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Of course, he did.
It would have surprised me if he couldn’t.
Ace let out another resigned breath. “I guess everyone leaves us eventually, don’t they?” he said, staring down at the flowers.
Another wave of pain washed over me, this one much older — a sharp shard that made my heart bleed no matter how many years passed.
I made a quiet noise of acknowledgment, and Ace seemed to pick up something in my voice. From the corner of his eye, he shot me a look filled with understanding.
“You still think about it?”
Of course, I did.
It would have been impossible for me to forget.
Dahlia had managed to carve out a special place for herself in the depths of my mind, one that was tucked away but always present.
It wasn’t like I wasn’t aware of what Ace thought about the subject.
He had made his stand on it more than clear. He told me that the guilt shouldn’t be mine to bear, but how could it not be?
It was my bed that Dahlia had been sleeping on.
I could still remember how warm and flushed her skin had felt to the touch. Hear the loud hacking coughs that would rock her small body.
I was supposed to keep watch over her during the night, but exhaustion got the better of me and I fell asleep. The next morning, when I woke up, she was gone.
We were told that she was taken to see the nurse, but then days passed and she still wasn’t brought back. Despite our frequent and loud pleas, we hadn’t been allowed to visit her in the infirmary, and only after what felt like an eternity of waiting, we finally got some news.
Only, they weren’t good ones.
Her small flu had progressed into pneumonia, which later led to sepsis and caused her organs to start shutting down.
We never even had the chance to say goodbye.
The Don’s first visit to the orphanage happened a few weeks later. He was looking for his long-lost daughter, having had obtained the information from a trusted source, telling him that she was there. But instead of finding his daughter, all he foundwas an empty bed, a small suitcase full of her belongings, and stories about her.
We shared more stories about her with him than anyone else.
The Don continued to visit a couple of times more, and on his last visit, he offered us a proposal. He asked us if we wanted to come with him. He said that he’d provide a home for us, and give us financial support and education and that all he wanted in return was loyalty.
At the time, the most obvious answer had been yes.
We left the orphanage behind us, but we never forgot about our little Dahlia, still so young and bright.
All that was left of her now was an empty grave.
I had never managed to forgive myself for falling asleep that night.
“I still sometimes think about her too, you know,” Ace said, a sorrowful timbre in his voice. “About how different our lives would have been like if she was still alive.”
Just imagining it made my heart ache — trapped in a perpetual circle of longing for something that could never be.
That was why I avoided thinking about impossible things.
Dahlia will never come back to life.
Ludovica will leave.
