Page 350 of Valentino

“Probably going to need help getting out of their swimming costumes at the end of the day,” I hear Luigi tell Gino as they walk toward them.

“Absolutely,” he replies.

I make my way back to our resort and stop at the side of the pool area, it’s perched high up on the cliffside and looks over the most breathtaking view.

Valentino is in only boardshorts, tanned skin and muscular, he’s sitting half up on a deck chair. He’s wearing sunglasses and his hair has that just-messed perfection that I love so much. His laptop is open and on his lap and he’s concentrating as he works away, too busy to notice my ogling.

Across from him and scattered around the pool area are his four bodyguards, who are all lying in the sun and wearing only boardshorts too.

The music is playing, waitresses are bringing them drinks and the afternoon breeze is whipping over their skin as they lie in the sun.

I smile, everyone loves my job….

Three years later.

VALENTINO

I walk across the manicured lawns and gardens.

The boys are waiting on the road in the car, this is the one thing I have to do alone.

I do this…and I don’t even know why.

But every now and then I find myself longing to come here, I arrive at the headstone and stand before it.

My eyes linger on the words written, a lump in my throat.

In loving Memory

CARLO BERNETTI

Some days…most days, I know it was always going to end like this. But on some occasions I wonder, if it were the other way around and I was the one in the ground, would he be standing here in front of me?

They say that every person you have in your life was put there for a reason and I wholeheartedly believe that, because I know the reason Carlo was in mine.

He showed me the true meaning of what it means to love someone unconditionally.

It is possible to miss their light, even though toward the end you only ever saw their darkness.

To crave hearing their laugh when they’ve made you cry so many tears.

To live every day with grief while rejoicing in the freedom that their death gave you.

To have your heart completely broken by the one person who made it feel whole.

And what it means to love someone while hating them with every fiber of your being.

I look up over and across the graveyard, and it’s there again.

The anger.

Coming here always reminds me of all that he did, of all that he took.

And maybe that’s why I come, to push the guilt away that I lived and he didn’t.

He chose his path…I know.

Doesn’t make it any easier to accept.