“Please don’t leave me,” I whispered back.
I won’t.
After keeping everyone and everything out for so long, he made me trust him. I’d let him in. God, I loved him so much. I remember how desperate I was after he left . . . how I wasn’t sure I could live without him.
It was three months later, after Eric, that I decided not to.
Lorenzo was a tweaker. Before he stole my virtue, he’d put a pill on my tongue. I didn’t know what it was, only that I floated away to a happier place for a little while.
Eric had roofied me. I knew he had a stash and I needed a pill. By that time I knew I was pregnant but hadn’t told anyone. I was scared and alone and I just wanted to forget, at least for a little while. I was willing to do anything to have that floaty, out-of-body feeling again, where nothing in the real world mattered.
So I went to Eric.
Like Lorenzo, he was willing to dole his stash out . . . for a price. He gave me a pill and I took it, then I closed my eyes and pretended he was Alessandro when he climbed on top of me. And somewhere in the middle of it, in the empty fuzz of my mind, I had an epiphany. If I just fluttered away like a butterfly and never came back, nothing could hurt me anymore.
After, I waited until Eric fell asleep, then grabbed the vial from where I’d seen him put it. There were seven pills. I didn’t know what they were or how many it would take to kill me, but I hoped seven was enough.
It wasn’t.
I rub my eyes and look up at Alessandro, still pressed against my apartment door, poised to leave in the blink of an eye. “I let everyone believe that the overdose was an accident.”
“Overdose?” I watch him understand, his eyes widening. “On purpose.”
I sit up straight and just look at him.
His olive skin goes pale and he stares at me for a long heartbeat. “You meant to kill yourself? Why?”
“Because I was alone,” I say, hating that just saying it dredges up all the old pain I’ve worked my whole life to hide. “I loved you and you left and I was alone.”
His face screws into a mask of guilt. “But . . . your sister. You had Mallory. You were going to live with her.”
“But it wasn’t happening. I was in that home for seven months. Seven months. That’s forever when you’re fourteen.” My insides twist into a painful knot. “I was pregnant, Alessandro. I didn’t want anyone to know. I was ashamed. I was scared. You were gone and Mallory was taking so long . . . I just gave up.”
He isn’t breathing. He’s just staring at me with wide eyes. “Who gave you the drugs?”
I lower my gaze, feeling too filthy to look at Alessandro as I say it. “Eric.”
For a long minute, the only sound is the rush of traffic pulsing up from the street below, and the pounding of blood in my ears. Then finally, Alessandro’s voice: “Eric.”
It’s barely a word, more air than sound coming from his mouth, but from the despair in it, I know he’s guessed at the truth of what I had to do to earn those pills.
Dread slithers through my insides and wraps around my sinking heart like a python, threatening to squeeze the life out of it. “I didn’t know what else to do. I was so ashamed. When I didn’t die, it was easier to let everyone think the overdose was accidental. By that time they’d figured out I was pregnant.” I blow out a bitter laugh. “Hell, I was already starting to show, so there was no hiding it. At first, Mallory wanted me to get an abortion, but then . . . I don’t know . . . I guess I was already, like, four months or something, so . . .” I shrug, still hiding my face, feeling more vulnerable than I ever have in my life. I wait for the better part of the rest of my life for him to say something. When he doesn’t, I lift my face and look at him. “I’m sorry, Alessandro.”
Rage flickers in those charcoal eyes that have always been so soft and patient, and stiffens his body to stone, his fists clenched at his sides. “You didn’t trust me enough to tell me this?”
“No, that’s not it!” Panic chokes the words in my throat. “I swear, Alessandro, I was going to tell you, but then Mom died . . . and . . . I was trying to work out what to say.” I swallow the lump in my throat, my face scrunching with doubt. What if he doesn’t believe me? “I was going to tell you tonight.”
His expression softens, and I’m so relieved he believes me that warmth floods my frozen heart . . . until I realize what I see in his eyes isn’t understanding. It’s his endless guilt resurfacing.
For the last two weeks, when I’ve looked into those beautiful gray eyes, they’ve be clear; all the anguish over the wrongs he’s believed he did me, finally gone. But I threw it back in his face just now, blaming him for leaving me when he promised he’d stay, and he’s all too willing to shoulder all that guilt again. Only, now it’s compounded by the knowledge of what he left me to. “Tell me what happened . . . with Eric.”
My lungs stall for a breath, and my head’s shaking an adamant no before I realize I’m doing it. I swallow the acid rising in my throat. “I can’t.”
As I watch, his expression makes the subtle shift from guilt to pity, and it pushes me over the edge. I’m not going to be anyone’s pity project.
I stand from the couch. “Don’t look at me like that.”
Despite my warning, his expression doesn’t change as he steps away from the door and folds me into his arms. I wanted this. Just a minute ago, I was wishing for him to hold me and tell me everything was okay. But his embrace feels different. Careful. “Let’s finish this conversation tomorrow,” he says, kissing my forehead.
And that’s when I know my nightmares of him running weren’t the worst thing that could happen.
If he stays out of pity, that would be much, much worse.
My head spins as he tows me down the hall to my room, and my heart pounds hard into my ribs. He closes the door, and the second he turns, I plaster him to the back of it and crush my mouth to his. I put everything I have into the kiss, because I need him to feel it in his bones. I need him remember us. I need him to stop looking at me like I’m some broken, pathetic thing that needs to be fixed.
I peel his clothes off as we kiss, and when he doesn’t do the same to me, I start on my own.
A minute later, we’re on the bed, doing what we’ve done dozens of times over the last few weeks. But it’s not the same. His hands aren’t sure and his kiss isn’t hungry. The whole thing feels cold and detached; more like what sex with anyone other than him has always been.
I move underneath him, willing him to feel me in his soul. Praying to see the fire ignite inside him again.
But it’s not there. Instead of the passion I want to see in those deep gray eyes, all I see is pity. He’ll never be able to get past it. Whatever trust we’ve built is gone.
I push him off and stare at the cracks in the ceiling, fighting the tears that are threatening to break through the dam. The bedsprings whine, and I turn my head to find him sitting on the edge, dressing.
“You’re leaving?”
He spares me a quick glance over his shoulder. “I’ve got an early morning at the youth center.”
I prop myself on an elbow and hold the sheets against my chest, my heart slamming into my hand. “You’re never going to forgive me, are you?”
He scoops his shirt off the floor, shrugging it on and starting on the buttons. “There’s nothing to forgive.”
I drop back into the pillows. “If you say so.”
“Do you have everything you need?” he asks without turning around.
“What do you mean?”
He glances at me as he stands and steps into his boots near the door, kneeling to tie them. “I could help with the rent, or . . . anything you need for Henri.”