by Mj Fields
I look at the man leaning against the car and ask, “Do you know the area well?”
“Yeah.” He stands. “Where do you want to go?”
“Just drive around, please.” I slide into the car.
As soon as I wrap my arms around her, she whispers, “I’m so sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I’ve made a mess.” She sniffs as she curls up against me. “No matter what, please don’t stop being my friend.”
“Tris,” I whisper as the car pulls away, and I hold her head against my chest. “Rest.”
When she’s calmed down, she looks up at me. “I love you, I really do.”
“I know this. And you know I love you.”
I lean forward. “Could you turn on some classical music and just keep driving?”
“I just took my meds. When I even out, I need to talk with you.”
“I’m here for that.”
Within an hour, she’s asleep. “Could you get us back now, please?”
The driver nods. “Of course.”
On our way back, I pull her into my lap and hold her head to my shoulder. For the first time, I worry that, when I am gone, she may be worse instead of better.
Was it wrong for me to think love could heal her? Was it selfish to believe in the magnetic draw, my two negatives making a positive theory? Was I simply trying to manifest it because I need her?
Yes, need.
God help us both.
~~~
I carry her inside, past the room full of people, and up the stairs to her room across the hall from mine, but only for two nights, and then I nudge the door with my shoulder and look around. The same flowers that I had placed about the hotel suite the day that I proposed—white lilies and roses, pure, clean, an empty canvas.
I climb on the bed, kicking back the duvet and the rose petals, and hold her for a bit, hoping she wakes up.
She’s sleeping, sound asleep.
“Te he echado de menos, mi corazón.” I brush my lips across hers as I lay her down.
After covering her up, I lay on my side, push her hair from her face, and stare at her. “Do I love you more than myself, mi coraźon? Do I love you enough to walk away to—”
“Matteo,” Bekah Steel whispers as she walks into the room and smiles sadly at her daughter. “Did she tell you what’s troubling her?”
I shake my head. “But she’s sleeping, si?”
Bekah sits on the other side of the bed and looks at me. “Zandor is outside and would like to talk with you. I’ll stay with her until you get back.”
“Is everything all right?”
She smiles down at Tris. “Everything will be all right?”
~~~
Outside, I see Zandor standing next to a Jag. He waves me over.
Walking down the stairs, I am thankful I slept before their arrival.
He slides in the driver’s seat, and I open the passenger door. “Is everything all right?”
“I hope it will be. Get in.”
“Where are we going?” I ask as I shut the door.
“Not far. Less than a mile down the road, so I’m gonna make this quick.” He throws the vehicle into drive and hits the accelerator.
“When Tris chose you, you became family.”
Grabbing the dash as he fishtails out of the driveway, I manage to calmly thank him.
“Family is a choice.” He pushes out a laugh. “Trust me; there are times they can drain me and drive me insane, but I lucked out, and my brothers are my best friends, but that is a rarity, and I know that. Hell, we all do.”
He takes a corner going too fast for my liking, and I ask, “Is this some sort of hazing, because in case you forgot, my hearts a bit weak.”
“No, Matteo, it’s strong, and so are you. Tris sees it in you, and so does anyone who has spent more than a couple minutes with you.”
“Appreciated.”
“Another thing you need to know is a secret is rarely kept with this crew, but all of yours are.” He pulls into a gravel parking lot, and the lights shine on two vehicles that are running a few yards away. “I’d like to have better prepared you for this, but there wasn’t time, so know this”—he throws the car in park—“I have your back, and your secrets are safe with me.” He points toward the men getting out of the vehicles. “They don’t know a damn thing from myself or Tris. Hell, I’ve kept him from asking questions. Some advice? You let him talk and, no matter what he says, no matter what you choose to divulge, you’re my family now. You’re my son.”
“Is that—”
“Let’s get this over with so that, when Tris wakes up, we have a plan, okay?”
“I’m confused.”
“Like I said, I don’t know all the details either. Listen to what he has to say. Don’t give him anything in return unless you want to. Everything is up to you, Matteo. You’re not alone.” He opens the door and steps out.
I watch Sabato pace and immediately feel sick to my stomach.
Zandor leans in. “One more thing.”
I nod.
“When she said she loves you, we felt that, too.”
I open the door and step out, gravel crunching beneath my shoes as I walk toward where Zandor stands toe-to-toe with him.
Another man gets out of the other vehicle, and I focus on him.
“Jesus Christ,” Sabato hisses.
“Watch it, Effisto. He doesn’t know anything. Tris was a bit of a mess when we got in.”
Eyes still on the other man, Sabato says, “Look at me and tell me you didn’t know before you met her. Tell me this isn’t some sort of revenge against me.”
“This is how you’re gonna do this? This is how—”
“Is there a fucking manual I didn’t get, Steel! Is there? Because my wife is a fucking therapist, and she’s a fucking wreck.”
I shove my hands in my pocket and inhale the scent of the ocean then look at Zandor. “I’d like to leave now.”
“You got it, kid,” he says, turning around.
“He’s not a fucking kid. He’s twenty-six years old. Twenty-six years!” Sabato’s voice echoes in the air.
