The shy waitress answered the crime boss’s father in a Sicilian dialect he thought America had forgotten, and the whole room went silent
Evelyn nearly smiled.
She poured tap water.
Vittorio noticed.
His eyes moved from the glass to her face.
For the first time that evening, he truly looked at her.
It was not pleasant.
Some men looked at women and saw beauty.
Some saw status.
Some saw opportunity.
Vittorio looked at human beings the way a farmer might examine a horse he was considering buying.
Age.
Strength.
Weakness.
Use.
Then he turned to Adrian and said, still in dialect, “At least this one listens. Though she looks half dead.”
Evelyn kept pouring.
Adrian replied in English.
“She works hard.”
Vittorio gave a dry laugh.
“You know that?”
“I pay attention.”
“That is your disease.”
Evelyn set down the water.
She should have walked away.
Then Vittorio glanced at the faint burn scar on her wrist.
“What kind of place sends a dirty servant to serve family?”
Adrian’s chair moved.
Fast.
His palms struck the tablecloth.
“Enough.”
Every man positioned around the dining room shifted.
Evelyn saw jackets open.
Hands disappear.
Grant stopped breathing.
Adrian leaned forward.
“You do not speak about her that way.”
Vittorio stared at his son.
Then at Evelyn.
Then back at Adrian.
And smiled.
It was a cruel smile.
“Oh.”
One syllable.
But Evelyn understood what it meant.
Interesting.
He had discovered a weakness in his son.
Her.
Something hot and humiliating moved through Evelyn’s chest.
Not fear.
Anger.
She did not want to become a weapon between two men.
She did not want Adrian defending her like she belonged to him.
She especially did not want Vittorio believing he could insult her because the language hid him from consequence.
Nana Lucia had once told her something while kneading bread.
A coward thinks another language is a locked room.
A fool forgets someone else may have the key.
Evelyn put the pitcher on the table.
The base struck the wood with a heavy knock.
Adrian stopped speaking.
Vittorio looked up.
Evelyn answered him.
In his dialect.
Not perfectly.
Not elegantly.
But with the voice of a little girl standing in Nana Lucia’s kitchen.
“My grandmother used to say a clean shirt can still cover a dirty heart.”
Nobody moved.
Vittorio’s expression disappeared.
Evelyn continued.
“And she also said people who work for their bread do not become dirty from work.”
Adrian stared at her.
She had seen him surprised before.
Never like this.
His face had gone completely still.
Vittorio tightened both hands around the handle of his cane.
Evelyn should have stopped.
Instead she leaned down slightly.
“And if I look half dead, sir, it is because I have been awake since five this morning studying how to keep people alive.”
The silence afterward was so deep that when somebody dropped a spoon in the kitchen, the sound traveled through the entire dining room.
Grant looked ready to faint.
Evelyn’s anger evaporated.
Reality returned.
She had just insulted Vittorio Moretti.
In the one language he had assumed made him untouchable.
Her mouth went dry.
Adrian slowly stood.
Not aggressively.
Almost protectively.
Vittorio lifted one hand.
Adrian stopped.
The old man studied Evelyn.
“Where,” he asked in dialect, “did you learn that?”
“My great-grandmother.”
“From where?”
Evelyn named the mountain district Nana Lucia had left as a girl.
Vittorio’s eyes changed.
It was subtle.
The cruelty did not vanish.
Men did not become good simply because a memory touched them.
But something older entered his face.
He said a surname.
“Russo?”
Evelyn felt cold.
“Yes.”
Vittorio sat back.
Then the impossible happened.
He laughed.
It was not a warm laugh.
It sounded rusty, as if the mechanism had not been used in years.
Still, he laughed.
One of the men near the wall actually blinked in confusion.
Vittorio pointed his cane toward Adrian.
“You bring me into this glass box full of frightened men, and the only person who talks to me like a human being is the waitress.”
Adrian sat slowly.
“She has that effect.”
Vittorio looked at Evelyn.
“Sit.”
“No.”
Grant made a choking noise from across the room.
Vittorio’s eyebrows rose.
“No?”
“I’m working.”
“I rented the restaurant.”
“You rented the dining room. Grant still owns my shift.”
Vittorio looked toward Grant.
Grant shook his head violently.
