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It’s not really about the snow or the outcome of his war against Lucius. It’s about the details.
“None of it was your fault.”
“I appreciate the fluffy words, Phi. Thanks for trying to salvage my ego. But I don’t need to be told I did my best. I don’t want your pityorcomfort.”
Shaking my head in confusion, I say, “It’s the truth. You gave it your all—”
“And it wasn’t good enough!” he barks so loudly, so suddenly, I flinch at the sheer volume. He whips back around and returns to his angry glare out the window. “You want to sit and pick at every last detail of all the fucked up shit that happened to us, Phi? Fine! Let’s get it over with—my father was in the driver’s seat all along! For years, I thought I had him where I wanted him, some big plan to take him out, but all along, it was his game! He controlled the board, he moved the pieces, he played me like a fucking chess piece, and I let him, every step of the way!”
I’m taken aback, speechless and frozen. A coldness has seized me, blowing through my lungs, making me feel like I’ve been pricked by sharp icicles. As Salvatore shouts and rages, I’m rooted in place, unsure what to say, or how to possibly help.
No number of self-help books can arm me for this. No articles online or canned therapy sessions with Alicia Keeney will do the trick.
There’s no protection from the raw, ugly truth of Salvatore and what he’s been through.
So I stand there and experience it all. Every angry word, bitter note in his voice, frustrated glare out the window, and violent clench of his fists—the good oneandthe broken one.
It’s a look I recognize and have seen before. He’s surrendered to his baser, violent urges. The part of him that earned him the moniker Psycho.
“He used me! He used you! He orchestrated almost every last fucking thing that’s happened in our lives, Phi! Don’t you get it?” he growls. “From sending me away to South Valley to your attack that night! He sat back and watched as I fooled myself into thinking I ever stood a chance! And when I got my hands on that second tape, like he’s always wanted, he finally did what he’d been waiting to do all along!
“He threw me in a cell alongside my own father… myrealfather! Maybe the only other man he ever hated more than me. Just so he could torture us both. Once and for all, his fucked up, twisted payback for feeling inadequate and disfigured! And he destroyed me… he fucking destroyed me in every way he could. I was a kid again. Weak and powerless.”
“Salvatore,” I croak, taking a step toward him. “You couldn’t control what happened—”
“THAT’S THE PROBLEM!” he roars in answer, and my step forward changes into two back. Veins protrude and pulse in his thick neck, the sheer rage contorted on his face is enough to make my heart boom in my chest. “Don’t you get it, Phi? I FAILED! I was a fucking failure who couldn’t even protect my own people, who couldn’t even put up a real fight! I lost more than half my men. I lost my operations. The fucking club and loft. I lost you! I let them—him—take you! After I promised it’d never happen!
“Do you understand what that was like for me? Sitting in that cell? Knowing how I’d failed? How I was probably never going to see daylight again or breathe in fresh air? That my men had depended on me and wound up dead. That you were… that they were… going to…” His breathing spirals out of control, ragged and rough with deep inhales and his sculpted chest heaving. He runs frustrated fingers through his hair and forces in several more desperate breaths.
I recognize what’s happening, experiencing many of my own over the past year and a half—Salvatore’s having a panic attack.
I rush over, putting an arm around his back and a hand to his chest. “Jon, stay with me. I’m not going anywhere. We’re okay and we’re breathing. Just breathe. In and out.”
For a couple footsteps, I’m propping Salvatore up as I walk him to the sofa. We plop down with his breaths still erratic and his complexion paling. The tension that cords through him is tighter than I’ve ever felt it, his shoulders, arms, and chest more solid than steel.
But he breathes with me. Together, we watch each other, and we inhale slower and slower breaths ’til his heart has calmed and the panic recedes. Even if only slightly.
He’s still tightly wound, his skin pale and sickly. He leans back into the cushions, his eyes squeezing closed.
I’m racking my brain for what else to say. How to possibly make this better.
Salvatore is riddled with guilt and feelings of failure. I don’t blame him and neither do any of his men. My tongue itches to repeat this to him, though I hold off.
That’s not what he wants to hear from me. He knows I don’t blame him—in fact, it almost seems the less I blame him, the more he blames himself.
Instead, I caress his face, stroking his jaw and touching his cheek. I bring our faces close together, my brow to his, and I tell him I love him.
The truest, sincerest words I can tell him at a time like this, where he’s fallen into an endless spiral of self-hate and blame.
My lips brush against his as I do. Then they sweep, softly and gently, across other parts of him—his cheek and jaw, his neck and ear. I hold his face and meet his confused gaze, my own reflecting in his. My love and warmth living in his as he absorbs how I feel and settles into a quiet sense of calm.
His hand comes up and covers mine at rest on his cheek. He guides it to his lips and kisses my palm. As he does, he feels the ring on my finger, a reminder to himself of how joined we’ve become.
His suffering is mine. Mine is his.
“Thank you,” he rasps. “For being you. For being mine. My wife.”
I smile. “Always.”
