No, I'm not letting myself go there. I have principals after all.
“Tell me about yourself,” I say.
He’s quiet for the longest time. Of course I've heard about him and his family through the grapevine. His family was in a horrible car wreck which killed his mother, and left his father paralyzed from the waist down. “I know about your father and the accident,” I say. “I’m so very sorry.”
He doesn’t quite look at me when he replies quietly, “Thanks.”
“Tell me about the rest of your life,” I urge. “I’m curious.”
He smiles. “Well, as you already know, I grew up surrounded by wealth. My dad owns Rossi Guitars, and before that, my grandfather founded Rossi Construction.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I had a typical privileged childhood… private school, piano and music lessons. I was close to my mother, not so much to my father who worked too much.”
“Well, at least your father didn't run away from you when you were ten,” I point out. “There are worse things than workaholism.”
“True,” he says.
“Who takes care of your father now?”
“He has a full-time caregiver, and… me. We have breakfast every day. I take him to town. I look after the business, oversee everything. I’m his right-hand man.”
I’m surprised by his answer. I have a million questions, but I don’t dare ask them. Yes, I know about the accident. I also know about his younger sister overdosing two years following the accident.
“It’s me and him now,” he says. “I’m the only one left to take care of him. And I owe him.”
“Why do you owe him?” I ask, curious.
He blows out a long breath, and stares at the candy-lined wall. “Because it was all my fault,” he tells me. “The night it happened, the night my mom died, the night my dad was left half the man he once was… it was my fault.”
I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing at all.
“Guess where we were going?” he says.
I don't know where they were, and I’m not sure I want to know.
“We were heading to my piano recital.”
Oh, shit.
“I played competitively back then,” he goes on, still staring at the candy. “I was good. My teacher insisted that I had great promise.”
“She was right,” I chime in, remembering his rendition ofStairway to Heaven. “You’re amazing.”
“But after the accident, I quit it all.”
“I'm so sorry,” I say again, not knowing what else to say. There’s so much I didn't know about his life. It’s easy to see the seemingly perfect picture from the outside, someone else’s idyllic life, a lovely painting with no flaws. But if you study someone’s life more closely, and you know what's inside, you know that it's not perfect. No one’s life is, and that includes Colton Rossi's. He’s just a person, just like the rest of us. I reach for him, and hug him tightly. It’s in my nature to nurture sad souls. He hugs me, and I'm surprised by the strength of his hold. We embrace for a long time, forever it seems. It feels wonderful.
Finally, he reluctantly releases me. I can tell he doesn't want to, but he does let me go. “Thank you for that.”
“You're welcome,” I say, not sure what else to say in such circumstances.
“I don't get hugs like that often,” he confesses.
“You don’t?”What a shame.“I get hugs like that from my son all the time.”
“Tell me about your son,” he says, and seems genuinely interested.
