"I know."
"The rooms. The men. The floor. The tapping. All of it."
His arms tighten around me. His face is in my hair. I can feel his heartbeat against my back, fast, and his breathing is uneven and his body is tense in a way that tells me he's holding himself together the same way I'm holding myself together, which is barely.
"My name is Graziella," I say.
"Yes."
"I speak Italian."
"Yes."
"I was eight."
His arms tighten again. Tighter. I can feel the muscles in his forearms flex against my stomach and his chest expand against my back, his chin presses into the top of my head and he's holding me so hard it hurts and I don't want him to stop.
"I need you," I whisper. "Right now. I need you inside me. I need to feel something that I chose."
He doesn't argue. He doesn't say are you sure. He doesn't handle me or manage me or ask if this is the right time. He rolls me onto my back and puts his weight over me and his forearms are on either side of my head. His face is above mine and his gray eyes are wet. Carmelo is crying. Not sobbing, not breaking down. Tears running from the corners of his eyes into the stubble on his jaw. Silent. The way a man cries when he can't stop it and won't acknowledge it.
I put my hands on his face. I wipe the tears with my thumbs. He turns his head and presses his mouth into my palm, his lips are warm and his stubble scrapes my skin and I pull him down. He kisses my face, everywhere the tears touch, his lips are there, kissing the pain away. I buck my hips and slide my underwear off before working on his pants, being kissed over and over.
Like he’s trying to drive the memories away. Not lock them up, but replace them.
The sex is slow. Not gentle, not careful. Slow. Every movement intentional. He enters me and holds still and breathes. I breathe and we look at each other and there's no hiding and no pretending and no roles to play. He knows everything about me. I know everything about me. The room and the floor and the men and the pills and the name and the father. All of it is in the bed with us and he moves inside me anyway, I move with him anyway and the memories are dimming and the pleasure is there and they exist at the same time.
It’s almost transcendent, in the way it’s taking me from the place in my mind that keeps me trapped, and moves me to a place where there is no pain, no memories, just bliss.
My finger taps his shoulder. The rhythm matches his movement. Slow. Steady. Not anxiety. Not survival. Rhythm. Connection. My body finding a new reason for the oldest thing it knows.
I come quietly. No scream, no cry. A wave that moves through me from the center outward, warm, and I hold his face in my hands while it happens, and his forehead is against mine and his tears fall on my cheeks.
His body presses deep into mine as he comes inside me, his arms shaking, his breath ragged against my neck. He says my name. Not Grace. The other one.
"Graziella."
And it sounds like a dream. Something I want to know… someone I want to be.
We lie tangled in my bed. His body curled around mine, massive, warm, the arm draped over my waist heavy enough that I can feel it with every breath.
"I want to meet my father," I say.
"I'll call him."
"And Carmelo."
"Yes."
"Don't ever lie to me again."
His arm tightens. His mouth presses against the back of my neck.
"Never," he says.
I close my eyes. For the first time in a week, I sleep. Deep, heavy, dreamless sleep. Not because the memories are gone. Because they're here, all of them, and I survived them once and I'm surviving them now and the man holding me knows every single one of them and he's still here.
My finger circles small circles on his forearm in my sleep.
