Nico tilts his head, the barest degree. “Eat today,” he says. It’s not an order. It’s an observation. “Something with salt.”
Why do people keep telling me to eat? Does it look like I don’t?
I stare at him until he looks away first. He doesn’t.
Fine. I look back at Antonio.
“No surprises,” I say.
Antonio’s smile widens again. “Long as there aren’t any on your end.”
“Please, like I can afford any more,” I mumble as I turn to walk to my car.
When I get there, I turn back to find them gone. They never made a show of leaving. Not a sound. They just… stopped being there.
I shiver in the heat of the day. It’s kind of creepy.
And they’re the nice ones.
I stand there a beat longer, the card heavy in my palm. Squaring my shoulders, I slide it into my pocket and open the door.
Chapter Nineteen
Luca
The road into the cemetery is all cracked asphalt and low stone walls, the kind of place that’s forgotten except on holidays and birthdays. Cypress trees throw long shadows across both plots that have been lovingly tended, and some that nobody has touched in years.
The gate’s hinge complains when I push it open, the same way it always has, and for a second, I’m just a teenager with a corsage in my hand waiting at Carlotta’s door to take her to Homecoming.
I don’t bring flowers. It’s the first time I’ve been able to bring myself here since getting out, and I don’t want to look like I’m sucking up.
She’ll know it. She’s always seen right through me.
The gravel gives under my shoes and pops like old knuckles. Names tilt on either side of the path—some crowded with plastic bouquets, some clean as a recently cleared table.
The air smells like cut grass and wet stone. A bee noses a cracked vase and decides against it. I count the rows until I reach the right one.
There she is. Simple white marble, a little cross I never would’ve chosen if her sister hadn’t insisted. The dates hit me like a sucker punch—numbers that shouldn’t sit that close together.
Someone’s been here; the dust lying on the top is fresh and light. For a second, all I can see is our bedroom instead of a cemetery—one hip propped against the dresser, laughing at me while she sees straight through whatever story I’m trying to sell.
I stop short. My chest tightens the way it does when a fight’s over and you realize how much you were holding your breath. The stone is smaller than I imagined, but somehow, it’s just right. She wouldn’t have wanted something big and gaudy.
I clear my throat, and the sound feels too loud in the silence.
“Ciao, amore,” I say, and my voice carries over the sleeping dead. I set my palm on the top of the stone, letting the cool seep into my heated skin. “Mi dispiace.”
I let the apology float in the air for a moment before continuing.
“I should’ve come sooner.” Wind moves through the trees nearby, rustling the leaves. “I know that sounds like an excuse, but… I couldn’t. Even after all these years, it never felt real, but standing here makes it so.”
My hand tightens into a fist on top of the stone.
“If I didn’t come, maybe I could keep lying to myself. Keep you in the house, next to me in bed, in my arms. Keep you anywhere but here.”
A breath shudders out of me. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t beside you at the end. I’m sorry I left you to carry a burden that should’ve been mine. I’m sorry I forced you to be strong every damned day.”
I look at the dates again because I can’t help it and because I hate them. “I wasn’t ready to see your name carved in stone. I’m still not. But I’m here. Finally, I’m here.”