Apparently Grant no longer owned anything.
Vittorio turned back.
“Sit.”
Evelyn looked at Adrian.
He did not order her.
That mattered.
He simply pulled out the empty chair beside him.
“If you want to,” he said.
She hesitated.
Then removed her apron.
She sat.
That decision changed her life.
Not immediately.
Life rarely changes cleanly enough for us to recognize the moment.
Usually it changes the way water damages a ceiling—quietly at first, then all at once.
Vittorio asked about Nana Lucia.
Evelyn told him she had cleaned offices at night after arriving in America.
“She raised four children,” Evelyn said. “She never learned to drive. She could repair a dress, kill a chicken, negotiate rent, and insult someone so politely they thanked her.”
Vittorio laughed again.
Adrian watched Evelyn more than he ate.
Eventually Vittorio pointed at her hands.
“Put them on the table.”
Evelyn frowned.
“Why?”
“Because your mouth is brave. I want to see whether your hands agree.”
Slowly, she placed them on the tablecloth.
Her hands were ugly.
That was the word she privately used.
Dry skin.
Small scars.
A healing cut near one thumb.
Red knuckles from restaurant detergent.
The faint burn across her wrist.
Vittorio examined them.
“Worker’s hands.”
“Student’s hands.”
“What do you study?”
“Nursing.”
His eyes moved toward Adrian.
“So she fixes what men like you break.”
The sentence hit the table harder than Evelyn’s pitcher had.
Adrian’s expression closed.
“Don’t.”
Vittorio shrugged.
“Truth should not offend a man unless it recognizes him.”
Evelyn looked at Adrian.
For the first time, she saw something behind the expensive suit.
Shame.
Not enough to redeem him.
Enough to make him human.
Much later, after midnight, Vittorio left.
Before he did, he took Evelyn’s hand.
“Your grandmother taught you well.”
“She taught me not to be impressed by frightening men.”
“Then perhaps she taught you too well.”
He smiled.
Then he was gone.
Adrian drove Evelyn home.
She did not want him to.
He insisted.
She almost called a cab just to prove she could.
Then she checked her bank account and remembered independence became philosophical when surge pricing hit forty-three dollars.
His SUV was quiet.
Too quiet.
The city passed behind thick glass.
After several blocks, Adrian said, “You never told me.”
“Told you what?”
“That you speak Sicilian.”
“You never asked.”
“You listened to conversations at my table.”
“I served your table.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Evelyn turned toward him.
“You want honesty?”
“Yes.”
“People say things in front of waitresses because they don’t think we count.”
He looked ahead.
The traffic light turned red.
She continued.
“I learned more about divorces, affairs, tax problems, drug habits, business betrayals, and miserable marriages carrying plates than I ever wanted to know. Rich people are not more interesting than everyone else. They’re just louder because fewer people interrupt them.”
Adrian laughed once.
Then he became serious.
“Why didn’t you let me stop him?”
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
“Because he insulted me.”
“He was humiliating you.”
“And I answered him.”
“I could have handled it.”
“That’s exactly the problem.”
He turned toward her.
“What problem?”
“You think everything becomes yours when you care about it.”
His expression hardened.
“My responsibility—”
“No. Mine.”
She touched her chest.
“My dignity. My argument. My consequences.”
He said nothing.
Evelyn looked out the window.
“You don’t get to turn me into territory just because you’re attracted to me.”
The light changed.
For almost a minute, there was only the low sound of the engine.
Then Adrian said quietly, “Who said I’m attracted to you?”
She looked at him.
He kept a perfectly straight face.
She laughed despite herself.
It surprised both of them.
At her apartment building, Adrian walked her to the door.
The hallway smelled like radiator dust and someone’s fried onions.
“You live here alone?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“The exterior lock is broken.”
“Congratulations on solving the mystery of affordable housing.”
“I can have it repaired.”
“No.”
“Evelyn.”
“No.”
“It’s a lock.”
“It starts with a lock.”
He stared at her.
She folded her arms.
“Then maybe a better apartment. Then tuition. Then rides. Then suddenly everything difficult in my life has your fingerprints on it, and I can’t tell what belongs to me anymore.”
His face changed.
Not anger.
Recognition.
“People usually ask me for things.”
“I’m sure.”
