I lifted the lids from the takeout containers, the smell of garlic and tomato already bringing back memories from when we were kids.
She poured two glasses of lemonade, then placed the pitcher down on the counter. She slid onto the stool beside me, her eyes scanning the food with a flicker of recognition.
Her smile widened. “Is this what I think it is?”
“It is,” I said, my voice quieter now. “The first meal I brought you at the library. You remember?”
She turned to me, and at that moment, the years apart disappeared. It was like we had never separated. It was like I hadn’t fucked things up between us.
Her smile deepened, touched with something tender. “Of course, I do. Rigatoni alla vodka, garlic knots, and tiramisu from Little Palermo. You even remembered the extra napkins.”
I shrugged, but my chest ached with the weight of a time when things were so much simpler for us. “Some things you just never forget.”
Her eyes softened, like she had reached back to a time when things were still good, too. Before I let my loyalty to a friend and the weight of my father’s expectations come between us. Before I made choices that drove her straight into the arms of a fucking monster.
I saw it all in her face, and the guilt clawed at me. I hadn’t just lost her. If I had, that would be easier to deal with. But I handed her over to pain. I handed her over to a life that no one should have to endure, especially someone you loved. And I would never stop regretting it.
We ate in silence. It wasn’t tense. It just felt normal. And I think we both needed normal right now. We had a lot to discuss, but being here with her was enough right now.
She hummed as she finished her pasta and moved to the tiramisu. “It’s good, isn’t it?”
I placed my fork down, then wiped my mouth with a napkin.
“Always,” she said. “It brings back memories.”
“It does,” I said, not taking my eyes off her. “I want to apologize.”
“Sergio…”
“Seraphina, please.” I blew out a breath. “I need to do this.”
For a few seconds, she just stared at me, before she nodded.
“I fucked up a lot with you. I love you, and I need for you to hear me out.” I swallowed. “I put everyone ahead of you. I believed everything Kai told me because I believed he was my brother and had my best interests at heart. My father pulled my strings like I was a puppet, made demands, and I let him because it would position me to have the power I craved. I didn’t think of you because I was a selfish prick.”
Her eyes stayed on me, but she didn’t speak.
“I kept choosing everything and everybody but you,” I said, voice low. “Choosing ambition. Choosing obligation. And every time I did, I chipped away at you. At us. I saw it happening, and I still didn’t stop because I didn’t believe that I would ever lose you.”
“You didn’t even see the damage you did to me, Sergio,” she said. “Not once.”
“I was afraid,” I admitted, which was something I’d never done before. “Afraid that if I stopped and really looked at what we had, I’d see what I’d done. But I did the day you were shot. Thatday I knew I’d lose you to death or because you’d see me for the person I really was. I deserved you walking away.”
She blinked, and I saw the sheen in her eyes. “You did.”
“I know. And I hate I made you feel like you were second in my life. You were never second, Seraphina. I just didn’t know how to fight for you and everything else at the same time. But I should’ve learned. I should’ve tried to figure that shit out. I’m so sorry, baby.”
She swiped at the tears streaking her cheeks.
I laughed, but it came out broken. “You know what’s fucked up? I thought I was protecting you. I thought if I kept you away from the chaos of the Puglisi shitshow, I was doing you a favor.”
She didn’t interrupt, but her eyes softened, like maybe she understood the choices that I had made.
“I told myself I was being a decent fucking boyfriend. That I was shielding you from the worst parts of me, of my life. But the truth is…” My voice cracked. “The truth is, I was scared. Scared you’d see the real me. How much I let other people control me. How much I needed my father’s approval.”
I dropped my head into my hands, breath hitching. “I let my father mold me into something cold. I let Kai influence decisions because he had always been there for me. I let the business swallow me whole.”
Silence stretched between us, but now she saw the real me. My real thoughts. The person I kept secret, hidden from her and the outside world. Seraphina was my everything, and I lost her because of my stupid decisions.
