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Haven grabbed his arm to calm him down, his moods shifting so quickly she had a hard time keeping up. He shrugged away from her, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a silver metal flask.
Bringing it to his lips, he closed his eyes and shuddered as he took a drink. “I owe you a lot of apologies, but sorry doesn’t seem good enough.”
“Your intentions were always good,” Haven said, not liking his self-loathing. Based on his demeanor, he had been beating himself up for a while.
“How’s that saying go—the road to hell is paved with good intentions? Makes sense, I guess, since I’m heading that way.”
She winced. “Don’t say that, Carmine.”
“Sorry, you’re right,” he said quickly, taking another drink from his flask. “I shouldn’t be saying this shit to you. I just . . . I’m sorry. I’m glad you’re here. You didn’t have to come. You don’t owe my family anything, but it’s good to see you.”
His words lacked the emotion he had had just minutes before. “It’s good to see you, too. I’ve missed you.”
“Yeah?” He glanced at Haven. “I’ve missed you, too. You look good, tesoro.”
Her heart started acting erratically, a fluttering in her stomach as the word tesoro escaped his lips. He tried to run his hand through his hair but cringed, a white bandage covering it. “What happened to your hand?”
He shoved it back in his pocket as if to hide the injury. “Corrado shot me.”
“He shot you? Why?”
“You’d have to ask him.” He grew quiet again and Haven knew he was holding back. “That’s where the scar on my face came from, too. Someone shot at me. Wasn’t Corrado that time, though . . . some Irish fucker.”
Haven stared at him as that sank in. “That’s scary.”
“That’s life,” he said, shrugging as if it weren’t a big deal. “That’s my life now, anyway. Thank God it’s not yours.”
Silence lingered between them as he took sips from his flask, his eyes looking everywhere but at her. She could see the sadness, the yearning for something he felt he couldn’t have. It made her chest ache.
“A guy named Gavin asked me out a few months ago,” she blurted out.
Carmine froze with the flask to his lips, cringing at her words. Tension rolled from him in waves. “Did you go out with him?”
“Once, but it could never work.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because he could never know me,” she said quietly. “I had friends, but they didn’t know me, either. No one did. They don’t know where I came from or what I went through. They only know the cover story, the girl I pretend to be . . . the girl everyone wants me to be . . . the girl I still sometimes wish I could be. They think the world I came from only exists in movies.”
“That’s the point,” he said. “You can be whoever you want to be.”
She sighed. “Don’t you get it, Carmine? I am that girl. I always will be, and believe it or not, I like her. I like being her. I like me.”
“I like you, too,” he said, “but you deserve more than this life, Haven.”
“Well, so do you.”
He groaned. “I chose this shit.”
“Then why couldn’t I?” she asked. “Why did you choose for me?”
“Because I’d be goddamned if I was going to let you throw everything away for someone like me. You’re better than my kind.”
Haven shook her head with disbelief. “Your kind? How can you say that? You, the boy who told me over and over again that I’d overcome my label . . . how can you label yourself? You wanted me to go out there and explore my options. I did that, Carmine, and I loved it, but I was lonely. Do you know what it’s like to stand in a crowded room and still feel like you’re the only one there? Do you? Because that was how it felt to me.”
“I couldn’t be something you settled for, Haven.”
“You think being with you would be settling? I’ll always be a part of your world. I’ll always have someone keeping tabs on me, making sure I don’t break my silence. My house got broken into and I couldn’t even call the police, I had to call your uncle! How do I explain that to people? It’s not normal—I’m not normal! Being out there in the world alone, spending my life pretending to be someone I’m not . . . that’s settling, Carmine. Does it even matter what I want?”
