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I nod, feeling the regret of a sixteen-year-old girl who made the mistake and tried to move on when everyone told her to. “It’s not what you think,” I say.
“You mean it wasn’t you on a date with another boy?” He moves as if suddenly coming to life and takes a predatory step forward. “It wasn’t you kissing him in the doorway of your father’s apartment building? It wasn’t him putting his hands on you as that kiss turned into something much, much more than a simple kiss good night?”
“You were watching—”
“Yes, I was goddamn watching,” he barks. “I was watching as my entire fucking life came crashing down around me. I had run away to find you. To disappear with you. To be with you. Only to find you with him…” His eyes blaze, his jaw ticks. “It was like being struck by fucking lightning. In a split second, everything changed.”
“What you saw… it was only a small fragment of what my life was like when I first came to America.”
“It didn’t feel fucking small to me.”
“You have to understand the upheaval I’d just gone through.”
“My mother had just died, and my girlfriend was three thousand miles away. Don’t talk to me about upheaval.”
I draw in a deep breath to steady my nerves. There is so much I need to say, but the mood in the room is tense and volatile, so I need to choose my words wisely.
“When I arrived in America, my father told me I had to move on. I was only sixteen years old, and the separation from you became more and more difficult to live with. I made friends, I started hanging out. They saw how miserable I was missing you and encouraged me to move on. Just like my father told me to do. I couldn’t bear the idea, but eventually, I couldn’t take the loneliness anymore. It fucked with my head. It was either fit in or fall apart. You seemed so far away, and I got confused. So I agreed to go on a date with David. I tried to forget you, tried to move on just like everyone told me to. I was too young, too naive to realize what a mistake I was making.”
I remember the crushing loneliness like it was yesterday. How foreign everything was and how desperately I wanted to feel normal again.
When you’re sixteen, everything seems so much bigger and more tragic.
“But when I went on dates with him, when I kissed him, it didn’t feel right. It was a big mistake, and I realized very quickly that hanging out with a new boy and kissing him wasn’t going to make me love you any less, so I broke up with him.”
When he says nothing, I huff out a breath. “I made a mistake. Haven’t you ever made one of those?”
His jaw ticks. “I don’t make mistakes.”
Of course, he doesn’t.
“We were teenagers, Nico.”
“Don’t you think I know that? I would’ve gotten over it. Moved on. But I didn’t get the chance. Because when I came home, my father told me how my mother killed herself because of your father, and my heartbreak morphed into something more than just a broken teenage heart. It became something much darker.”
My eyes widen. “Why would your mother kill herself because of my—”
“They were having an affair, Bella.”
His words catch me off guard. Not to mention harpoon me in the heart.
I take a step back. “You’re lying.”
“After your mama and brothers died, they started an affair.”
“Don’t say that,” I warn.
A warning he chooses to ignore.
“When she learned of your father’s plans to move to the States, she begged him to take her with him. But he refused. So she killed herself in front of the two men who’d let her down the most in her life. A final fuck you for the sad, loveless marriage she’d endured with my father and the disappointing end to a passionate love affair she had with yours.”
“I don’t believe you,” I whisper.
“It’s true, Bella. Ask your father.”
I grit my teeth so hard my jaw spasms. “I will, and then you’ll owe me a big fucking apology when we find out it was a lie.”
“You’re right. We’ll talk to him about it. And then you’ll know the truth.”
I glare at him. But his stormy eyes tell me he couldn't care less.
Exhausted, I let out a heavy breath.
I finally have the answers my broken teenage heart had longed for—answers I will process alone. But it seems obvious to me. Fate had been against us from the very start. “After the wedding, we will talk with my father. Until then, I don’t want to hear anything more about it.”
He nods. He seems calmer, his head slightly bowed, but his body is still taut and tense and braced for battle.
