Whenever I painted tears in my paintings at the studio, I always depicted them as growing flowers so that it didn’t hurt as much to look at. I knew this kind of pain, his pain, would grow flowers one day; he just had to be patient and a little bit brave.
“I’m sorry,” he managed to whisper.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” I smiled sadly. “You shouldn’t have to be sorry for loving someone, Adriano.”
“It’s not love. It can’t be.”
“Why?” I frowned.
He blew all of the air from his lungs. “He’s the Capo dei Capi of the fucking Outfit for one.”
“Not anymore,” I said. “And besides, your heart doesn’t care who they are, just like his heart also doesn’t care who you are, not really.”
“It’s a crime to be gay in theFamiglia, Sicily. There’s no getting around that no matter how much I might love him. Besides…” He sniffled. “He’s busy getting blow jobs anyway.”
I winced thinking of the raw anger I’d seen on Adriano’s face. “Why would he do that? He obviously loves you too.”
“Because I told him we couldn’t happen, that we were done. The women are always there, always waiting to convince him that being gay is a sin again.” He shook his head firmly. “I won’t put my brother in jeopardy for me.”
Tears clung to my eyelashes as I whispered, “Milan would never hurt you, would he?”
He inhaled deeply, like the effort to simplybeached somewhere only he could feel. “I would never put him in the position where he might have to choosenotto hurt me. If he were to be seen hiding the truth about someone like me, they’d expect him to kill me, or exile me, and if he didn’t, well?—”
“But he’s the boss; he can just legitimize it, can’t he?” I argued gently, careful to keep my voice low and away from Milan down the jet.
Adriano looked down at me, and the pain and hopelessness on his face broke me into a gazillion pieces. “You have such a big heart and so many feelings.” He laughed weakly. “How did you end up with us?”
I wasn’t certain what I’d done in my life to have led me on this path, and though I wasn’t glad that I had Milan as my husband, I was more than happy that I’d met Adriano, and he had been able to tell just one person how his heart cried.
I hugged him hard, throwing my arms around his neck as if just a pair of hands could make it all better. “I will find a way for you, okay?”
He began to shake his head but stopped, like maybe,just maybe, he could hope once more.
I swallowed the sob in my throat. “I won’t stop until we’re sitting at your wedding and this pain feels like a distant memory.”
Adriano breathed for the first time since we’d boarded the jet. He closed his eyes, not to hold back tears, but to rest in the knowledge that somebody else was going to protect this.
10
SICILY
I lockedmyself in the bathroom the moment we walked through the door to what was nowhome. Milan said nothing, probably grateful that he could get rid of me again, but I didn’t care. I needed the peace, the bubbles of a deep bath, and time to think about everything that had happened and how I was going to carry it all.
Holding the emotions of the world allowed me to experience all the love it had to offer, but it also kept me locked in a cage ofeverything,and it seemed like nobody had the key to let me out.
I stared up at the soft yellow light from the chandelier above the bath. It lit the white marble of the bathroom, shone the bubbles that clung to my skin, and made the coldest walls feel soft.
My inhale was loud as I breathed in to dunk my head under the water, trying to ignore how the size of the room and house shrunk me into a place of loneliness again.
Milan and Adriano were in a room I hadn’t seen downstairs, but I knew it was the one that wasn’t allowed to be called a gym because Milan believed gyms werereckless liabilities. It was far away, so far that I couldn’t even hear murmurs between the floors, so far that I had no choice but to focus on the silence.
Gasping, I resurfaced, the sound of my splutter almost drowning out the buzz of my phone against the tile beside the bathtub. I fumbled for it blindly, sloshing half the water onto the floor, but once I got hold of it, I almost dropped it into the water.
Fiorella
Are you a boring loser now that you’re married, or do you wanna come dance?
What are you talking about?