“You’re the first person I’ve met in years who gets angry when I offer.”
“Then meet poorer people.”
Again, that unwilling twitch at the corner of his mouth.
Evelyn unlocked the door.
Adrian stopped her.
Not by touching her.
With a question.
“Are you afraid of me?”
She considered lying.
“Yes.”
His eyes lowered.
“Good night, Adrian.”
“Good night, Evelyn.”
He walked away.
For the first time, she wondered whether frightening men ever became tired of being frightening.
The answer came seven weeks later.
By then, she and Adrian had developed the kind of relationship sensible people warned against.
He appeared twice a week at Bellaforte.
She occasionally met him after work.
Never at his restaurants.
Never at his clubs.
She chose places.
A twenty-four-hour diner.
A Polish bakery near the train station.
A coffee shop where the tables wobbled and the owner yelled at customers who stayed too long.
Adrian looked ridiculous in all of them.
That pleased her.
At the diner one night, he ordered grilled cheese.
The waitress burned it.
Evelyn waited for him to complain.
He ate the entire thing.
“Why?” she asked.
“Why what?”
“You own restaurants.”
“I own buildings with restaurants in them.”
“You could buy this diner.”
“I am beginning to understand why you dislike me.”
She laughed.
Then stopped.
“Adrian.”
“Yes?”
“What happens if your life comes into mine?”
His hand stopped halfway to his coffee.
“It already has.”
“No. I mean the part nobody talks about.”
He understood.
The fluorescent lights made him look tired.
Older.
“My father built something ugly because ugly things were done to him,” he said. “Then he became very good at pretending that explained what he did to other people.”
“That sounds like an excuse.”
“It is.”
“And you?”
Adrian stared into his coffee.
“I inherited systems. Debts. Loyalties. People whose families depend on me. If I disappear tomorrow, good men don’t automatically replace me.”
“So you stay because you’re noble?”
“No.”
At least he had the decency to answer immediately.
“I stay because part of me is good at it.”
That frightened her more than any denial could have.
She whispered, “I’m learning to stop people from bleeding.”
“I know.”
“What happens when I’m treating someone your world made bleed?”
Adrian had no answer.
Evelyn looked at him across chipped Formica.
“That day will come.”
He reached his hand across the table but did not touch hers.
He left it there.
A choice.
“Then when it comes,” he said, “I hope I’m still the kind of man who listens when you tell me what I’ve become.”
Evelyn wanted to believe that was enough.
People in love often confuse wanting to believe something with having evidence.
She placed her hand over his.
For seven weeks, they built a little life in the cracks.
Takeout on her fire escape.
Coffee before sunrise.
Three-hour naps on her sofa.
Adrian asleep with one arm over his eyes while his phone vibrated on the floor.
He never brought guards upstairs.
Never gave her jewelry.
Never asked her to quit school.
Once, she discovered he had paid the remaining balance on one semester of tuition.
She drove to his office, threw the receipt onto his desk, and said, “Undo it.”
“I can’t.”
“Then I’ll repay you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
He studied her.
“Fine.”
She spent the next year transferring money into an account she privately called The Stupid Adrian Debt.
It was not romantic.
That was why it mattered.
Real love, Evelyn discovered, involved a depressing quantity of boundaries, receipts, conflicting schedules, and conversations neither person enjoyed.
Then came the night she had predicted.
She was doing a clinical rotation at County Mercy, an overcrowded trauma hospital where ambulances arrived faster than beds became available.
At 1:18 a.m., the emergency doors burst open.
“Male, thirty-eight. Gunshot wound to the chest. Pressure dropping.”
Evelyn moved before she thought.
Gloves.
Trauma shears.
IV.
Blood.
Monitor.
The patient’s face was pale beneath the oxygen mask.
She recognized him.
Anthony.
One of Adrian’s men.
He had stood against the wall the night Vittorio came to Bellaforte.
For one heartbeat, Evelyn froze.
Then training took over.
He was not Adrian’s man anymore.
He was a human body losing blood.
They cut away his shirt.
The wound was ugly.
The room became organized chaos.
“Pressure seventy-eight systolic.”
“Get blood running.”
“Chest tube tray.”
“Move.”
Evelyn worked.
Blood soaked her gloves.
Anthony’s eyes opened briefly.
