“How could you do this?” I say. “Only a monster leaves her infant.”
I see the hurt flash through her eyes, like a gunshot. But I don’t care. She’s a stranger to me now, someone I do not know. The woman I thought I had recovered is gone.
Carol just stands there, stunned, as I leave. I close the door behind me, and then I’m running. Down flights of stairs. I feel something bite at my heel, a rock, the trickle of blood. I let it run.
I fall and right myself. My knee bleeds. Somewhere, behind, someone calls.Signora! Signora!I keep running.
And then the sky opens up and it begins to rain. Not a light mist, but a heavy downpour. Buckets and buckets of water. I keep moving.
I get back to the hotel and dart inside. I want to be somewhere she cannot find me. I want to be where I do not have to face this treacherous, impossible reality that has, in a single instant, proven the entirety of my life to be a lie. I cannot contend with what is now true: that my mother lied to me, that she left me. That she danced and drank and laughed and that all the while, her baby was a continent away. That this woman who was supposed to be my friend lied about the biggest thing in her life. That I do not know either one of them.
I’m soaking wet, my top—her top—and shorts cling to my body like Saran Wrap.
Carlo is at the desk, but I ignore him and head up the stairs. The elevator is on a different level, and I continue to climb—out of breath, dripping. I bolt down the hallway and am almost to my room when I feel an arm reach for me and then there Adam is, right next to me.
He considers my panting, soaking form. “Are you all right? You didn’t answer when I called your room. I thought maybe you wanted to have dinner and…”
But he doesn’t finish his sentence, because in an instant, my lips are on his, and I’m kissing him.
I feel his initial confusion, and then he locks in on me. His lips pull mine and his hands wrap around my waist. He kisses me with an intensity that is foreign to me, different, new. I feel lost in the landscape of this moment. I do not want to find my way home.
He pulls back gently, keeping his hands firmly on my sides.
“Hey,” he says. “Hey, are you sure you’re okay?” His eyes search mine.
“No,” I say. I’m out of breath—from the run, the rain, his kisses. I take my key out and open the door. “I want you to come inside.”
He nods. “Okay.”
Inside I hear the rain battering the patio. The doors are drawn, but the curtains are open. Behind me, the door closes.
“Come here,” Adam says, but it’s not a question; it’s a directive. I do.
I go to him and wrap my arms around his neck. I thread my hands through his hair, tug down on his soft curls. Hedrinks in my bottom lip, pressing my body closer and closer to his.
“Take these off,” I tell him, pulling at Carol’s button-down. I want them gone. I want to be out of these things that are hers.
“Don’t move,” he says. He kisses my neck, and my head falls back into his cupped palm. He starts unbuttoning my shirt—slowly, torturously. With each loop that comes undone, he bends and kisses the skin beneath it until the shirt is off, crumpled to the floor.
Then he crouches down at my feet, undoes the drawstring of the shorts, and lets them fall. He kisses the skin inside my left thigh. My eyes close.
“You are so fucking sexy,” he says. “Open your eyes.”
I do. “Say that again.”
Adam stands. He moves his mouth to my neck and whispers in my ear, “You are. So. Fucking. Sexy.”
I reach up and pull his lips down to mine. Our tongues battle.
“What do you want?” he says into my mouth.
“More,” I say.
Adam puts his hands on my arms. And then he removes them, places them down by my side, presses his thumb into the dip of my hip bone. I exhale out. I grab for his fingers but he leans back, bringing his hands up to my chest and stroking them back and forth below my collarbone.
I take his hand and place it flat down against my stomach. I can feel my heartbeat everywhere.
His hand is warm on my cold skin. I inhale. He doesn’t move, not a muscle. And then he replaces his hand with his lips. He kisses down my stomach and then loops an arm under my low back and lifts me onto the bed.
