Labor Day Weekend September 3, 2021:

Eli has seen her countless times.

He saw her standing behind and a feet away from Maureen and Carl at his mom's funeral. She'd touched his arm as she passed him heading towards her black SUV moments after they buried his mother. She'd given a small smile moments after he had his first of many breakdowns, but the only one that has ever happened in front of anyone other than his father.

The touch had left his arm warm and tingling for hours, the thought angers him now.

She came to the intervention but his siblings had pre-occupied her presence in the corner of the room while he sat alone on the couch. She'd walked towards him at one point when she'd first arrived, seemed to zero in on him and he sat up a little hoping that she'd help the turmoil in his mind too. Except then Katie and Lizzie asked her something and her attention was redirected and he deflated into the couch, he didn't meet her eye again.

They pass each other in the apartment that he shares with his dad now, and she says hi and asks how school and soccer are going, but she's always quick to leave once he comes through the door. He knows they're dating though his dad had told him in the name of honesty, and he's had it confirmed with his own eyes when he's caught them cuddling on the couch before she could pull away.

He hates her.

Tonight, is the first time he's going to officially meet her and Noah, some seven-year-old who gets insanely excited whenever Eli's around.

"Why can't we go out to eat?" He's pouting like a child as he climbs into the truck.

"Liv thought you'd rather a homecooked meal."

He sighs rolling his eyes as they pull onto the street, "How long do we have to stay cause I have homework and I'd rath—"

They pull up to the red light and his dad turns to face him, his face is hardened and serious. "Eli, I'm warning you to drop the mood now. We're not going to make her and Noah feel uncomfortable in their own home, not when we're the guests and they're trying to do something nice for us."

He hates her.

When they arrive dinner is almost ready, so there's no time wasted on small talk and some poor attempt at appetizers and he's thankful for that at the very least. Noah wants to show him his room before dinner and every toy he owns, the kid actually has a good collection of comics but Eli doesn't tell him that, instead he forces himself to stay disinterested.

This kid is her kid and Eli hates her.

Eli sits next to Noah and across from her and when he accidently meets her eye, she looks nervous, like she knows that he is only here because of his dad. That given the choice he doesn't care to know more about her or the kid sitting beside him, she glances away a moment later and takes a long sip of water before she fills her plate with food.

He stays quiet during dinner and although it's hardly noticeable at times, at other times his silence is thunderous, especially when the conversation shifts to him. He gives her one-word answers and he can feel his dad staring daggers into the top of his head, but he keeps his eyes down focused on his dinner.

"How's soccer, Eli?"

"Fine."

"You're doing traveling soccer now, right?"

"Yeah," he doesn't lift his head to look at her. Eli knows she knows the answer already, he's heard his dad tell her that he's planning on trying out for the high school team in the spring, but for now he's on the traveling team.

He hates her.

"Eli."

He doesn't look up but he can hear the anger brewing in his dad's tone, "I answered her, didn't I?"

"Don't sta—"

"Then tell her to stop asking stupid questions that I know she already knows the fuc—"

Elliot's voice is deadly but low, and Noah glances nervously at Eli, but the teen only stares back into his dad's steel blue eyes, "In the hall now, Eli."

Eli can feel the pride rushing through his veins as he realizes he's finally pushed hard enough, but before he can respond her voice is there soft and reassuring, and he has to force himself not to look up, "El it's fine."

"No, it isn't Eli apo—"

Her chair scrapes against the kitchen floor and she wraps her hand around his dad's hand, "We'll be right back," and the door to her room closes behind them.

Noah nervously looks his shoulder as they listen to their muffled conversation and the young boy's eyes are a bit watery when he asks, "You don't like my mom?"

The truth is he doesn't really like anyone, most of all himself.

The last of the summer weather slips through his fingers as September turns to October and fallen leaves crunch under his feet when he walks home from school. He feels like he's floating aimlessly searching for a home that doesn't really exist anymore, despite his insistence that Rome is his home he knows it doesn't exist, not anymore.

His sibling's express concern but not for him. They're concerned about their dad again but this time it's because of him, this time though his dad is better and stronger and he argues that he isn't chasing a ghost but his youngest. It's after his siblings leave, that he calls her and Eli sits on his bed as he listens to his broken voice and he confesses quietly, so quiet that Eli almost misses it, that he doesn't know how to help the teen.

Eli sinks to the floor and his back rests against his closed bedroom door as tears stream down his face and his right-hand grips the spot where she had touched him on that unusually cold day in April minutes after they buried his mother. He replays the moment in his head so many times until the spot burns and then he cries more.