He saw her.
“Ev…”
“Don’t talk.”
“Boss…”
“Save your oxygen.”
Then the doors flew open again.
Adrian entered.
His white shirt was stained dark along one side.
Three men followed.
The physician shouted, “You cannot be in here.”
Adrian barely heard him.
“Is he alive?”
“Sir, get out.”
“Is he alive?”
Then Evelyn saw Adrian’s face.
Not the man from her sofa.
Not the man eating burnt grilled cheese.
The other one.
The one the city knew.
Cold.
Terrifying.
Ready to destroy something.
“Get out!”
Her own voice shocked her.
Adrian turned.
He saw her.
He saw the blood covering her gown.
He stopped.
Evelyn pointed toward the doors.
“You do not bring this into my trauma bay.”
One of Adrian’s men stepped forward.
“Watch how you—”
Adrian shoved an arm across his chest.
“Back.”
The man stopped.
Adrian looked at Evelyn.
“Save him.”
“I’m trying.”
Something broke behind his eyes.
Then he left.
Anthony survived.
Barely.
Two hours later, Evelyn stood at a sink scrubbing his blood from her hands.
She washed once.
Twice.
Three times.
The metallic smell remained in her head even after it disappeared from her skin.
When she stepped into the hallway, Adrian was sitting alone on a plastic chair.
His stained shirt had dried.
No guards.
No anger.
Just a man under hospital lights.
Evelyn stopped several feet away.
“What happened?”
Adrian rose.
“You don’t need to know.”
Her expression changed.
He saw it.
“That came out wrong.”
“It came out exactly right.”
“Evelyn.”
“A man nearly died on my table tonight.”
“He wasn’t your patient when it happened.”
“He became my patient after.”
“That’s different.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“It isn’t.”
People moved at the far end of the corridor.
A janitor pushed a cart.
A nurse laughed softly at something near the elevators.
The world continued.
That felt almost offensive.
Evelyn pointed at Adrian’s shirt.
“You told me you kept your dirt outside.”
His eyes lowered.
“Tonight was not supposed to happen.”
She laughed once.
It sounded horrible.
“Of course not. Nobody plans the consequences.”
“He was protecting me.”
“That makes it worse.”
Adrian looked up.
“How?”
“Because I looked down at a dying man and wondered whether he was bleeding because of you.”
Adrian’s face went pale.
Evelyn’s eyes filled.
“I can’t do this.”
“Don’t decide tonight.”
“I have been deciding since the diner.”
“Then you already knew who I was.”
“I knew the idea of who you were.”
He flinched.
“The real thing was on my gloves.”
He looked as if she had struck him.
“I never wanted you to see that.”
“But it exists whether I see it or not!”
Her voice echoed down the corridor.
She lowered it.
“That’s what I kept trying to tell you. Love does not make reality disappear.”
He stepped closer.
She stepped back.
He stopped.
Evelyn wiped at her eyes angrily.
“I love you.”
His entire face changed.
It was the first time she had said it.
She hated that the words came now.
“I love you,” she repeated. “And I cannot build my life around hoping your worst day never reaches my door.”
Adrian said nothing.
“My job is to preserve life,” she whispered. “Your world keeps teaching people that lives are currency.”
His jaw tightened.
“You think I can just walk away?”
“No.”
That surprised him.
Evelyn shook her head.
“I think some choices cost more than people want to pay. That doesn’t mean the choice isn’t there.”
Silence.
Then Adrian said, “You can’t save me.”
“No.”
“And you shouldn’t have to.”
A tear moved down Evelyn’s cheek.
Adrian closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, something had settled.
“I told you the first night I walked you home that I wasn’t going to take anything from you.”
She remembered.
He reached into his pocket.
For one insane second, she expected jewelry.
Instead he handed her a folded piece of paper.
“What is this?”
“A contact.”
“For what?”
“A lawyer handling the sale of my interest in Bellaforte’s parent company.”
She stared at him.
“What?”
“I bought Grant out this morning.”
“Why?”
“Because he deducted broken glassware from employee tips.”
Even now, Evelyn almost laughed.
“Adrian…”
“The employees are getting ownership shares. Not you. Don’t look at me like that.”
Her mouth closed.
He knew her too well.
“And what are you going to do?”
