Page 13 of Contempt

TWO

Three and a half years later …

April showers bring May flowers.

The thought passed Lucia’s mind with a sing-song flair as she stepped out of her apartment. That was probably the thing she missed about New York the most … rain. At least, rain in the spring. In all her twenty-three years on earth, she thought there was nothing like a good rain in the springtime. There was a certain smell that followed a good spring rain. Fresh, clean, and earthy, if it were possible.

California wasn’t quite the same. Constantly dry, they were usually begging for a little rain here. There was a whole damn season for wild fires, even. For a small portion of the year, the air would have a slight taste of smoke every time someone breathed.

But … Cali was where Lucia needed to be. That didn’t mean she always wanted to be here, but it was where she knew she needed to be. It made all the difference when her traitorous heart dared to make her consider going back home.

After she finished her art degree six months earlier, she settled in Los Angeles. An offer came up from someone her aunt, Kim, knew that owned a gallery. A paid year-long internship in a major art gallery with some of the best up and coming names in the art world under the head curator.

Lucia didn’t dare say no.

Besides, it gave her another reason to avoid the discussion with her mother—or God forbid—her father, about why she wasn’t coming home yet. From the day she graduated, they asked her when she was coming back.

New York is your home.

Your family is here, Lucia.

We miss you.

They weren’t wrong; they weren’t entirely right, either. New York had been home, once. And yes, her family was back there while she was here. The fact still remained the same for her … going back only made her angry. Maybe she’d been trying for almost five years now to let go of that anger. Yet, with every short trip back to New York, Lucia found it was like ripping a scab off an almost-healed wound.

She’d be hurt again.

Bleeding again.

Raw again.

New York was full of memories that stung like needles poking into her heart constantly. It felt like an apology that never came from her father, and an emptiness in her chest that she couldn’t escape from no matter how hard she tried to do exactly that.

New York felt like Renzo.

It felt like what her life was like without him, now.

Lucia didn’t think heartbreak was supposed to be like this—although, was it heartbreak if there had never been a proper end between them? If they were never able to truly say goodbye to one another, was it losing her first love?

She didn’t know.

It still felt like it.

Maybe that’s why it was made worse. Because there hadn’t been a proper goodbye. There had been no closure, at least, not for her. Despite the fact that she tried to find him, wrote letter after letter that was never answered, and hoped for something that clearly wasn’t going to happen, well, she was stuck. Suspended between the things she wanted, and a reality that just killed her every time she had to face it all over again.

And fuck her stupid heart because no matter how hard she tried to just get better, feel better or something … he was still there. In her dreams and thoughts. Absent in her heart where she wanted to feel him the most.

Gone, like her soul.

He’d taken that.

Wherever he was.

Her trips home became more and more infrequent over the years to the point she hadn’t been back home in almost … well, over a year now. The longest she’d gone back for was a two-week stay during that trip three and a half years ago, a year after she moved to Cali. Not that it stopped her family from asking her to come back more often.

She didn’t.

It wasn’t about them—even if her anger was caused by the things her father had done. Sure, she’d mostly forgiven her brother over the years, but not her dad. It wasn’t Lucian’s fault for that, either.