Zandor looks back at me, and I shake my head. “I do not have the desire to know this man.”
“Well, tough shit. You matched with Torrence’s online, find-a-family bullshit and sent up flares for the Italian mafia to come look for you.”
“Bullshit. Tris put the test in a bullshit name with my post office address; said he didn’t care to know. He was doing it for her.”
“Of course he was,” Sabato huffs. “Sweet little Tri—”
I poke him in the chest. “You watch your mouth about her, you piece of shit.”
“I deserve that!” he yells. “I fucking deserve that.” He hits his chest. “Come on.”
“All right, I’ve seen enough,” the other man says as he steps forward and holds out his hand. “Matteo, my name is Thor. Sabato is my half-brother. His mother and—”
“With all due respect, sir, I don’t give a damn.”
“But you should. You have—”
“I have everything I need and could want,” I cut him off. “I have a family. I don’t require another. As a matter of fact, and just so there is no reason to revisit this, they do not know I am not blood. I have money of my own and family money. I am ensuring my nieces, my true family, the ones I love, will be taken care of long into their adulthoods, so I ask two things from you. Do not ruin it for them, and do not think I need nor want anything to do with you or yours.”
“I take care of what’s mine.”
“Don’t be daft. I am not yours, nor will I ever be.” I turn to walk away and stop. “Tell your daughter it was someone after your blood money, and tell your son to stay the fuck away from what’s my family and my wife.”
Walking back to the car, I hear Sabato yell, “Luciana Prova, your mother, my first love. Her name was Luciana Prova, and my bastard father caused the accident that I thought killed h
er. For that, he died. You may not need me, but I need to know how you were put into the hands of a family whose business was failing. I need to know if Luciana is alive, and I want to know who took from me so they, too, can pay for their sins.”
I don’t look back, and as I step forward, he yells, “Luciana deserves to be avenged.”
I turn back. “What makes you think she didn’t sell me off to keep me from ever knowing you? From ever knowing a man who killed his father—”
“To make him pay for what he did to her!” His outstretched hand contains a photo. “She was a good girl, a sweet girl. After my mother’s murder, also caused by the man I called father, Luciana was the first person who dared show me kindness. She loved me, and I her. She deserves vengeance.”
“Again, you assume she—”
“I was shot once, nearly died. She came to me in the light people speak of, and she introduced me to a boy, our son, she called him Eroe.”
We speak for a few minutes. I tell Sabato nothing different. And I ask that he speaks to no one about this. I ask him to stay away from me and to not come to the wedding in two days. And I ask him not to tell his son, because as I told him at the concert—teach him to be a man.
When I walk away and get into the car, Zandor is standing in front of Sabato, protecting me, which is not necessary but appreciated.
The man named Thor comes to the vehicle, and I roll down the window. Leaning in, he asks that, if I ever change my mind and will come clean with anyone, that I call him, and he gives me a card. He tells me that there’s a lot at stake. He also tells me that he once loved my mother, and that she would be very proud of her Eroe, which is Italian for hero. He then hands me a picture of her. I can’t look at it, though, not yet, anyway.
He then tells me that Sabato is a good man, even though he comes off as a complete ass. And lastly, he tells me that, regardless of what I decide to do, he is family to me and for me in every sense of the word, whenever and if ever I am ready.
When Zandor gets in the car, he tells me he is proud of me.
When we get out of the car at the house, I tell him I am going to sleep and to let Tris know I will speak to her soon.
I lay in bed, staring at a photo of a women whose eyes were kind, who I could tell was good and who I know one day I could meet again.
He Loves Me Not…
Tris
“It’s wedding eve, much to do today, sleepyhead,” Brisa’s all too chipper voice brings me from my haze and the blinding sun as she pulls open the drapes, making me angry. The flowers surrounding me make me sad. But the reality that they will wither up and die, just like the love I thought I found, makes me sick.
He’s not here. Matteo left.
What the hell did I expect?
I pull the covers over my head. “He left. He’s not coming back because—”
She laughs. “Dad said he went to spend the day with his family and—”
Throwing the covers off, I bolt upright. “In Spain!”
She giggles. “They’re here, just down the road.”
I knew they would take him from me. I knew that, once he found out, he would pick them, and they would make him see he doesn’t need me. The double edge to that sword is that I also knew it’s what’s best for him. They would see that he’s okay.
But still I ask, “What family?”
“Two brothers, three nieces? Heard one of them is single and in the wedding party.” She flops on the bed. “I need to get laid, so hook a sister up?”
Unsure of what that means exactly, I scramble off the bed and look around the room. “I need my phone.” I dump my purse on the floor. “Where in the fuck is my phone?”
“You never charge your—”
“I need my damn phone, Brisa,” I cut her off, panicking.
She frowns. Hell, she looks like she may even cry. Do I feel bad? Yes, but that’s a normal as fuck feeling for me, because I am bad.
“Okay.” She nods as she gets off the bed. “We’ll find it, and then—”
“Where’s Dad or Mom? I need them.”
She opens a suitcase as I riffle through another. “Mom is here somewhere. Dad left earlier. Maybe he went to get a haircut? Speaking of … the seamstress will be here soon and—”
I feel it coming—the static. “I need you to leave.”