Adrian looked down the long hospital corridor.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t tell me you’re changing for me.”
“I’m not.”
He looked back.
“I’m changing because tonight I walked into a room where people were trying to save a man, and my first instinct was to frighten everyone until they gave me control.”
His voice became quieter.
“I finally understood what you’ve been seeing.”
That hurt more than a promise would have.
Because it sounded real.
Not complete.
Not safe.
Real.
He stepped backward.
“I need to clean up my house, Evelyn.”
“And if you can’t?”
“Then you were right to leave.”
He turned.
She wanted to call his name.
Every romantic instinct screamed at her to stop him.
Life had taught her a crueler lesson.
Sometimes loving someone meant refusing to become the excuse they used to avoid changing.
So she watched him disappear through the doors.
For six months, Adrian did not call.
No flowers arrived.
No black SUVs appeared outside her apartment.
No mysterious envelopes.
Nothing.
Evelyn finished school.
Passed her licensing exam.
Started working nights at County Mercy.
She also finally moved into a slightly better apartment.
She paid for it herself.
The lock worked.
Anthony recovered enough to walk with a cane.
One afternoon he appeared near the nurses’ station carrying a paper bag of pastries.
“You saved my life.”
“My team saved your life.”
“You were on the team.”
“Yes.”
He gave her the bag.
She accepted because refusing cannoli seemed unnecessarily dramatic.
“Do you still work for him?” she asked.
Anthony understood who she meant.
“No.”
“What happened?”
“He closed things.”
“What things?”
“The things you wanted closed.”
“That doesn’t answer anything.”
“He sold legitimate businesses. Shut down others. Paid people out. A few didn’t appreciate it.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
Anthony looked at her.
The pause was answer enough.
Evelyn felt disappointment settle inside her.
Not shock.
That was worse.
Life had not transformed Adrian because she loved him.
There had been no miraculous purification.
No clean exit.
No romantic montage.
Only damage being reduced slowly by people who had spent years creating it.
“Where is he?”
Anthony shrugged.
“He told us not to tell you.”
That was the last update she received.
Until April.
Evelyn finished a fourteen-hour shift on a Tuesday morning.
Rain had fallen before dawn, leaving the sidewalks shining beneath pale sunlight.
She walked toward the train station carrying coffee she was too tired to drink.
Then she saw him.
Adrian leaned against an ordinary gray station wagon across the street.
No driver.
No men.
No tailored suit.
Jeans.
A brown jacket.
Hair slightly too long.
He looked almost normal.
Which was the strangest thing she had ever seen.
Evelyn stopped.
He did not cross the street.
He waited.
That mattered too.
Finally she crossed.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“You look exhausted.”
“I’m a nurse.”
“I remember.”
“You disappeared.”
“You asked for peace.”
“I didn’t ask you to become a ghost.”
“I wasn’t sure there was a difference.”
For a moment, neither knew what to say.
Six months of imagined conversations disappeared the second the real person stood there.
Evelyn looked at the car.
“No armored windows?”
“No.”
“Security?”
“Not here.”
“Should that worry me?”
“Probably a little.”
She hated that answer.
At least it was honest.
“What happened?”
Adrian inhaled slowly.
“I sold everything I could sell without hurting innocent employees.”
“And what couldn’t be sold?”
“Closed.”
“And the people who didn’t agree?”
His eyes met hers.
“Some left.”
“Some?”
He did not answer.
Evelyn felt the old ache.
There it was.
The part of life that refused to become a fairy tale.
“Anthony said people got hurt.”
“Yes.”
“Did you hurt them?”
A long silence.
“No.”
“Did you order anyone hurt?”
“No.”
“Did you know someone might get hurt because of choices you made?”
“Yes.”
She looked away.
Traffic passed behind them.
Adrian did not attempt to explain.
That helped.
Excuses would have ended the conversation.
Finally Evelyn asked, “What do you do now?”
“I own three warehouses, legally.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Painfully legally.”
“And?”
“I am bored.”
“Good.”
“I thought you’d enjoy that.”
Despite everything, she smiled.
Only for a second.
Adrian looked at her like a starving man watching a bakery window.
He did not move closer.
“I’m not asking you to forgive my life,” he said.
“I know.”
“I’m not asking you to pretend the past disappeared.”
