She turns slowly, taking it in. The walls. The floor. The place where everything began before it shattered. I know we have both been back since that summer. Her numerous times, I’m sure, but right now it feels different. Like we are both finally ready to put the past to bed.
“You brought me here to say goodbye to the past,” she asks.
“Yes,” I answer. “Then we can start clean.”
I release her hand only long enough to reach into my coat and pull out the paper I’ve brought with me.
The paper is folded and thin. It’s been open and closed many times over the years. I don’t look at it. I’ve looked at it enough.
I hand it to her.
Her brow furrows as she unfolds it.
She reads it.
The color drains from her face as realization crashes through her. “No,” she whispers, and her hands start to shake. “I didn’t write this,” she says. “I never wrote this.”
Her chest rises sharply as she continues to stare at the tiny piece of paper that cost me everything.
“That isn’t my handwriting.” She looks up at me, eyes glossy, furious, devastated all at once. “This isn’t the letter I gave your mom.”
“You gave my mom a letter?”
“I did. Right after my parents told me I had to leave . . .” A tear falls down Victoria’s cheek. “Why—didn’t she give it to you?”
“I don’t know.”
And I don’t. I don’t understand why my mother would let me believe this lie . . . but then again, knowing her, she probably thought she was protecting me.
“I’m so sorry. Lorenzo, I would never say those things to you. You know that, right?”
Something inside me finally loosens. It’s not rage; it’s grief. Then relief, so sharp it almost drops me to my knees.
“I know,” I say quietly. “I know that . . .now.”
Tears spill down her face, and she presses a hand to her mouth.
“They told me I had to leave,” she chokes. “They told me I had no choice . . . They said—”
“What didtheysay?”
“They told me if I didn’t leave they would call the people your mother was running from, I left because I thought by leaving I was keeping you safe. They lied…” she whispers.
“Yes.”
The word feels heavy. Final.
She breaks then . . . really breaks.
Her sobs shake her whole body. Grief and fury pour out from her.
I step into her space and pull her against me without hesitation, her forehead pressing into my chest, her tears soaking my shirt.
“I waited,” she sobs. “I waited so long.”
“So did I,” I whisper into her hair. “I just didn’t know what I was waiting for.”
Her hands fist my shirt like she’s afraid letting go will undo us.