She forces a Disney princess smile as she carefully unpacks the bag. “But we have a spa day, and—”
“Brisa! Now!” I spot the charger and grab it, and then I see my phone. I hold it up as I stand. “Go.”
“Okay. I’m sorry, I just—”
“I’m an asshole, you know this. Just go.”
“You’re not—”
“Oh my God, Brisa, please get out!”
Walking out the door, she calls back, “While it’s charging, you should shower, so—”
“I’m not getting married, okay? I’m not and—”
“I knew it. I knew you’d realize this was too soon. I have a plan. Grab your shit and let’s run.”
“Get the hell out!” I yell as I plug the phone into the charger, and then the charger into the wall.
As soon as I do it, the place falls silent, and I hear people outside the room groan, and then Amias chuckles from somewhere and says, “Which one of you assholes forgot to use the adapter?”
I hurl my phone across the room. “I hate my fucking life!”
“I have a portable charger in my room, and someone will fix the short; they always do.”
“Brisa …” I sigh. “Just go.”
Defeated, I climb back into bed.
When the door opens again, I barely register it. But, when Brisa sets the phone down, now hooked up to her charger, I look up at her.
“Do you love him, Tris? Truly love him?”
I close my eyes, and she links her pinky with mine, like she did when we were younger and I would get anxious walking into school. Pinkies linked, she would tell me, “I’m here no matter where you are,” and I’d ask her, “No matter what?” Little did I know back then that I got so far away that no one could reach me. Except Matteo did, and now … now he’s gone.
“Fairy tales aren’t real.”
“But love is.”
I open my eyes and look at her. “What if you learn you need love and you like it, and then everything falls apart?”
She cocks her head to the side and smiles. “Then you put it back together by any means possible.”
“What if it’s too broken?” I whisper.
“Nothing is ever so broken that love can’t heal it.” Her pinky grips mine a little firmer. “No matter where.”
I can’t bring myself to reply, because I have found depths that I would never ask anyone to travel for me.
“Look at my girls,” Mom says as she enters the room.
I pull my pinky from Brisa’s, because it’s nothing but a lie, and sit up.
Mom smiles, and it’s one of her sad ones.
“Don’t.” I shake my head. “Just don’t, okay?”
“Could you give us a minute, Brisa?” Mom asks.
“Could you just give me the damn pill?”
“Oh God, Mom.” Brisa laughs as she slides off the bed and pops a kiss to Mom’s cheek. “Give her a party pill; do not Sixteen Candles her.”
Mom smiles at her. “I’ll give her whatever she needs. You go; the girls are waiting on you. The seamstress is starting with you first.”
“Don’t bother. I’m not getting married.” I hold out my hand, and Mom drops two pills into it.
“It’s all going to work out the way it’s meant to.” Mom hands me the bottle of water from the nightstand.
On her way out the door, Brisa calls back, “Remember, I can drive the getaway car if needs be.”
“Brisa,” Mom scolds her.
“I know.” Brisa rolls her eyes. “Brisa, go.”
“That’s not what—”
Mom stops when Brisa shuts the door, and I slide off the bed.
“Eve
rything’s gonna be fine,” Mom calls to my back as I walk to the bathroom door.
“Yeah. I’m going to shower.”
~~~
I have come up with lyrics to entire songs while in the shower, so it shouldn’t surprise me that it brings on the solution to my problem.
The problem being Matteo is the son of Sabato Effisto and the half-brother to my first love, to my tormentor.
Dropping the towel on the floor, I grab a silky ivory color thong and the matching bra that Mom had laid out for me and put them on. Then I grab the white, cotton button-up and throw it on.
Closing my eyes, I flip the phone over and see exactly what I knew would be there—nothing, not one message or missed call from Matteo.
At this moment, I am grateful for the drugs. The static is blurred, and my emotions are at bay. I will not freak. I will not freak.
“Note by note,” I whisper as I pull on the navy and white striped linen shorts.
~~~
Back in my room, happy to have put my stage face on for everyone enough to do some snooping around, my stomach turns as I grab my phone and see that Matteo still hasn’t replied to my message.
I love you, no matter what.
I slide under the bed, phone in hand, and tears fill my eyes as I open the app and type out a detailed message, and they pour down my cheeks as I hit … send.
I roll to my back and pray to a God who I once abandoned because I thought He abandoned me.
Please, God, please let him be okay, and please let them both forgive me, not for me, but for them. And please, let me sleep the hurt away and wake seeing I’ve done the right thing.
Sleep doesn’t come, but two hands reach under the bed and drag me out from under it.
I try to kick them away, grumbling, “Would you two fuck off?”
“I grabbed her first, I win.” Max chuckles.
“Like hell you did.” Amias jacks my leg.
“I’m not a fucking wishbone,” I snarl.
“Good plan, Tris.” Max laughs and looks at Amias. “Biggest side wins!”
“I will cut both of your nuts off in your sleep and feed them to each other.” I kick them away.
“Aren’t brides supposed to be all sweet with hearts in their eyes?” Max grabs my hand and jacks me up.