“No wonder you’re afraid,” I say.
He makes a funny noise in his throat. “I’m not afraid of the darkness. I’m afraid ofyou.”
“Me?” I scrunch up my nose.
“Yeah. Terrified.”
“Why?”
“No specific reason. Just am.”
“You have to have a reason.”
“No I don’t.”
“Yes you do.”
“You talk too much, Ballerina Girl. Leave me alone.”
I turn from him, sighing, and the window fogs up. I draw a heart in the middle. When I turn back, he’s staring at me.
He told me I talk too much, but I have something else to say. He seems to sense this.
He grins at me again. “Go ahead.”
I shake my head, all of a sudden not wanting to talk. But I lift my foot, letting the shoe sparkle between us. Then the pressure becomes too much, and I can’t hold it in anymore.
He almost laughs aloud as I release my held breath and blurt, “Don’t be afraid of me! My pointes can be the light in the darkness. See?” I move them so they catch the faint light, twinkling.
His bright white smile lights up the darkness.
Mati comes back then, bringing a surge of cold with her as she situates herself back in her seat. “Where is she?” she asks, staring at him through the mirror.
He shrugs. “Don’t know.”
Mati sighs and then she speaks in Slovenian. She says something about paying the bill tomorrow. Then she tells him in English he’s coming home with us.
“What’s new?” he mutters. He sits straighter in his seat, eyes ahead, not looking at me again.
I really, really want him to, though.
* * *
Coming back to my senses, I felt like I’d been in the memory for the entire span of time it took to make, when in actuality, it had only been a minute or so.
How in the hell could I have forgotten that? How much more had I stored away and left to collect dust?
For whatever reason, memories of me and Brando when we were younger were slim. Even the night I’d “met” him at my parents’ studio, the night my brother was killed, I had to ask Eunice about him. I’d even dug through Elliott’s room to find a trace of the man who had my heart the moment he spoke to me in the darkness. He’d had it long before then, but I hadn’t realized it until that night.
My lack of memories probably had to do with my training schedule and the excessive traveling. And when I was old enoughtonotice him, he’d stopped coming around.
That night though—he’d been afraid of the darkness. He didn’t want to be in that house all alone. Did it happen in that house? Where he had to sleep? Where he had to be alone? With an effing ghost?
When I took Matteo from him, he gave me a curious look but didn’t comment.
Did he remember that time too? Did my words trigger his memory? I had said the same words again, but this time with an adult tongue—Let me be your light, not your darkness.Compared to—Don’t be afraid of me! My pointes can be the light in the darkness.
I set Matteo in the center of the bed, placing pillows around him. At two and a half months, he could roll, and he needed soft walls on either side of him. As strong as his father, all of his firsts were usually before the “expected” time.