“Good.”
“I’m asking whether you would drink coffee with me.”
Evelyn looked at the cup already in her hand.
“This is coffee.”
“That is hospital coffee. Chemically, I’m not sure it qualifies.”
She laughed.
And suddenly she was crying.
Not dramatically.
No collapse.
No embrace.
Tears simply came because six months of grief had found an exit.
Adrian’s expression tightened.
He took one step forward.
Then stopped himself.
Evelyn noticed.
“You can hug me.”
He did.
Carefully.
That almost destroyed her.
She pressed her forehead against his chest.
He smelled like rain, soap, and ordinary fabric.
No expensive cologne.
No tobacco.
No blood.
But she knew better now than to believe cleanliness on the outside proved anything.
After a minute, she stepped back.
“Coffee,” she said.
“Coffee.”
“That’s all.”
“That’s enough.”
It was not a grand reunion.
They did not marry six weeks later.
Adrian did not become a saint.
Evelyn did not become the magical woman whose love cured a dangerous man.
Life was crueler than that.
And kinder.
They started with coffee.
Then another.
Adrian went to therapy because Evelyn told him she was tired of being his emotional emergency room.
He hated therapy.
He kept going.
Evelyn paid the final installment of the tuition money he had once covered.
He accepted it without argument.
That might have been the most convincing evidence of change.
Vittorio died the following winter.
He and Adrian had spoken only twice during those last months.
Evelyn never learned everything said between them.
Adrian told her only one thing.
His father’s final question had been about her.
“The waitress still talking back?”
Evelyn asked, “What did you say?”
“I told him you got worse.”
She laughed.
Then cried later when Adrian was asleep.
She cried for an old man she had never liked.
For Nana Lucia.
For fathers and sons.
For immigrants who crossed oceans carrying language, pride, fear, cruelty, recipes, debts, and damage.
For all the things families passed down because nobody knew where inheritance ended and choice began.
Years later, Evelyn would still remember the night at Bellaforte whenever a frightened student nurse apologized for being “just” a student.
She would point to her own hands.
The scars were faint by then.
But they remained.
“Never say ‘just,’” she would tell them.
“People will decide you are invisible if you make it easy for them.”
Sometimes someone would ask how she had learned that.
Evelyn never told the whole story.
She would simply smile and say an old woman taught her a language nobody thought she understood.
And maybe that was the real lesson.
The world is full of people speaking freely because they believe the person carrying the tray, cleaning the floor, driving the car, changing the sheets, checking the IV, or standing quietly in the corner does not count.
Power often depends on that belief.
So does cruelty.
Evelyn had spent years thinking invisibility protected her.
In some ways, it had.
Being unseen could keep you safe.
But it could also slowly convince you that silence was the price of survival.
It wasn’t.
Sometimes silence was wisdom.
Sometimes walking away was strength.
Sometimes love meant staying.
Sometimes love meant leaving until the person you loved learned how to stand without using you as a reason.
And sometimes the bravest thing you could do was place a water pitcher on a table, look directly at someone the whole room feared, and answer him in a language he thought belonged only to him.
Evelyn never became fearless.
That was another lie people liked to tell about courage.
She remained afraid of losing patients.
Afraid of bills.
Afraid Adrian might someday become the man he had been.
Afraid she might become too tired to recognize when a boundary had moved.
Real life did not reward good people with permanent safety.
It gave them mornings.
Choices.
Second chances that could still be wasted.
Years later, Adrian sometimes woke at three in the morning and sat alone in the kitchen.
Evelyn would find him there.
She never asked whether he was remembering people he had lost or people he had failed.
Some memories belonged to the person who carried them.
She would make tea.
Sit across from him.
And eventually he would reach across the table, leaving his hand open between them.
Not taking.
Not demanding.
Waiting.
Just as he had done in the cheap diner years before.
Evelyn would look at that hand.
Then decide.
Every time.
Because that was the difference.
Not that a dangerous man had fallen in love with a waitress.
Not that she had spoken an old dialect and impressed a room full of powerful men.
The difference was that nobody owned the answer anymore.
Not Vittorio.
Not Adrian.
Not fear.
The choice remained hers.
And she learned that a life did not need to be perfect to be worth choosing again in the morning.
THE END
