“Milan—”
He turned and yanked open the car door, leaving me and Adriano to stare at his empty space.
My heart beat in a way it hadn’t before, like it was failing, like I had given him a part of myself and he had walked away with it.
Adriano stepped closer, wrapping his arms around me to whisper, “Speak to Francesco about the school. He’s always wanted to do something like that, and I know he’d love to help you.”
I heard myself sniffle against his shoulder, but I hadn’t expected tocry, not over Milan. “Milan will just shut it down.”
“He won’t. I promise. Let me handle him.”
I had barely seenMilan since we’d returned home from the restaurant that afternoon, but I’d caught a glimpse of him entering two large double doors beside his office where he’d stayed, even missing dinner.
Adriano had told me to leave him, that when he was in there he didn’t want to be disturbed, and I’d accepted that, but an hour later, I was carrying a hefty bowl of fish, salad, and a random side of garlic bread that I’d found in the freezer toward the doors.
It felt like there was something to fix, or at the very least, something to take back.
Milan was lounging on a velvet couch when I entered, reading achildren’s bookwith dragons and knights on the front.The room held floor-to-ceiling bookshelves like a library, rain-dotted stained-glass windows like a chapel, and couches like my old studio.
I tried not to gasp, but a small sound came out, and Milan looked up from his book.
“Hey.” I set the bowl onto the small wooden table beside him.I had never seen him look so disheveled, so lost in thought and time.“Are you okay?”
He nodded once but stayed silent, and that felt too heavy, so I continued, sitting quietly beside him. “What are you reading?”
“It is a child’s book,” Milan stated simply, setting the book gently into my hands.
I didn’t know what the book was about, nor why he was reading it, but I knew with so much certainty that it was important. The pages were torn in places, yellowed with age in others, and there were passages highlighted in smudged blue ink, a second in purple, another in yellow, and a fourth in green.
“Why are you reading this?” I whispered.
“My siblings liked this book.”
My heart lurched. “Your siblings?”
He pressed his finger into the margin of a page, showing me the small, shakily written names there.Brenno, Cesare, Ezio, Sienawere written against each highlighted passage.
I swallowed roughly. “Where’s your color?”
“I do not have one,” he said simply, but his eyes, those deep brown eyes, suddenly became a lot darker. “I read the booktothem. Their favorite parts were my favorite parts. They made them smile. I smiled too.”
Had heraisedthem?Surely not, but then again, I knew next to nothing about his past other than the snippets that had been shared at the wedding, and it was obvious that they hated one another now.
Milan’s hands began to swirl over one another, wringing in that compulsive way they always did when he was overwhelmed. He didn’t stop until the tips of my fingers ghosted over his wrists, the light contact enough to bring him back.
“Why do you do that?” I asked, finally mustering the courage to ask the questions I hadn’t been brave enough to ask before.
I was scared—scared that if he told me something devastating and I reacted emotionally, it would push him over the edge of something I couldn’t catch him from and everything he’d made me feel in the last few weeks would disappear.
“I repeat my mother’s final words three times, mostly inside of my head. If I do not, I cannot move onto my next task. It…releases me.” He looked away. “I do not know when I am doing that to my hands. Adriano stops it and now you do too. Does it bother you?”
“No,” I said firmly. “No, not at all, I just—” My head burned with too many thoughts. “What happened to you, Milan?”
Milan shoved from the chair, storming across the library, then back again, his hands returning to wringing. His face was burning with the past, like my question had reimagined it into the present.
“I amnota consequence,” he spat.
I stood instantly. “I didn’t say that!”
