Elio is the dining room. Coffee in hand, standing by the window, as morning light catches the side of his face, turning his profile into something that belongs in a gallery. He's dressed. Showered. The shirt is fresh, white, sleeves rolled to the forearm.
No blood.
Not a drop. Not under the nails, not on the cuffs, not in the fine lines of his knuckles.
No evidence of what I witnessed.
He turns when I walk in, and his expression shifts, his lips spreading into a soft smile. My fists clench behind my back, but I smile back.
"Morning," I say. My voice sounds exactly like it should. The right weight. The right temperature. The right amount of half-awake roughness from a woman who got up early and sat in a garden and saw nothing but lemon trees and light.
"You were up early." He says it over the rim of his cup. Watching me the way he always watches me, with that focused attention that used to make me feel like the most important thing in the room.
"Couldn't sleep." I pull out the chair across from him and take a seat, placing my hands on the cool marble, palms flat. "Went to the garden to get some fresh air."
He nods, his eyes not leaving me as he slides a plate of focaccia toward me.
I pick up a piece and put it in my mouth. It's a performance, and the focaccia is my prop. Everything on this table is a set piece in a play we're both performing, except only one of us knows there's a play happening.
"Your friend Matt left," he says, and my heart stops at the lie. His eyes stay on mine. Steady. Committed.
Mine begin to sting. I hoped he'd tell me the truth, explain what happened this morning. Make sense of what I saw. Give me a reason. But I guess I'm not someone who deserves reasons or the truth.
"Early this morning. He said something about his apartment in Connecticut getting flooded," he continues setting his cup down. "Asked me to give you a hug."
I blink back the tears threatening to spill. This man I trusted, this man I fell for, this man who stood in a courtyard this morning with a blade in his hand and rage eating through every layer of his face, is sitting across from me telling me lies. I watched as his hands moved in one clean, deliberate arc through Matt's throat. Now those same hands lift a slice of bread from a basket and set it on my plate.
"He just left?" I ask, watching him as he plays with the rim of his coffee cup.
"Mmmm."
I tear the bread he put on my plate. Tear it again. Put it back down.
"Why wouldn't he say goodbye to me?"
Elio puts his hand over mine, and it takes everything in me not to flinch.
"Maybe he wasn't who you thought he was, Violet," he says, each word carefully chosen. "It's better that he's gone. Leave it there."
Leave it there.
I nod, because what else can I do? Confront him? Ask him why he's lying to me? I almost do, but then I remember who he is and how I got here in the first place, and suddenly all the bravado leaves me.
I need to think. I need to be alone and deal with what I saw before I explode.
"I think I'm going to lie down," I say through a wobbly smile.
"Are you feeling alright,tesoro?"
Am I feeling alright? I want to chuck the plate of bread at his face, so I guess not really.
"Just sad my friend left without a goodbye," I murmur and get up, turning to leave the room.
"Trust me, it's better that way," he says as I leave the kitchen.
Trust me.
I thought I did. Now? All the trust is gone.
