Page 211 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 5-8

Maybe she and Gustav weren’t so different. Despite all of the nights they had sat by the river talking, she had never told him any of the things that mattered the most to her. And when he had divulged his own secret, she hadn’t taken it well. She could see that now, in retrospect.

What would it feel like to give him a little glimpse at this part of her past? She would need to be careful, of course, not to tie it to any of her decisions now, but this was Gustav. Maybe it would feel good to tell him. Maybe a new path would open if she was honest. There were no guarantees, but she could feel the hope that should have been exhausted long ago. So, she told him.

“I completed one semester of college, but when I came home for winter break, my sister wasn’t doing well. Then, when I left for the spring term, she had an unfortunate encounter with a bottle of sleeping pills that she almost didn’t survive. So I left school to be with her and just…never went back.” The bedroom was so silent and still, and she could feel her own discomfort building. Why did she think it was a good idea to bring this up? She took a deep breath and added, “Not the conversational turn you thought you were in for, right?”

Her voice wobbled a little too much to make the comment sound funny. When she glanced up, Gustav’s expression was unreadable, but then his hand was on her cheek, so soft. It was the smallest gesture, and there was no reason for her to be moved by it. She took an unsteady breath. Gustav moved closer, and she let herself want that closeness. She allowed herself to lean toward him, just for a moment, but then he was pulling her into his arms, and she found herself resting on the flat planes of his chest muscles. It felt as if her body was melting into his, and though desire hummed through her, there was something else that she felt herself softening to. His lips brushed against the top of her head, and in that moment, she let herself tentatively touch her sorest spots, the ones she had buried deepest inside. She knew she would cry if she pressed too hard, and she definitely could not cry—not here, in this bed with Gustav. But for the moment, she let a little more of the past leak in.

“I’m so sorry, Livia,” he whispered, his breath warming her. “That must have been awful.”

Livia swallowed back another surge of emotions. It was so much easier to push him away when she focused on his arrogance. His betrayal. But compassion was something harder to distance herself from. In the years between then and now, she had pushed away memories of this side of Gustav. The way he used to stroke her hair when she was mad at the world. The way he didn’t make her defend her anger back then, just accepted it. She inhaled his scent, both familiar and new, and tried to hold herself together.

“It was a long time ago,” she said, and that was true. But that didn’t fully take away the feelings of helplessness and despair that had once been at the center of her life. Her family had all just learned to live with it in their own ways.

Livia pulled away a little. “Thank you.”

He nodded, and for the first time since he had appeared in her apartment, she felt as if they had found a little place where there was no distance between them.

“How is she now?” he asked softly.

“Good. Much better,” she said. That was mostly true, though sometimes it felt like they were always trying to get in front of the next possible downward slope. Right now, for example.

“Did you know she was in such a hard place before that winter break?”

Somehow this part felt easier to talk about because he had been there when it all began. “Remember the first night we met? It was the night after my sister ran away for the first time.”

“Oh.” Gustav looked almost…taken aback at this revelation. “I had no idea.”

“You were too busy fending off potential stalkers,” she said, and she felt a tug of a smile on her lips.

He might have let her stop there, but now she wanted to continue. She wanted him to understand. “There are people who don’t seem to be made for the world. They don’t have the protective part that automatically instructs people to look for danger. Adele was so adorably odd and quirky, and when she was younger, it didn’t matter. She was just…herself.”

Livia paused as a picture of Adele popped into her mind, with the haircut she had given herself and the pet snail, Sludge, that she carried around everywhere. “One of the main benefits of my father’s job at the Alpine Institute was tuition-free schooling at a place where the children of the elite from all over Europe sent their kids. Why wouldn’t it be the best for her?”

Gustav’s expression darkened. “People send their kids away to boarding school for many reasons. Many people don’t have an interest in raising their own children. How would they know what’s best for them?”

“My sister didn’t say anything about the bullying for a long time, but one day she just sort of…broke.”

Gustav was watching her intently.

“She had been the most delightful child, so curious. We would return to our family’s cottage on the weekends and explore the forest together. I was escaping, and I didn’t realize she was, too.” Livia swallowed. “One day, Adele ran away, and when we found her, she was sort of…hollowed out. It felt like a part of my sister was gone.”

Livia tried not to think about the time before, when she and her sister would wade through the icy stream, to the place where a circle of trees stood with their large branches reaching protectively over them. “That day, when you and I met, you found me at one of my sister’s favorite spots.”

Gustav stroked her hair.

“I suppose I can concede that you weren’t following me that day,” he finally said.

And despite the heaviness of the memories pressing down on her, Livia smiled. “And it only took eight years.”

He continued to stroke her hair. “I never once asked you about this. I’m sorry.”

Livia shook her head. “I probably wouldn’t have told you back then. The subject of my family’s position was a sore point at the time, so I didn’t share our struggles with anyone.”

“So you just carried it all on your own?”

She gave him a wry smile. “We were friends for a reason, Gustav. We had many things in common.”

“I don’t think friends describes what we were back then.”