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VALENTINA
I tryto put on a brave face, but today has me rattled.
I may never have the joy of opening a present ever again.
I shudder when I think back to the flowers arriving, and I want to throw up.
Everything I once held dear is turning to shit.
My life. My livelihood. My freedom.
The only thing good at the moment is me and Enzo, and I can’t tell anyone about it.
I have to live and love him in secret. Pretending he is nothing to me except a close family friend, and now, my bodyguard. I want to laugh hysterically, even though none of this is funny.
When we’re in bed together late at night, he holds me closer than he ever has before.
He’s different when he’s concerned about me.
I see that it’s not just in the change of his face and the way his eyebrows knit together, but the way he stands guard, hovering, like he’s ready to pounce any minute.
“Why do you hate drinking?” I ask out of nowhere, when we’re wrapped around each other.
“I don’t hate it. It just doesn’t agree with me.”
I stroke his hair back with my hand, loving how warm he is under my touch. “Is it because of your father?”
He stares at the ceiling. “Yes.”
“You don’t talk about him much.”
“That’s because he’s not worth talking about. He wasn’t a nice person. He hurt… people.”
I stare at him as I sit up onto my elbows. “What do you mean?”
He rests one hand down on my thigh, tracing circles with his fingers. “You don’t really want to hear this.”
“I do, Enzo. I do if you want to share it.”
He puts one arm over his eyes as I wait. “There isn’t much to tell. He was a drunk, a nasty one at that. He hit my mom, regularly. So regular, in fact, I grew up thinking it was normal.”
I stare at him, not knowing what to say. I’ve never heard anything about him like this before. I guess I suspected something must have happened in his past from the way he never talks about his childhood, and the whole alcohol thing.
“Unfortunately, I was too young and never got the chance to knock him on his ass. I thought about looking him up just to do just that when I got older, but I didn’t see the point. I’d moved on.”
I always knew that Enzo had a very estranged relationship with his father, but I never knew why, or the extent of the damage.
“Enzo, I’m so sorry. I never knew.”
He shrugs. “It’s not something I like to talk about very often.”
“Did he… did he hurt you too?”
He swallows hard. “Yes, both physically and mentally. The bruises heal in time, but the other scars stay with you, in the dark corners of your mind, and they resurface from time to time.”
“Oh, Enzo.”
“I’m fine with it now.” He sighs. “I’ve dealt with it and moved on. But to ensure I became nothing like him, I’ve always been very careful with alcohol, since he was an alcoholic after all.”
