I take another step, to have a better view, but some kids closed in a circle around him, blocking me, so I speed up my feet until I'm next to him. Carter kept hitting, but Billy didn't defend himself anymore, his head bounced for every hit Carter gave him, he looked...dead.
“Carter!” I call him in a desperate tone. He was going to get in trouble! “Stop, please! Stop!”
“Hey!” an adult voice shouts.
All the kids ran in different directions, not me, I was paralyzed watching Billy lie lifeless on the ground.
Professor Layton, grab Carter by his shoulders and dragged him away from Billy.
“Principal’s office! Both of you! NOW!” shouted the professor.
Carter was agitated and disoriented, he looked like a mad dog.
The professor took Billy in his arms and carried him away from us.
“Are you crazy?! They're going to expel you!” I shouted to Carter. He looked at me and smiled with blood in his teeth.
“Nobody messes with my cousin,” he said as he hits his chest with a fist, then spits out blood. “Nobody messes with a D'Amico.”
* * *
My head starts pounding, as I remember who the boy, now a man, in front of me is.
Carter.
My cousin.
It's like I never forgot him. My past hit me like a truck, of course, that's why his eyes pierced me, he was my best friend, my brother!
I wake up and I walk straight to him with a determined stride. I stop just a few inches away, watching him more closely. He has some old wounds, small wrinkles in his eyes and on his forehead, his hair is darker than I remembered, and his body is sturdy like Bruno's.
I hug him.
I can't help but break into tears because his smell takes me back to my childhood, to the feeling of security, to the confidence that my cousin passed on to me after that fight with Billy. Carter holds me tight.
“Fuck,” Carter's voice is breaking, “fuck, Dante.”
All the fluids on my face are sticking to my cousin's shoulder, but my shoulder it's wet too.
“I missed you, motherfucker.”
This is Carter, a tough guy on the outside, but on the inside he just needs affection. I remember why that is; his father, my uncle, was a violent man, I remember so clearly now.
When we finally let go, I look at the faces of the others with shame, but to my surprise, I find that they are all hiding tears and sniffing their noses.
Bruno is moved by this encounter. I walk towards him and embrace him too with the same intensity as Carter, because now I remember, now I feel the brotherhood between the three of us. Bruno hugs me back but hides his tears by burying his face in his arm; he cries from the bottom of his soul.
It’s raw, but real.
I understand why he cries so much; he sacrificed his life for me and I, undeserving of his affection, did not even recognize him, but now I do, now I have my brother with me, after so much loneliness and suffering.
“I remember,” I whisper.
He keeps drowning in his tears as he nods, understanding what I mean.
“You're a D'Amico again,” he says.
Yes, I feel myself again!
