He looks at me and removes his mask. “This is the part where the driver drives away from the scene of crime,” he says as if speaking to a dimwit.
I roll my eyes. “I’m not going anywhere until I see what she wrote.”
“Drive, Alessio. This isn’t healthy for you. You need to sleep. The job is done. We don’t linger at the scene until the neighbors get suspicious and call the cops. I don’t need an arrest for breaking and entering when they can’t get me for other things.”
“I’m not moving,”
He reaches into his pocket and hands me a pair of green cotton panties. “Here’s a souvenir. Drive.”
“You went through drawers?”
“No, I took the first thing I found. Could’ve been a sock for all I cared.”
“I’m going to kill you.”
“Why is that, hm? Why are we obsessing over this woman when nine out of ten women in the world would kill their own sister if that meant they could have you? And why in the world do you stalk her instead of approaching her? I mean, do you love this woman? Is that it?”
I pull away from her house.
“Go up to her and tell her how you feel and ask her to marry you,” Miro continues, because now he’s like a cat after catnip. “For fuck’s sake, I can’t believe I’m having to tell you to approach her. You’re the most assertive person I know. Just tell her.”
A while later, I park in my garage and close the door behind the car.
Miro starts to get out of the car, but I grab his forearm. “I told her.” When he turns toward me, I elaborate. “I told her how I feel, and I asked her to marry me. It happened the morning you found her in the room on the fifth floor.”
Miro blinks. “What did she say?”
“She refused.”
He winces.
“Leo was there. He accused me of chasing her away, and he mentioned his mother as if I chased her away too. And he’s right. I did chase my sister away. I also chased away Lake, even though I promised him I wouldn’t. I was sure she’d say yes because she told me she loved me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks, friend.”
He scrubs his face. “Fuck.”
“Yeah. I can’t go back without her. Leo won’t forgive me.”
Miro chuckles. “You’re telling me you’re doing all this to hire her back as a governess?”
I laugh. “It’s what I tell myself because I can’t handle the truth.”
Miro shakes his head, then sighs and side-eyes me. “She wrote you a letter.”
I sit up in the car. “How do you know?”
“Because I just returned from creeping around her bedroom, where I spotted a letter with your name on it on her desk.”
I lean in to hear more, but Miro leans back, then opens the car door.
I grab his arm again. “Why are you just telling me this now?”
“If I told you before, you wouldn’t have told me how you felt or what happened between you two.” He escapes my grip and slams the door.
I get out of the car. “And?”
