Page 41 of The Ruin I Chose

“You never told me,” I said—too soft to be anger, too tight to be neutral.

Roxanne met my gaze, calm but firm.

“You never asked. Plus, we haven’t really spoken a lot.”

I looked away, jaw tight. I didn’t know what to say. My chest felt heavy, like I’d swallowed something sharp that didn’t belong to me. I didn’t have the right to feel anything. But I did. Too much.

I looked at Roxanne again. She was now braiding Sophie’s hair, her fingers gentle, before the little girl ran off to play. Her smile was real. But something in her eyes still felt like a secret.

My mother, sensing the tension, tried to divert the topic.

“As a child, Marcello refused to sleep unless every door in the house was locked,” my mother said, smiling faintly. “He’d go room to room, checking them himself. Said it was his job.”

Roxanne blinked. “How old were you?”

“Seven,” Alessia laughed.

I shook my head. “Mamma—”

“He was convinced something terrible would happen if he didn’t,” she continued gently. “Even then, he carried the weight of the world like it was his responsibility.”

Antonio lifted his glass. “Some things never change.”

There was a pause. Then my mother added, softer now—

“Elaine used to say it made her feel safe… pace all’anima sua. That no matter how loud the world got, Marcello would always stand guard.”

The name settled between us like a familiar ghost— unwelcome, unchanged—hung in the air.

Elaine.

Roxanne instinctively reached for my hand. She gave it a quiet squeeze. The contact steadied something deep in my chest—something that had tilted the moment Elaine’s name was spoken. I looked at her, surprised by the quiet certainty in her touch. I squeezed back. Everyone noticed. But no one spoke. Because they felt it too. The shift. The ache. The thing between us that hadn’t been named yet—but was already real.

There was history, and then there was chemistry between Roxanne and me. It was instinctive. Not forced. We didn’t know each other well, but we wanted to. And our time together was running out. She was leaving in two days.

The plates were cleared. Garden lights cast a soft amber glow across the porch. Roxanne had slipped off her sandals, her dress swaying as she moved with ease among the family.

I watched her from the edge of the room—half in shadow, wholly in awe. She moved like she belonged. And maybe that was the problem. Not in this world. My world. And yet, she fit. And that scared me more than Lorenzo ever could.

Matteo, about six, tugged at Roxanne’s hand.

“I want you to tell us a bedtime story,” he said, pulling her gently towards the stairs.

I watched her disappear down the hallway, her voice trailing behind like a lullaby stitched with laughter. The room felt quieter without her. Not empty—just waiting.

My mother turned to me, eyes gentle but firm.

“You didn’t know she had a child?”

“I barely know her,” I murmured—a truth that felt more like a lie.

But even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true. I knew her laugh. Her silence. The way she touched me like she was trying to hold the shape of my damage.

She smiled. Soft. Knowing.

“But I can see the sparks fly. There’s something between you two… even if neither of you has noticed yet.”

“But you told her about Elaine,” Antonio said, suspicion creeping in.