Wednesday October 27, 2021:

It's exactly one month away from his birthday, the idea of celebrating without his mom terrifies him, but he's been preparing himself for this for the past six months. What he doesn't anticipate is this overwhelming void that fills him, he's been searching for someone to help him, but when he tries to explain it, he finds he cannot speak.

He's walking down the steps of his school as he fiddles with his headphones when he notices her SUV sitting in the first carpool lane outside his school. He wouldn't have noticed but this weekend he saw that same SUV pull away from his building on Saturday on its way to a pumpkin patch as a picture-perfect family of three.

The passenger window rolls down when he gets close enough, "Can I give you a ride?"

Eli looks down the street as a raindrop lands on his cheek, for a moment he thinks it's a tear but then there's another one that lands on his head, "I guess."

They're well enough away from his school now and he pushes off his over-sized headphones as he stares out the window and the movement must catch her eye because she glances at him and smiles softly. "You want the radio on?"

"I'm fine."

Rain smacks against her car.

They stop at a red light and she takes the moment to fiddle with the heat, "I heard you did well on your science project."

Eli stares down at his hands, his voice raspy and tight when he speaks again, "Barely a B- I used to be an A student in science."

Liv's hand lifts, Eli sees the shadow of it on the gear shift but she hesitates in the air before it falls again, "Sometimes these things take time. Moving from one school to the other is hard enough on teens, you moved halfway across the world." She watches him stare out his passenger window for a moment and then she asks the question she hasn't managed to gain the courage to ask the teen's father and her partner, "Do you miss Rome?"

"Nobody asks me about Rome," he whispers quietly as his brown eyes brim with tears as they trail to meet hers.

"Why not?"

He's quiet for a long moment but when he opens his mouth to answer suddenly, he has the urge to talk, like he hasn't with anyone else. "Dad let me decorate the apartment with our family photos," he knows she knows this, knows she's seen every single one of those photos, "They think it's a shrine."

"Who thinks tha—"

"My siblings. There was a big fight this weekend." He tells her because he honestly doesn't know if she knows and he hasn't been able to talk about it with anyone, it's just there weighing on his mind.

It's still too raw to touch, but the ache feels too comforting for him to stop.

His siblings are angry. His dad seems to be hesitant and unsure of everything these days when it comes to his youngest, they seem to have an almost conversation but his dad seems to lose himself in Eli's eyes. Eli doesn't know what he sees but it has the man squeezing the back of his neck for a long moment and pressing a kiss into his head as he whispered, 'We're gonna be fine.'

"Your dad told me." Her soft voice pulls him back to the surface and it's then that he realizes that they're parked on the side of some street. "It's your home too, Eli. I know your siblings love and care about you and your dad but…" she trails off as she watches him duck his head, curling his shoulders inward and treads carefully into unknown waters. "I love your dad and your siblings, Eli."

"I know," his voice is tight.

"But I love you too, Eli," his eyes find hers but only for a moment and she sucks in a breath before she takes another chance, "Your dad says you don't really like to talk about your mom or Rome anymore."

"Rome leads to my mom and then that—" he pushes a hand through his hair.

Liv has to breathe a few times, steeling herself for the harsh reality before she can ask this question, "Did your dad ever tell you about me?"

"He said you were there when I was born. You were the first person to really hold me cause my mom got hurt in a car accident," he glances up at her to confirm this fact and she nods as tears fill her eyes. "He said you knew Italian and like five other languages or something and that you'd be impressed that an old man like him could still learn new tricks," that causes them both to let out a watery laugh.

"I do think that and don't you dare tell him that his Italian is better than mine, that man has a big enough ego already," she smiles as Eli laughs again but the teen's promise is sincere. A long moment of silence fills the car again. "I don't care about the photos, Eli. Your mom was a friend of mine and you're still grieving there will come a day when you can put away some of those photos and not feel like you're betraying her."

"What if that day doesn't as soon as people think it should?"

"We can handle that, Eli. I can tell your dad to talk to your siblings about it so they stop bringing it up, I know they mean well, but they shouldn't be making you feel guilty." Her hand lifts again and he watches it from the corner of his eye but this time it lands on the back of his neck, he wonders if she got it from his dad or vice versa, "You can tell me all about Rome too."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I'd love to hear about it."

He nods with a smile as her hand settles on the gear shift, "That sounds nice."

"Will you come over? I promised Noah we'd carve the pumpkins we got on Saturday and he wants to watch the first Harry Potter. We finished the book last week and I finally gave in because the whining…" Liv shakes her head once as they pull back onto the busy street, "I swear you'd think I've been denying him food for a week."

The teen laughs again.