Salvatore chuckles.
I don’t want to be back at the masseria. I hate that place. It reminds me of things I don’t want to be reminded of.
When the masseria comes into view, my mood darkens. The place is somehow a reflection of all the things that happened to me. It was the place where I was forced to become someone else and, in the process, lost who I was.
Bits and pieces, taken from me, stripped and crushed into a different person. A person who is something between an empty void and a hollow shell. Broken in pieces, mended with cracks, held together by sheer will and forcing duty.
My gaze wanders outside.
I stare into the endless countryside around the house. It represents exactly how I feel. A masseria, alone in the middle of nothing. Isolated, fenced in, triste.
“It won’t be for long,” says Salvatore.
“Whatever,” I say, lost in thought.
We enter the masseria, and Salvatore aims to help me out of the car.
“There is no need for it,” I snap at him. “It’s not that bad.”
“You will follow the doctor’s orders,” he says, “And take it slow, very slow.”
“The doctors can fuck themselves,” I say as we walk inside. I don’t know why I am like this. I am a kind person.
Sophie was,says the voice in my head.
I am not Sophie anymore.
I attempt to walk into the study.
“Absolutely not,” says Salvatore and puts his hand on my hand on the handle to stop me from opening the door. “You will lie down and rest.”
“I certainly won’t,” I say. “You said it yourself, things need to be taken care of.”
“Not today. I will take care of everything, like I did in the past weeks.”
I groan.
“Fine,” I say and walk to the next door, my bedroom, and slam the door in his face after me. Not without gasping in from the pain in my chest.
I close my eyes and breathe in and out a couple of times.
My hand wanders to the wound. I have been lucky, extremely lucky, because the bullet was stopped by my rib cage bone; it splintered just a bit, and only one nasty splinter punctured my lung and caused it to collapse.
I still can’t breathe properly, it hurts like shit, and every time I breathe in, my chest feels compressed, adding to the overall feeling that a truck ran over my ribcage.
I once got a bad hit in training and broke a rib; it was equally painful.
“You’re alive,” says a voice suddenly in front of me, and I nearly die. My eyes fly open, adrenaline pumping into my system.
Rosalia.
In here.
I am lost for words.
I look at her.
She stands only a couple of steps away.
