The smell of smoke made my eyes drift open.
In my dream, it smelled like flesh after it’s been seared, and I thought that maybe I was in hell. After I woke up, though, I realized it smelled more pleasant, like a bonfire on a crisp fall night, and I remembered where I was.
Quentin and Abe had brought me to a house somewhere in New York. I wasn’t positive where, but I thought I heard Abe say something about the Bronx. It was late when we arrived and hard to see, but from what I could tell, we were in a residential neighborhood, and the house was on a street with a row of semidetached duplexes.
The one we were in was red brick and the same—semidetached. It was a modest place, from what I could tell, but had been recently redone. It smelled like cut lemons and fresh laundry, and it felt homey, especially when Bambina had been waiting at the door for me.
Sharon had showed me to the room I was still in. We hadn’t said a word to each other. She’d pointed the way, and I’d nodded when she opened the door. After that, I shut it, and collapsed in the bed with Bambina next to me.
Then I’d cried my eyes out until I fell asleep. It almost felt like I’d cried my entire heart out.
Cilla had told me that the heroines who never cried in books were considered strong, especially when they found themselves in the world that I was in.
If that was the case, I was a weak heroine in my own story.
How could I not cry for her? Besides Aniello and Bambina, she was my only friend. And she was a good one. A good kid. She hadn’t deserved to die. All she wanted was a normal life. To be able to choose who she married and the direction of her life.
She’d died for the chance to have something different.
I often wondered if she really loved Joey, or was it the idea of freedom that she was really in love with? Because she never spoke of him in general often. She mostly went on about freedom and what it meant to her.
“I should have asked more questions,” I whispered to Bambina. “I should have done more.”
Curling up in a ball like I’d done the night before, I started to cry again. I didn’t want anyone to hear, so I stuck my face in a pillow. The last thing I wanted was for Quentin or Abe to come in with those looks of pity or, worse, ask Sharon to check on me. I wanted to be alone.
No.
I needed Aniello. I truly understood what he’d meant in those moments when he went beyond want and said “needed.”
The thought of him made me cry even harder.
Not only was I grieving the loss of my best friend, but the loss of…everything in my life I couldn’t remember. Even though I’d come to terms with letting go, something in the pit of my heart still nagged at me.
I had Aniello. I had my dog.
Something crucial in the gap was missing, though, and after I lost Cilla, that loss seemed to trigger something else inside of me.
A feeling of panic so great that it was almost unbearable.
It was almost as if I was reaching out in the darkness for something I knew was there, something vital, and right before I could grasp it, it disappeared on me again.
What had happened in the months I couldn’t remember that had altered my life so much? All the times I’d spent with Aniello that were gone had taken root in my soul, but my mind was playing the devil.
“You are killing me.”
The voice came out of the darkness in Italian. It was quiet and gruff. The emotion behind it slammed into my heart the same way it did when he’d said, “If you die, I die.”
Sitting up in bed, I wiped my eyes, but it was no use. The tears kept falling. Aniello sat in a chair in the corner. The night was turning thin, light starting to drive it out, and I wasn’t sure if he was coming to life with it or fading out with the darkness.
“Bleeding me dry,” he continued in Italian. “The tears you cry are my blood.” He was still in his tux from the night before, sans jacket, his sleeves rolled up, and he showed me his arm, where I could see the veins in his forearm.
I took a deep breath, lifting my shoulders, and they fell with the air that rushed out of my mouth. “I can’t seem to stop. Maybe I’m not strong enough for…” I didn’t even know what I was saying. What was I not strong enough for? To stop the tears once they started?
“Tears are not a sign of weakness,” he said in Italian. “They’re a sign of strength. It’s harder to stop them than to not shed them at all. You don’t have to worry. I will stop them. I will stop the bleeding.” He put his hand over his wrist, like he was applying a tourniquet.
“My heart hurts so bad, Niello.” I set my hands over my chest, as if that could stop the pain from ejecting my heart from my body.
When I raised my eyes, though, I could see that his face had transformed. If it was hardened by the oncoming light, the name I’d called him had softened him as much as flickering candles in a darkened room would.
