Page 59 of A New Days Don

Pink blooms on the apples of her cheeks, drawing my attention as her eyes dart around the empty gelato joint. Vincenzo has long taken off, allowing us full reign to anything in La Dolce Vita. However, Ren and Adriano should be around somewhere, keeping an eye on the streets while I’m here with her.

“I–” She pauses as if wondering what to say. I don’t rush her, taking a spoonful of my Amaretto. Her eyes follow the spoon, and my cheek twitches as I hold back the smirk wanting to spread across my lips. “It’s a long story.”

I raise a brow, looking around the quiet shop for emphasis as I say, “We have time, and I can assure you nobody will be coming in here for the next several hours.”

Her bright eyes dim, and I want to chase wherever that light went and force it to stay. She looks away from me, her eyes falling to her slowly melting gelato, and my stomach clenches with desperation I have never felt before. This woman may very well be the death of me with those innocent doe eyes.

I take her chin firmly within my fingers, forcing her to look at me, “You aren’t alone, angelo mio.”

The Italian pet name slips from my lips easily, and it draws her back to me the way it has since that very first time she was panicking in the café.

“Why do you want to know?” Mila asks, her guard back up even though she is more than comfortable letting it slip around me.

Because you’re mine.

Because I care about you.

Because every minute I’m around you, I am becoming more and more addicted to you.

Because how can I protect you if you don’t talk to me?

Because I might fucking love you, and the thought of losing you sends me into a blinding rage.

But I don’t say any of those things. Instead, through a tense smile, I settle with, “You are my friend now. I don’t have a lot of friends, but I protect those who are close to me.”

The words taste gritty, like sandpaper, but I get them out. She mulls them over for a minute before releasing a breathy sigh and pulling away from me. I let her. Watching closely as she takes a few more licks of her ice cream.

“On my 21st birthday…” She begins again, her voice thick with emotion, but she holds back the unshed tears, her stubbornness refusing to let her body react the way it wants to.

I don’t move or say a word. My entire body is stiff with the knowledge of what is to come, but I give her my undivided attention.

“Karmin invited me out to go to the bar for the first time. Unlike our other friends, I refused to get a fake ID and preferred spending my time painting or drawing rather than going out. I don’t like large group events.” She says sheepishly, and I file that detail away in my mind as she continues, “Anyway, we ended up at the bar… La Cochon Rouge,”

She cringes as she says the name. I recognize it immediately, that was the bar we stood out front of last week, while she slowly drifted away from me. There was nothing I could do to pull her out of it, and I had never felt more helpless than I did in that moment.

I take her hand in mine, her soft skin cool against my warm palm. The contrast is polarizing, and I worry it may be too cold in here for her. Before I can offer to go outside where the night air is still warm from the day, she is talking again, her hand gripping mine.

That’s right, baby, I’ve got you.

“The night started out fine. I met up with Karmin and her date, a girl named Rain, and we ordered something to drink. I don’t remember what it was, only that there was alcohol because I had used my ID to get it.” She fumbles with a napkin, taking a bite of her waffle cone, then continuing after swallowing what was in her mouth, “Anyway, we found a booth, and a group of rowdy people walked in. The whole night is a bit blurry, the doctors call it traumatic amnesia, but that’s what I remember aside from the fear, pain, and panic, the blood–it was everywhere, a ring, and the name James.”

My mind gets caught on the word blood. Her blood. She will never bleed for anyone again.

It takes me a moment to register as I watch her take another bite of her cone, but then it hits me like a freight train.

A name.

My ears perk up at this, so I ask, “Do you remember anything about him?”

She shakes her head, “And I’ve tried looking up the name and running databases, but nobody looks familiar. It was probably a fake name.”

My stomach sinks.

She sighs, shaking her head, tears threatening to spill once more, but she keeps them trapped, and they obey her will, “I can remember being left behind one of those industrial trash bins. My dress was scrunched up to my waist, and blood was everywhere. He just left me…”

Her voice cracks, and so does the foolish organ beating in my chest. Pain, as I have never felt, creeps through my veins. I clench my fist as I try to keep myself in check. This isn’t about me. This is about her. Yet my whole world feels like it's crashing around me at the image of her being left battered and alone. For the first time since I was a little boy, sadness wars against the rage that anyone would treat her any less than the goddess she is.

Before I can lean forward to comfort her during a rare moment of vulnerability, she steels herself and her voice, retreating back against her chair, “All that to say, I woke up in the hospital days later. Cleaned, a laundry list of mental illnesses to recover from, and no memory of why or where they came from. I haven’t gone for ice cream in years because I can’t. My brain is wired to be in a constant state of vigilance. That cafe you saw Karmin and I in, it took me months to get comfortable there.”