Whatever, I’ll get the door.
The person on the other side bangs on it again before I can reach it.Jeez, impatient.I can’t imagine Seth knocking like that.
“Damiano!”a female voice says on the other side.She continues in Italian, but I hear the word “emergenza.”Emergency?
Concerned, I hurriedly turn the handle and tug open the door.A woman faces me.She has black hair, the same length as mine, a couple inches past her shoulders.Her light brown eyes narrow from panic to suspicion as she looks me up and down.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”I ask, looking past her, down the hall.“Should I call nine-one-one?”
“Who are you?”Her tone is blunt, bordering on rude.
I thought there was an emergency, but she doesn’t sound scared at all.Hackles raised, I say, “I’m Madison, who are you?”
She sneers, staring at me like I’m a piece of shit on her shoe.“I’m Damiano’swife, puttana.”
I freeze, hand on the door.The woman pushes past me, into Damiano’s apartment.She was holding a bag, which she tosses on a little table near the door like she’s done the same thing a thousand times.
Like she belongs here.
“Damiano!”she yells, following his name with a tirade in Italian as she walks toward the kitchen.
Damiano meets her halfway, his gaze on me.“Madison, I?—”
I can’t believe I’m in this position.Is this why I don’t have other friends?Because I can’t read situations?All the red flags were there, waving, and I didn’t realize it until now.All of those phone calls and texts, the “work emergencies,” the abrupt departures.
How he fuckingleft me in Mirarosato get a ride home with Seth, who doesn’t even like me.
The woman—hiswife, puttana—continues shouting in Italian.Damiano holds up his hands, talking back to her.I don’t know what they’re saying.
I have to go.
“Madison.”Damiano’s voice is hushed.“Can you give me just a couple of minutes, I will explain?—”
His next words are cut off by a renewed tirade from the woman.Hiswife.Fuck.My eyes fill with tears, but I willnotcry, not for something like this.Not for a man like this.
“Just five minutes, please,” Damiano says.
“Take all the time you need.I’m done.”I grab my purse and coat from the hooks by the door and race across the hall to the elevator.
Damiano calls my name and says something to his wife in Italian.I can hear his footsteps, but he isn’t moving fast enough to catch up.I don’t think he cares to.And why should he?He’s been found out.The game is over.
We’reover.
The elevator takes me down.Once it reaches the ground floor, I hope it keeps going to the center of the earth.I would like to obliterate everything, every memory of the last fifteen minutes.My reflection in the elevator’s mirrored walls shows my face pale with shock, my eyes wet with unshed tears.
How fucking stupid could I be?
And Seth…Seth.He had to have known.Why didn’t he warn me?Was this all a game to him?
I feel sick.Oh god.I’m going to hurl.
The elevator stops, the doors open to the building’s lobby.I stumble out, leaning forward and clutching my stomach.
“Miss, are you okay?”an elderly gentleman asks.
“Fine.I’ll be fine, thanks.”I hurry to the lobby doors and step outside, into the cool night.
Deep breaths.
