“Don’t forget to breathe, do you hear me?” he said, eyes fierce on mine.
“I didn’t even realize that I had. I must be like a newborn baby. They forget to do that sometimes—breathe.”
His face went to ash, and he stilled. He felt like a rock, a boulder, a mountain, with the occasional surge of his blood rushing through the crevices. Finally, he nodded and then rose, keeping our hands together. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again.
“Brando.” I held his eye, though I knew my stare wavered. Sleep started to sing a lullaby to me. “Say it, whatever itis.”
“I need to kiss you.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t expecting that. “Do you need permission now?”
“No,” he said, moving in closer, bringing his lips softly, oh so softly, to mine. His lips could’ve been wings fluttering across my own. The kiss was tender, loaded with everything he couldn’t say, and tears came to my eyes, running down my cheeks. A sound between a sob and a newly found breath came from his chest, as thoughhehadn’t been breathing. The tears came so hard, I shook with it, and so did he, though he hadn’t shed a tear. It was almost as if what he felt was worse. He couldn’t find the release.
“My baby,” he barely whispered, removing his lips from mine but not going far.
“You’ve never—” I hiccupped “—kissed me that way before.”
“I had to wait fucking centuries for it.” He collapsed in the chair, head to my arm, setting my hand against his heart. “It feels so damn good to feel my heart beating again.”
“Brando?” I sniffed.
“Yeah, baby.” His voice was so damn broken.
“You’re full of blood—”so much of it. He looked like a man out of a horror movie. “Why don’t you wash off, and then—” a shuddering breath trembled from my lips “—then you can tell me what happened.”
* * *
I stared beyond the room, through the glass along the wall, the privacy curtain retracted, at the flitting reflections of nurses scuttling toward patients, but I wasn’t really seeing them.
My soul delighted in the feel of the connection, but my body was full of pain. I was aware of every muscle and every bone just from the amount of ache.
My mind was in turmoil too. The damn sound refused to leave my thoughts, like nails on a chalkboard. It seemed to reverberate then, that awfulpop!before my world went black. I’d never forget it, along with the moments before, as though someone had set fire to my womb and then clawed at it from the inside with sharp talons. My lower stomach cramped involuntarily with the thought.
Brando had stepped out to wash and change his clothes. I wished that he would come back. Or better yet, that I could go with him and brush my teeth. I desperately felt the need to scrub the unclean feeling.
Seeing as I could barely lift my arm, I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
My parents had been in to see me, but after a bit, I feigned falling asleep so that they would leave. I couldn’t stand the looks on their faces. It brought back terrible memories of the night Elliott had died. In fact, I could hardly stand the look on Brando’s face. It made me feel an overwhelming fear and guilt.
My parents stood outside of my room talking to Uncle Tito, until a doctor pulled him away and they turned to go.
A moment or two later, a nurse came in, checking the monitors behind my head. She was new, not the same one who had been in earlier. “Fausti?” She cocked a thick, dark brow at me. “Such a tizzy over someone so small.”
At the comment, I truly looked at her. Young, long blonde hair, brown eyes, nothing unique about her, but striking enough as a whole to make her more than pretty. Her remark made me wonder if she was being cruel or attempting to break the ice. Charlotte was the master at this, double-handed comments, so I caught on quick to the tone.
“I’m sorry to have caused so much trouble.” What else could I say to that? To feel her out more, I asked, “You know the Fausti family?”
“Sì,” she said, flitting about. “I was engaged to Rocco. I have never seen him in a tizzy like the one he was in.”
I watched her for a minute, absorbing this revelation. “I had no idea,” was what I finally came up with. “He never mentioned it to me.”
“No,” she said, looking at the monitors again. “Are you in pain?”
I was, but something about her made me feel guarded. I didn’t know the entire story, but I got the sense that if Rocco was the one to break off the engagement, more power to him. She didn’t seem like the kind of woman you’d want to fall asleep on, or meet in a dark alley, if she felt scorned. “I’m fine.”
She waved a hand. “Tito Sala was the cause of our breakup.”
“Uncle Tito?”
