God, they’re so fucking warm.
“I meant I was sorry we couldn’t use those rituals to get you answers about your brother.”
“Oh…yeah.”
It’s a painful thought, one I haven’t allowed myself to process yet. But it’s there, looming in the back of my mind, this ache I’ve learned to live with, even if not coping too well. But as Matteo brings it up, it burns like fire in my chest.
He opens his mouth as if to say something, but his jaw hangs there for a moment as he studies my expression. He sits up, resting his back against the headboard. He looks lost in thought—maybe he’s still getting through that mindfuck from last night and I should leave him alone.
I look back at the pages of my book when he says, “Remember when I told you I didn’t know who my biological parents were?”
Again, he’s thrown me. I set my textbook aside and sit up with him. “Of course.”
His bangs are still damp from his shower, resting against his forehead as he stares straight ahead, this faraway look in his eyes. “I kept pressing my parents, but they wouldn’t tell me because of a contract they signed. My senior year in high school, they went away for a week for their anniversary, and I decided to play amateur sleuth and raid Mom’s office. Found some documents, which included my biological mother’s name and one of her old addresses. Used that information to track her down. I thought about reaching out on social media, which probably would have been the smarter move, but I had it in my head it’d be like a movie, and she’d be so thrilled to see me and know that her son was doing okay.”
The way he’s worded it, I already know that’s not how this story will resolve.
“I told myself a thousand times I’d be fine with whatever the reason was. That I could handle it. But really, I couldn’t stop myself from having the fantasy that she’d see me and know me right away. That I was her son. And she’d burst into tears and tell me some sob story about how she had no choice and it was the biggest regret of her life.” He’s quiet for a few moments before his gaze meets mine. “I’m trying to make up excuses to stop there. Not tell you more.”
“You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to.”
“But I want you to know.” His voice is so gentle. “I found her. She lived just twenty miles away from us, so one afternoon, I went to her house. Knocked on the door. When she answered it, she froze in the doorway. And the way she looked at me…” He pulls his gaze away. “I’ll never be able to get that out of my mind. It was like she’d just seen something horrifying, like she was watching someone being murdered.”
How could a mother look at her own child that way? How could someone look at Matteo and see something other than this gentle, kind man?
“She just started saying, ‘That face. You have his face.’ And she fell to her knees, trembling and crying. Then she’d look over to me again and just scream some more. I tried to get her to talk to me, but she was so upset, and my staying only distressed her more. Neighbors were starting to come over to see what all the fuss was. She went back inside and locked the door, wouldn’t speak to me. I didn’t leave. I figured she needed some time, but someone called the police. When they came, the cops managed to calm her down. I hoped they might convince her to speak to me, but one of them told me that my father had attacked her when she was younger. Raped her in a brutal attack.”
His eyes water as he clearly struggles to force the words out, as though he knows if he doesn’t say them, he never will. And I know the feeling.
“That’s how I was conceived. Evidently, she was too traumatized to go to the cops. She didn’t want to have an abortion, but she also knew she didn’t want to keep me, so that’s why she worked out the deal with my parents. She left out the real story about my dad, who wound up in prison, not for her rape, but for several others.”
His eyes are watering so much, I’m surprised a tear hasn’t fallen yet. “And I’ve seen his picture. I do have his face.” A lone tear breaks through, trailing down his cheek. “The face of a monster.” His voice quakes, and he seems so vulnerablein this moment, like if I touch him, he might break.
Who could ever imagine that’s what Matteo thinks when he looks at his beautiful face?
“Knowing that doesn’t change what I see when I look at you,” I assure him.
Another tear falls.
He’s not looking at me, like he won’t…like he can’t.
I wish he would so that he could see the way I’m looking at him. Maybe to remind him that not everyone sees what she saw in him.
“Now you’re probably wondering why the hell I shared that,” he says.
Given how horrible it was, I hardly remember why it even came up. Not that it matters. Fuck, if he just wanted to get it off his chest, I’m here for that.
“Because I was desperate to know the truth,” he says. “And the truth was a nightmare.” His gaze locks with mine. “But I’d rather know the painful truth than go on with my life never knowing.”
In a moment, I realize why he went through the hell of reliving that. Because he knows how hard this is for me, and he didn’t want me to face on my own whatever the truth may be about my brother.
He turns away, pushes his damp bangs up, but after what he told me, I can’t help feeling it’s an excuse to conceal his face. Some deep part of him thinks he’s just an image of the monster who attacked his biological mother. At the same time, he’s got my heart breaking, and I feel this connection to him, for understanding why I was so fucking desperate. God,life fucking hurts. It aches to the bone.
And knowing how it feels for me, I can’t even imagine the pain he’s in. All I want is to make it go away, to set him at ease. I take his hand gently, lowering it to reveal his face. “Matteo, look at me. Please.”
“I can’t. Maybe I should just head to the library.”
“Matteo.”
