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I sigh and tilt my head, hiding the pain her words cause. I wish she would understand. But there’s no use, she’s either blinded by my father or this life.
“Ours was also an arranged marriage.”
I whip my head at her, and she leans in and whispers, “I had a crush on someone else.”
“Did my father kill him?” I ask, with no trace of joking.
“Chiara.” My mother’s soft voice is threaded with despair.
“Sorry, go on.”
“I told him I would never love him, that he was too much like my father.”
“And?”
I rest my chin on my palm, my mother’s giddiness spiking my curiosity.
“It was his patience. He was patient, and gentle . . . loving him meant accepting him. Plus, he keeps what troubles him the most to himself. He has protected me as best he can from this life.”
“Didn’t you want something else . . . something normal?”
“Normal is overrated. To me, normal means you settled for mediocrity because it was safe.”
Her response shuts me up, and my sister comes back. She smiles, wearing a relieved expression.
We get a three-hour-long beauty treatment. We giggle, we gossip, and for a while, I am happy. For a while, I don’t think about the need to prevent the wedding, to truly be free from this life. But I give myself today, a day to remember, a day I can be just a daughter and a sister, not a mafia princess, forced to marry a man she doesn’t want. My mother is wrong.Normalis what we strive for in the chaos of life. We don’t settle in life; we aspire to live, and normal is just the sum of moments you live like you want to.
Back home, I head to my room. I twirl leather and beads on a bracelet with thoughts of Cato running through my head. I squeeze my eyes shut, yelping as a drop of hot glue lands on my finger. Running to the bathroom, I let cold water soothe the ache. I hate him, I hate myself for allowing him to disturb my peacefulness. I expected him to brag about his power, how he succeeded to make my father rein himself in. Even though my father’s confession was the hardest punishment I’ve ever endured. I sigh, towel dry my hands, and walk out of the bathroom, tiredness weighing me down. I fall onto the bed. An unknown number flashes on my screen. Split between ignoring it and curiosity, I answer it.
“Cara.” His voice bottled in seduction sprays on me in sweet torment.
“What do you want?”
“What are you doing?”
“Are you delusional?”
He laughs, but it’s a hard laugh, like the man himself, both on the outside and inside, a fortress of steel, muscles, and spiky wires.
“How did it go?”
“Eager to claim your win?”
“I will, soon.”
“Why not now?” I taunt him, so eager to see what he’ll do next.
“Careful,cara, I might take it as an invitation.”
“Never.”
“It will be so fun conquering you.”
“Is everything a power struggle to you?”
“Yes.”
His sincerity should disturb me, but I soak in his words. At least with him, there is no pretense, no false sense of security. He embraces who he is, and what he does.
