“I’m going to talk to him.”
The answer comes out steady, but there’s something strained beneath it. Not fear, exactly. More like the knowledge that he’s walking toward a fight he can’t control and hates that I know it.
“My father doesn’t like surprises,” he continues. “And this is going to count as a pretty big one.”
I let that sit there for a second.
“So you’ll talk to him,” I say. “And then what?”
Luca lifts his eyes to mine. “And then I make him understand this isn’t me fucking up again. This isn’t me being a coward or losing my nerve.”
A knot cinches tight between my ribs. I stay silent and wait for him to finish.
“I need him to understand this is real. What happened between us. What I feel for you.” His voice roughens slightly on the last word, but he doesn’t look away. “And I need him to understand killing you doesn’t fix a fucking thing.”
The words catch somewhere under my ribs.
What I feel for you.
Simple. Not dressed up into anything prettier than it is. And because apparently my heart is determined to humiliate me until the day I die, it softens anyway. Just for a second. My body does too, traitorous thing that it is, every nerve suddenly aware of the man on the other end of the couch and the empty cushion between us.
I try to push it down. “And you think that’ll work?”
He takes a breath. “I think it might.”
Might.
At least he’s honest. Now, anyway.
“My father loves me,” he says, and something about the way he says it makes it clear that’s not a boast so much as a factor in an equation he wishes were simpler. “He’ll be furious for a lot of reasons, but he’s not irrational. He’s going to want to know what the hell I think I’m doing. He’s going to want something better than this mess.” He exhales. “I know he is. But first I need to stop this from going any further, before somebody does something we can’t take back.”
My head comes up at that. “Somethingyoucan’t take back.”
His stare holds mine. “You know what I mean.”
Of course I do.
I look away first.
Because this is the part where a normal person would probably feel reassured. He has a plan. Sort of. A father who listens to him—sometimes. A family that, for all its violence, apparently still leaves room for persuasion.
I should find that comforting.
Instead a tired, bitter heat crawls through my whole body.
“That’s nice,” I say quietly.
Luca goes still. “Nat.”
“No, really.” I stand and carry the blanket with me, needing movement all of a sudden, needing the distance. “That must be nice. To believe this can be fixed by one conversation with yourfather. To believe if he understands your feelings, if he sees the human side of it, maybe he changes course.”
Luca’s voice sharpens. “That’s not what I said.”
“It’s close enough.” I clutch the blanket tighter around myself. “The point is you still get to imagine being heard. You get to imagine telling your father what you want and having that matter.”
He doesn’t have a response to that, and I laugh once, soft and bitter.
“My father doesn’t care what I want, Luca. He never has.
