The rooftop felt too quiet.
"You don't get to be angry because somebody doesn't want you to be lonely." The words slipped out before I could stop them. And I knew. That was it. That was the wound.
Not Angelo. Loneliness.
For a second something flickered across his face. Gone. Buried. Locked away. But I saw it. Then Santino laughed. One short laugh. Humorless. "You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."
I stared. He stared back. The city glittered around us. The cake sat untouched between us. The candles flickered. Finally I exhaled. Slowly.
"Like I told you… my mother died when I was young." His expression didn't change. I continued anyway. "At first everyone talked about her in secret, because my father forbade us from saying her name in the house."
The words came quietly now. Different. Less defensive. Less angry. "Stories. Memories. Photos. Things she used to say."
The wind tugged at my shirt. Then I looked away. Toward the skyline. "Then one day they stopped. They moved on."
I swallowed. "Everyone except me."
The words hurt more than I expected. Because they were true. I still remembered everything. The sound of her laugh. Her perfume. The way she used to braid my hair. The way she looked at us. The way she loved us. Everyone else had continued living. I never really had.
"I hated it." My throat tightened. "I hated feeling like she disappeared twice."
The rooftop remained silent. No traffic. No wind. No city. Just us.
"I think forgetting is worse."
I looked at him. Really looked at him. The grief. The exhaustion. The loneliness. Everything he'd spent years hiding behind smiles and devil masks and bad decisions. And he looked less like a villain. More like a wounded animal.
"I don't think Angelo would want this."
His eyes narrowed slightly. "This?"
I gestured vaguely. "Four years of birthdays alone."
"You didn't know him." The words came rough. Quiet. Painful.
"No." I admitted it. "I didn't."
His gaze dropped toward the photographs. Toward one picture in particular. Two teenage boys grinning at the camera. Identical. Whole.
"But you did." The words settled between us. Heavy. And for the first time all night, Santino looked away first. Long seconds passed. Then he moved. My breath caught. Not toward the door. Toward the sofa.
He sat. Slowly. Like it physically hurt. The lights stretched endlessly behind him.
I stared. He stared at the cake. Then reached for the whiskey. Poured himself a glass. Drank. Silence. Then another drink. Then another.
I sat beside him carefully. Not too close. Not too far.
For a while neither of us spoke. The candles burned. The city glowed. The whiskey disappeared. Finally I looked down at one of the photographs. Angelo stood on a yacht. Laughing. One arm around Santino's shoulders.
"What was he like?"
Santino froze. The question seemed to hit him harder than everything else combined. I waited. Long enough that I thought he wouldn't answer.
"He was an asshole." I blinked.
"What?" The corner of his mouth twitched. Barely.
"He stole my first girlfriend." I stared. Then burst out laughing. Santino took another drink. "We were thirteen."
