She continued to stare at me as she waited for an answer.
“No.”
The disappointment was heavy in her gaze, and she curled her fingers underneath her chin. “Maybe you should—”
“That friendship is over.” I didn’t want her to mention him again. Didn’t want to talk about a friendship that couldn’t be resurrected. He was the closest thing I’d had to a brother after Edric died, but now he was dead to me too.
“Why?” she asked gently. “What happened?”
She deserved to know, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her. Didn’t have the strength to relive that conversation where he’d ripped my fucking heart out of my chest. “He said some things to me that ... can never be unsaid.”
A week passed, and Aurelia still wasn’t the same as she used to be. There was no way my sister could be causing her this much stress, and according to my mother, she was a great addition to the restaurant, so I knew she was welcome there. All I could assume was that the weight and trauma of what had happened had permanently scarred her.
And that trauma had happened because of me. Because I hadn’t been there to prevent it. Trapped on the third floor behind that fortress of a wall, she’d had no other choice but to sit there and wait for him to come for her.
This whole time, I’d assumed I was the only one who suffered, but I wasn’t.
When I came home from Francesco’s place, she was outside on the terrace with Medusa. She slouched on one of the couches and looked out at the sea. Medusa lay on her side on the tile at her feet. I could onlysee the side of Aurelia’s face from where I stood, but her eyes appeared wet, like she’d been crying.
Just when I thought I couldn’t despise myself even more ... I did.
A tear slipped from her lid and streaked down her cheek but stopped at her chin.
She absentmindedly reached for it, her eyes still on the sea, and she wiped it away with her fingertips before she crossed her arms over her chest. I saw her entire body rise when she took a deep breath, when she calmed herself and returned to her center.
Medusa lifted her head as if she sensed Aurelia’s sadness. She slowly got to her feet, putting some weight on her leg because it seemed to have improved enough for her to do so, and then she moved her chin to Aurelia’s lap.
Aurelia smiled and dug her fingers deep into Medusa’s fur. Her lips moved like she said something. Together, they looked at each other, comforting each other ... both survivors of my incompetence.
The next evening, we had dinner together on the terrace. It was the only meal we shared together. She went to work and skipped breakfast, and I hit the gym before I had an egg-white omelet alone in my study. Sometimes I went to the restaurant for lunch just to watch her wait on me, her tits incredible in the tight little shirt, but we didn’t actually eat together. Dinner was the only time we dined with each other.
I opened a bottle of wine and filled our glasses. I removed the silver lids Elio had placed over the food to keep it warm and revealed the grilled fish and prawns over a bed of mashed potatoes and wilted greens.
“So I guess I can expect fish every night for the rest of our lives,” she teased.
“I’ll tell Elio to change it up.”
“I’m kidding,” she said. “I mean, you can’t beat it, that’s for sure.” There were little moments like this when she was herself again, but theywere brief and fleeting. It was just yesterday when I saw her crying on the terrace. I pretended I hadn’t seen and didn’t question her about it, because she dismissed me every time I tried.
I’d brought us to Taormina in the hope we could find happiness in each other, but it seemed like what had happened had affected us too deeply. Maybe we’d never be able to recover. Maybe we were doomed to this sadness forever.
We ate quietly, neither of us having much to say. Our sex life hadn’t been that great either. She never seemed interested, and to be honest, knowing your woman was depressed because of you wasn’t the biggest turn-on. I already felt like a failure, and knowing she probably agreed with that sentiment made it so much worse.
“I wish you would confide in me.” I didn’t realize the words were on my tongue until they were out of my mouth. The urge couldn’t be suppressed, not when I drowned in this suffocating silence. It was hard to remember our lives before, even though it had been just a few weeks ago.
She stiffened when she not only heard my words but felt them. Her eyes were on her plate, but instead of taking a bite, she pushed a red prawn away from the mashed potatoes. There was no hesitancy or bewilderment, like she knew exactly what I referred to. But she didn’t say anything, just held her silence, like she actually considered coming clean.
But she didn’t. “You don’t confide in me either, Constantine.”
It felt like a slap in the face, but it was true. I hadn’t shared any of myself with her at all. Whenever she asked, I sidestepped the question or rejected her entirely. I barely said a few words at all.
I grabbed the bottle of wine and refilled my glass. I was about to tip the bottle toward hers, but I realized she hadn’t touched it at all, even though I was on my third glass. I set the bottle aside, then sat there, not interested in the food on my plate. “I’ve struggled to let it go. Struggled to move on and accept this new identity. Don’t misunderstand me, Ihave no regrets about the decision I made. But I feel lost every day, like I don’t know who I am anymore.”
Her eyes lifted to meet mine with a sadness that somehow rivaled my own.
“I wait for it to get better, but I suspect it’ll never get better. The world sees me as a coward who chose exile ... instead of as a man who did everything he could to protect his woman. I used to be respected, but now people despise me. Like all the good things I did in my life never happened. It was all erased the moment Darius defeated me in a game of checkers because he was playing chess.” I didn’t want to share any of this with her. It was so fucking painful to say out loud. But I knew if I wanted her to confide in me, I had to do the same. “I vowed to kill Darius and avenge my brother, but instead, I let him take the Roman Republic and my home. And now, he sleeps in my bed while my brother continues to float in an oil drum at his bedside.” I felt so fucking worthless. I didn’t just let down my brother, but my mother as well, who deserved to have the bones she’d grown in her own fucking body.
“Constantine ...” Her eyes welled up with overwhelming sadness, and in that moment, she reminded me of my mother. The love she had for me was beautiful and genuine and endless. Without actually saying it, she showed me that she didn’t think all the horrible things I’d just said.
