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Annie
The safe house is cold, quiet, and lonely. Although full of furnishings and heavy drapes, it is dark, desolate, and defeated. Just like me. It has been two weeks since I arrived, and no amount of sleep and Italian cooking can remove the empty feeling I have in my chest.
With the stitches all removed and my physical healing near complete, I am back to my old self, apart from the small ache that sometimes occurs in my shoulder, right where a bright red scar now resides.
Dante always used to compliment me on my unmarked skin, and now it is tainted. The way he looked at me in the hospital, with pity and disgust, is burnt into my brain, the image not something I will forget in a hurry. The fact that I put it there by lying to him sits heavy in my gut, twisting and turning, keeping me up at night until the wee hours of the morning until exhaustion finally pulls me under. Dark circles are now a constant under my eyes. I stifle a yawn, my fifth already this morning.
“Tsk, tsk, you need to sleep better, Annie,” Nico scolds me as he walks into the kitchen, taking a seat at the table and pulling apart his handgun to clean it. This is an activity he does every morning, before leaving it at the back of the kitchen behind a large vase.
“Easier said than done,” I sigh out as I contemplate whether to cook, grab a coffee, or just relax.
Aside from Nico, I haven’t seen another soul. No one else has been in or out. The kitchen is replenished with supplies during the dead of night when I am asleep, and each morning it is like a surprise for me as I see what is new to eat or to cook with.
We haven’t left either. We don’t go outside, and I can’t stand near the windows or even open one for fresh air. Nico and I spend our time in the kitchen or the living room, and although we only have each other for company, we are not yet sick of each other. In fact, it is the opposite; I feel like I have found a brother. I now know more about Nico than I ever thought possible. He has been in New York for only a year or so, coming from Sicily, where Sebastian and Dante picked him up and helped his sister, who was battling cancer herself. Given this common history, Nico and I formed a bond quickly, and I know he has a soft spot for me, helping me more than necessary.
Together we have eaten our weight in food and devoured every last decent movie. My cooking repertoire has expanded as well, since Nico is a fantastic taste tester. Now I have to say my love of Italian cooking has grown.
“Why don’t you do your exercises, keep building your strength?” Nico suggests, his eyes flicking to me, clearly seeing my indecision on what to do this morning as he pulls out the cleaning cloth and begins polishing.
“Fine,” I sigh like a sulking toddler, and I grab the small stress ball nearby, squeezing it in my palm before releasing it again, repeating the task. The exercises are helping, doing them multiple times a day, every day out of boredom working wonders.
“Have you heard from Dante?” I ask, as my heart begins to pound at the mere mention of his name. I ask every day, and I always get the same response. Today is no different as Nico just shakes his head silently, not offering me anything.
I still make tiramisu a few times a week, and Nico loves it too. It appears that every Italian man has a soft spot for that dessert; however, every time I make it, I think of Dante. I take my time, soaking the biscuits and placing the ingredients in the large bowl with precision, in the hopes that he will walk in the door and want a serving, and that maybe it will be enough for him to remember what we had.
For days, I moped around the house, wishing I was back with Leo and Maria, wishing that I was back in Dante’s bed, having one of our nightly chats. But I am not. And it is all my fault. I have no one to blame for my situation other than myself. But even though we are no longer together, I am thankful for the time we had, even though I still feel empty.
I spend a lot of time alone in my room, trying to organize my thoughts, and come up with a plan. There will come a time that I leave this place and Nico or one of the other team members will probably drop me off at a bus station to send me on my way. So I have been looking for jobs on my cell phone, the only time I ever look at it, trying to understand what work is available for a woman like me.
A woman with nothing.
No education, no skill-set, no family, no friends. I could wash dishes, but the urge to make something of myself now that I know I can, now that I have no time limit, rumbles in my chest. Dante taught me many things, but the time he devoted to me, the trust he had in me, a stranger in his home, it built my confidence. I want to be more, do more, and not just survive, but flourish.
“What are you dreaming about over there, Annie?” Nico asks me as he looks at me from the kitchen table, his gun now nearly sparkling. Weapons no longer scare me, and Nico has even spent some time showing me his gun and how to operate it. Not that I have ever fired it, nor do I plan to, but it is yet another thing I have learnt in this weird situation I am in.
“What I want to be when I grow up,” I say shyly, grateful that he takes an interest.
“Well, you know you can be anything, right?” He smiles, the polishing cloth in his hand still moving up and down the barrel of his handgun as he wipes the already pristine metal.
“But that is just it,” I say in slight frustration, and put the stress ball back onto the bench. “I don’t know if I can. I have no education, no skills, no people around me to help me. I will be starting from the very bottom.”
“Well, you are a great cook, quick to learn. Everyone saw how great you were with Leo, so you could work with kids…” Nico offers, and I nod quietly, my heart splintering at the thought of Little Leo, the precious boy who dug a place into my chest alongside his father.
I do love working with children, and it is something that I do have experience with. But with no education and no references, it will be hard to get started.
I walk to the fridge and grab the large bowl of tiramisu, then serve two heaps and walk them over to where Nico is sitting, plonking down beside him. He scoops up the dessert, and I hear his appreciation.
“MmmmMmmm! Damn, Annie, this is good. Maybe you could open an Italian dessert bar?” he says with a big grin.
I smile as I take a spoonful myself, the coffee hitting my taste buds and awakening my senses. A small flame builds inside of me. For the first time in a long time, I feel the excitement of possibility instead of the dread of a dead end. And while my mind is still firmly on Dante and Leo, and my chest hurts not from the injury, but from my broken heart at losing them both, I know that if this is all I get, if I never see either of them again, then they have given me more than I ever thought possible.
Because now I understand that the possibilities are, in fact, endless.
35
Dante
I watch her as her pink lips puff out with each exhale. They are soft, pouty, and one of my favorite things about her. I squeeze the back of my neck, the small wooden seat I am sitting on making my back ache, but I never leave.
