldn't do was pretend that hearing his name hadn't affected her.

And that bothered her more than she wanted to admit.