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I wanted to cradle his cheeks in my palms, to hold him close and promise him that whatever demons were chasing him, I would scare them away... But I fisted my fingers and kept my hands by my sides. If I gave in to the urge to soothe and comfort him, I might never know why he had reacted the way he had, and then I would be the one who was scared—scared it could happen again.
‘What were you terrified of?’ I asked.
His gaze flashed with emotions so real and vulnerable my heart contracted in my chest, my breath squeezing out of my lungs.
‘That you would leave me,’ he said, the words so low I could barely hear them above the ambient sounds of the night outside the library window, the hum of the crickets and the rustle of the forest leaves. ‘The way she did.’
‘Is this your mother?’ I asked.
I saw his Adam’s apple bob. Then he nodded. ‘When you asked me about her, I lied. I said I didn’t remember her. But the truth is, when I began to have feelings for you...it all came back to me. What happened that day. And I was scared it would happen again,’ he said.
He looked away, but I had seen the naked pain in his face. My heart lurched in my chest. He had pushed me away because he was scared of losing me. As mad as that sounded on one level, it made complete sense to me on another.
I cupped his cheek, drew his head round to mine, unable to hold back a moment longer. I felt the muscles in his jaw bunch as I kissed him softly. His breath brushed my cheek as he sighed.
‘Can you tell me what happened?’ I asked.
He touched his forehead to mine, placed his hands on my hips to draw me into his arms, but I could hear the hopelessness in his voice when he said, ‘Yes.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
IF ONLY I could avoid this conversation. I’d spent so much of my life denying what had happened to me. How could the wounds still be so raw, so fresh? But I knew I owed it to Edie. How would she ever be able to trust me again after what I had done, if I didn’t explain why I had done it?
I’d tried to dodge and avoid, but she’d been brave and determined. And now I needed to be brave too.
‘I was maybe five, six, I can’t remember.’ I started to talk as I clung to her, breathing in her scent to give me strength, and balance—as I tumbled into the black hole of memory. ‘The night before, there had been...violence. Her pimp had beaten her. I had tried to intervene and he had beaten me too...’
Edie shuddered with reaction, her hands settling on my lower back, keeping me upright. ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I’m here.’
It was exactly the right thing to say. It grounded me, reminded me that I wasn’t that little boy any more, so scared, so brutalised. I was a grown man, and Edie would never hurt me the way my mother had.
‘I think maybe that was the reason she wanted to get rid of me. She cried a lot the next morning. Then she made me dress in my best clothes and took me to the steps of the church where we went to Mass each Sunday.’ I huffed out a bitter laugh. ‘Ironic, no? That a prostitute would go to church?’
‘Go on,’ Edie said.
‘She told me to wait for her, that she would be back soon. She told me that she loved me before she left me there.’ The bitterness sharpened as I recalled her exact words, and the quiver of emotion in her voice as she whispered the lie in my ear.
‘Coraggio, Dante. Ti voglio bene assai.’
Be a brave boy, Dante. I love you very much.
‘I waited, as people came and went. The priest tried to talk to me and then a policeman and a social worker came. It had begun to rain and they wanted me to come inside the church. I went wild. I told them I couldn’t go inside, that I mustn’t leave. I was sure that she would come back because she had promised me she would. And I was scared that if I left that step she would never find me.’ I shook, remembering the tears again, the screams, the rain cold and clammy on my skin, the grunts of the policeman as I kicked against his hold.
‘Oh, Dante, I’m so sorry.’ Edie’s arms closed around me and she held me tight, burying her head against my chest. I could feel her tears dampening my shirt. But her anguish didn’t feel like pity any more; it felt like compassion. ‘It must have been so agonising for you,’ she said, her words muffled, ‘and for her.’
The last part of her sentence struck me and I drew back, all the emotion I had locked away for so long coalescing in the pit of my stomach and plunging into the black hole.
‘Why would it be hard for her?’ I asked, but the emotion welling in my throat felt strange and different this time, not jagged and ugly, just weary and tense. ‘She didn’t love me. She abandoned me.’
Edie lifted her face from my chest. ‘Do you really think so?’
‘Of course,’ I said, but the doubt in her voice gave me pause.
‘What happened to you afterwards? After she left you?’ Edie asked.
‘I went into the foster system in Naples. I found it hard to settle. I was so lonely. I wanted my mother. And then I became angry. That she had left me.’
‘But were you ever hit again? Or abused?’ she asked.
