I started again in Naz’s bathroom.
Even though his bedroom was so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, I closed my eyes tight, trying not to see or hear what happened after Sonny had knocked my life from underneath me. But the memory found the crack inside of my heart and slipped through it.
“IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT! YOU MADE HER LEAVE!” I’d started crying and stomping my feet as Sonny planted his ass in his old chair. I did this for hours, until the only thing I remembered was having to stop because I’d felt so drained, and Molly’s arms as she carried me to the room I shared with Lucila.
Molly’s arms were strong, but they never fit. Not like they should have. It shouldn’t have been her carrying me. It should have been Sonny or my mom.
Both were gone, just in different ways. Sonny had checked out everywhere but physically, and my mom…she was totally gone, except for the memories she left behind.
I still didn’t know if she was dead or alive.
In this moment, though, it should have been Naz’s arms reaching out to me, holding me close to keep the cracks from ripping me apart.
I wasn’t the enemy, no matter what his family labeled me as. Over the years, I’d defended them to people who hated what they stood for.
Instead of stealing my heart, in the Fausti way, he should have been protecting it.
No matter how tightly I closed my eyes. No matter how hard I curled into myself.
Nothing was making this better.
I’d come a long way from that girl, but she still existed inside of me, now with woman-sized hurts and lingering issues.
The thoughts I’d had at the trattoria in Orvieto—of Naz no longer being a part of my life—were haunting me. I’d spent my entire life in the center of life, or close to the bottom, to protect myself from this.
I told myself if I wasn’t too happy, if I wasn’t claiming this or that as mine, and I kept my focus straight ahead and my head down, I’d be protected from what had happened to me before.
The crash.
The center, or close to the bottom, wasn’t that far of a fall. It couldn’t almost kill me like the loss had done before—that was too high of a height.
I was wrong.
No matter where I was, how far up or down, a fall was a fall, and it all depended on how I stuck the landing.
I sat up and sighed. His jacket was still over my body, and the arms were so long I had to roll them up to find my hands.
Even his jacket swallowed me up whole.
A fragile bird in the mouth of a mighty lion.
I felt too jittery to stay in the bed. In the darkness, my thoughts kept flashing like neon signs, and I couldn’t dim them. I wrapped my arms around myself and padded through the empty penthouse. The weather was turning colder, and I could feel it clinging to the marble floors.
Naz was right about this place. Even though it was spacious, it wasn’t like the villa on the outskirts of Orvieto. One person could exist here without the ghost of loneliness following him or her around. It seemed like a place where the frequency and lengths of stays didn’t matter to the walls.
I didn’t have a room in mind, so I just drifted around. I found myself on the top floor where it seemed the roof was made of glass. It seemed like ferns grew wild from the slats, and so did some kind of purple flower, but I knew it was more than that. I just couldn’t figure out the logistics of it.
The windows were arched, and the floor was made of either stone or tiles that were supposed to resemble stone. More greenery bordered the square pool glowing blue in the darkness. On each side stood two statues of naked women with birds on their shoulders. A few green chairs and loungers were placed around the space to relax on.
The room was humid and had no chlorine smell, so I thought maybe saltwater. The water looked so peaceful, almost like a blue lagoon.
I removed Naz’s jacket and my underwear and left them on a lounger. I stuck my toes in first to gauge the temperature. It was warm. Once the water was up to my belly, I slid under, gliding like a…
Jellyfish.
No heart.
So jelly of them.
