Stefano says nothing. That’s the only reason I keep going.
“My sister was named Alice. She was four years older than me, which meant she spent most of our childhood acting like she had invented every useful thing in the world.” A laugh tries to escape and comes out thin. “She taught me how to sneak out without waking our parents. How to use eyeliner without looking ridiculous. How to make boxed brownies taste homemade by adding too much vanilla and pretending it was a family secret.”
I grip the glass tighter.
“She loved people too quickly. That was Alice’s weakness. She saw the best possible version of someone and believed they could become it if they were loved hard enough. She saw that in Leon.”
When I finally turn, Stefano is sitting at the edge of the bed with his forearms braced on his thighs. He has not moved closer. He has not interrupted. His face gives me nothing, but his eyes do. They have gone darker. Sharper.
“Leon didn't begin with bruises,” I say. “He started with doubt. He told her I was jealous. He told her our parents thought he was beneath her. He told her her friends didn't understand their relationship. Every time she pushed back, he made her feel cruel for making him defend himself. Every time she cried, he called her dramatic.”
My voice catches on the last word.
“He made her smaller in pieces. One friend she stopped seeing. One dinner she missed because he didn't want her out late. One job she quit because he said the people there disrespected her. One apology after another until she started apologizing before he had even accused her of anything.”
Stefano’s jaw tightens.
I hate that I notice. I hate that some ruined part of me wants him angry on Alice’s behalf.
“She called me one night,” I say. “I had not heard from her for weeks. When I answered, she was whispering. I could hear him moving somewhere in the apartment, and she was trying to sound normal. She said she was tired. She said she wanted to come home.”
The glass slips slightly in my hand. I set it down before it breaks.
“I told her to leave. I told her I would come get her. I told her we would figure it out in the morning.” My breath shakes once. “She said she could not.”
Stefano stands then, but he does not reach for me.
“I thought she meant she was scared,” I whisper. “I thought she needed more time. I thought she was still deciding whether she loved him more than she hated what he was doing to her.”
The room blurs at the edges.
“I went there the next morning. He told me she had left. He looked me in the face and said she was unstable. He said she had been unhappy for months. He said I didn't know her as well as I thought I did.” I swallow against the sickness rising in my throat. “For a while, I believed that maybe I had failed her because I didn't see it fast enough.”
“Maya.”
His voice is quiet.
I shake my head. “They found her six weeks later.”
The silence that follows is different from every other silence we have shared. It has no threat in it. No game. No tension waiting to become desire.
Only the fact of what I have said.
“She had been trying to leave him,” I continue. “That was the part that destroyed me. She had hidden money. She had taken photographs. She had dates written down. She had enough proof to ruin him if anyone had believed her. But he had money. Friends. Lawyers. A reputation that made people call him respectable while they looked at her body in a morgue and wondered what she had done to provoke him.”
Stefano crosses the room.
This time, when he touches me, his hand settles at the back of my neck with none of the claiming pressure I have come to expect. His thumb rests below my ear. Warm. Still.
“I am sorry,” he says.
The words should be simple. They should be useless.
They are neither.
I look up at him. “Don’t say that unless you mean it.”
“I do.”
