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“What’s on your mind, child?” His voice broke through my thoughts.
It was hard for me to find the right words to say, harder to put them into sentences that were coherent enough for him to understand. “I thought it would get easier, but it hasn’t. I don’t sleep. I don’t want to eat. I don’t…” I stopped myself. “Isn’t it a sin to try to kill yourself?”
“We’re all sinners, even me.”
“Is it a sin to give up? To stop trying? I just… I don’t know if I want to do it anymore. It’s not that I want to kill myself. It’s more like I just don’t know if I want to keep living.” I bit the inside of my cheek. Did that make sense? Probably not, not to a priest, not to someone who’d never had to live through what I did.
“I could say that it gets better, but I think you’re aware that’s not always the case. I could tell you that God never gives you more than you can handle, but that’s the thing. We are only human. We each have different breaking points. You are a beautiful, smart young woman with endless possibilities before her, but you have to want it. You have to try. If you cannot live for yourself, live for me, because I know you will do great things in this world.”
My heart twisted. How could he say these things? He didn’t even know me. Not really. But that’s the thing about Father Charlie: I believed him. I believed every single word he said, whether it was stupid and naive or not. He made me want to believe. Even if I couldn’t believe in his God, in my mother’s God, I could believe in him.
And so I did.
I heard someone’s footsteps go off the trail around the lake, step onto the grass near the edge, where I stood, so I snapped out of my memory, bringing myself back to the present. The gloves on my hands now felt different than they used to; almost restricting, like I didn’t quite want to wear them anymore.
I supposed I was a different person now, a different girl. Though I still hated the thought of touching a stranger, touching certain other people wasn’t so bad. It was rather nice, actually. A girl could get used to it. Not sure I ever would, though.
When he stood beside me, I didn’t turn to face him. I didn’t need to. I knew it was Luca, the one I’d been waiting for, and I also knew he did enough staring for the both of us, eyeing me up like he wasn’t sure about me anymore. Like I was someone else, someone different than the girl he’d first met at that Black Hand party.
“You’re not wearing the ring,” Luca spoke, commenting about my gloves. “I can’t blame you, not after what I did. Or… what I didn’t do, I guess.” He stood a foot away from me, his hands shoved into his pant pockets.
“Chatty for a man who has ignored me for almost a week now,” I muttered, hating how much it had bothered me. Seriously, I shouldn’t give a shit about Luca or what he thought, but that was the thing: I did.
He nodded. “I know. I deserve that.” Luca was quiet for a few moments. “If you hate me, I get it. I wouldn’t blame you for hating me, Giselle.”
I closed my eyes, for just the quickest of moments. Inside, my emotions waged a war. From the very beginning, I’d wanted to hate him for his bloodline, for who his father was, but the more time I spent with him, the more I found myself caught under his spell.
When I opened my eyes again, staring out at the lake, I muttered, “I don’t hate you. I wish I did—I think it would make things easier for me if I did, but I don’t.”
At that, I was slow to turn away from the lake, facing Luca. His body faced mine already, not caring about the lake, the pretty scene around us. He only had eyes for me, and the way those dark eyes bore into me made me sweat. Or maybe that was just the sun.
“I wanted to hate you,” I told him. “I did. I tried hard, too. But as much as I tried, you’re not to blame for what happened. Both our fathers are.” My fingers flexed in my gloves. “But your silence has said a lot. If this is how it’s going to be between us, fine.” I wouldn’t beg for him to stand by my side. If he didn’t want to, he didn’t want to, and that was that. I would not beg. I would not get on my knees for him. He could go and show where his allegiance truly sat: with his father.
What Luca said next made my heart act up. “I never hated you. I never wanted to. I only wanted to get to know you. You’re… unlike any girl I’ve ever met. I could tell there was something different about you, but I never guessed…” His eyes closed for a moment, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m an asshole. I’ll own up to it. I should’ve been better. I should’ve, I don’t know, been more comforting or something. It’s just—I’ve never had to be like that, not for anyone—but I want to try harder for you, Giselle.”
Was this him trying to apologize for practically ghosting me? He’d fucking dropped off a huge diamond ring without saying a word to me, so this… I didn’t know how to feel about this. A part of me couldn’t help but wonder if it was a lie. A big, fat lie. A pretty lie, but a lie still.
“I dropped a lot on you,” I said.
“You did, but that’s no excuse for the way I’ve been acting this week.” He rubbed the back of his neck, looking almost uneasy. “I didn’t confront my father, but I wanted to. I wanted to hear him say it. After seeing you two together at the engagement dinner, I… a part of me had hoped you—”
“Were lying?”
“—were somehow wrong,” he finished. “I wanted you to be wrong, but body language doesn’t lie. My father looked at you like you were a piece of meat.” Luca frowned. “It took everything in me to not say something.”
So Luca didn’t say much during the dinner because he was busy watching his father and me? I understood wanting to believe the best of his father, not wanting him to be the villain of my tale, for there was a time I’d felt the same about mine. How many years had I tried to explain away his behavior, everything he did, how he treated me? Too many. Far too many.
“I did ask him about the whole engagement,” Luca went on. “It sounds like your father has something planned, something more than either of them are saying. You don’t think he has another heir out there, do you?”
“Another kid?” I blinked. The thought had honestly never occurred to me, and as I thought about it, the more it didn’t sound right. My father might claim to be a family man, but he really didn’t care about anyone other than himself. I was a burden enough to him; I doubted he had another child somewhere in secret. But… “It’s possible, I guess. He leaves a lot. I don’t know where he goes.”
“Well, we can figure it out together, if you want.”
I stared at him, studying every feature on his face. To say he seemed earnest would be the year’s biggest understatement. I believed he felt guilty for how he’d acted this week, and though I owed him nothing, I supposed it wouldn’t kill me to give him another chance to prove himself. “I think I’d like that.” I only hoped he didn’t make me regret saying it.
He let out a sigh of relief, dimples appearing on his cheeks as he grinned. “Good. I thought… well, I was worried you’d hate me after this week. What I did was kind of shitty.”
“Kind of?”
