by Addison Jane
“Hello?” Ava’s mom Bonnie answered in a sweet tone.
I licked my lips. “Hi Bonnie, it’s Emerson.” The words left me, I didn’t know what to say. Sorry I hurt your child? Sorry my family drama has caused you all so much pain?
There was silence for a second, followed by a soft sigh. “Emerson, how are you holding up?” Her tone was motherly and nonjudgemental, and that alone brought tears to my eyes.
“I’m trying,” I whispered, my throat clogged with emotion. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of Ava,” I paused. “I really need to know how she is.”
Bonnie cleared her throat, as if she was feeling the same way I was. I didn’t blame her. Her baby girl had been through something horrific, something I couldn’t imagine any parent would want their child to go through. “She really just wants time alone,” Bonnie answered sadly. “As much as I think you and Leah could help her through this, it’s brought back memories that…” there was a drawn out silence while I waited for her to continue, “… that have haunted her for a long time.”
Tears dripped down onto my cheeks and I sniffled. “I’m so sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“Emerson, I know this wasn’t your fault. Ava is just in a bad place right now. And when she gets like this… you can’t force yourself back in. You have to let her come to you,” Bonnie told me softly. “Give her time. She isn’t in a good headspace right now, so it’s best to just let it be for a while.”
I wanted to argue and tell her that I couldn’t do that. I loved Ava. How was I meant to sit back and let her suffer alone?
“I need to go, I’m sorry Emerson. I’ll have her call you when she’s feeling better,” Bonnie offered in a hurry before she said a quick goodbye and hung up.
My chest ached.
I hated this.
I’d lost a sister.
My best friend was alone and falling to pieces, and she didn’t want anything to do with me. I felt like I was sinking. Guilt, anger, devastation all piling on top of me, one after the other. I didn’t want to prove Tobia right and let this eat me up from the inside, I really wanted to fight it, but I knew he was winning.
“Stop it,” Angelo growled, and my head snapped to where he was once again standing by the door, watching me, his eyes narrowed. “You’re letting him get inside your head, I can see it.”
“And how am I meant to stop? I can’t just forget what’s happened,” I protested, my fingers gripping the blanket beneath me.
“Do you know the best part about being broken, Emerson?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest and propping his shoulder against the doorframe. His suit was ruffled from our long flight, and I had no doubt that I looked like I’d been on a three-day bender with no sleep, and only surviving on the fumes of the alcohol on my breath.
Inhaling deeply through my nose, I shook my head.
“You get to put yourself back together in any way that you like. You can find the pieces, create something new, something beautiful, something you never imagined possible before.” The silky tone of his voice empowered me.
“You seem to know what you’re talking about,” I murmured, turning my body to face him, hoping to catch some kind of emotion, some kind of story or hint about who this man was. “How are you so sure?”
“Because you aren’t the only one who’s been broken,” he answered softly, his features softening in a way I’d never seen before. My eyes widened as I watched a look of empathy come across his face, as though he really felt my pain, that he knew what I was going through and that he’d do whatever humanly possible in order to pull me through it.
Within a flash though, it was gone. The deep, prominent scowl was back, but a part of me had already warmed. I’d seen the mask fall.
“Would it kill you to actually smile occasionally?” I asked without really considering the question first.
There was a twitch in his cheek, but that was the only answer I got before he turned and walked straight out the door. I scrubbed at my face, looking over and spotting a rather inviting ensuite bathroom. As much as the idea of chasing after Angelo and bugging the hell out of him seemed appealing, a hot scolding shower to wash off the filth of the past few days was so much more enticing.
Angelo could wait.
I had some scum to scrub away, and a puzzle to begin piecing back together.
One piece at a time.
I peeked my head out the door and into the hall, twisting the bottom of my pajama top between my fingers as I checked to make sure Mom and Dad had gone to bed.
Noting the fact that the house was quiet, and I could hear a slightly muffled snore coming from my parents’ bedroom, I decided to make a run for it.
I tiptoed across the wooden floors, leaping from one foot to another in order to avoid the boards that creaked. The hallway was quite wide, but my sister’s bedroom was on the other side, and we never went to sleep anymore without a nightly trip across the hallway.
At first, we’d always taken turns. One night she would make the run for it and the next I would risk it. But the last couple of years, it had always been me crossing the hallway to Sophie’s bedroom, simply because to get from the hall to inside the bedroom and the soft carpet, I’d have to make a leap which had taken me a long time in dance class to perfect.
I bit my lip as I did just that, landing right inside Sophie’s doorway and grabbing the frame, so I didn’t fall backward. Her bedside lamp flicked on, blinding me for a moment until I spotted her grinning face as she pulled back the blankets for me to climb in. I rushed over and dived in beside her, tucking the blanket underneath my armpits and grabbing her hands in mine.
“Tell me, Sophie,” I whispered, eager to hear about the adventure she’d been on that day.
She giggled, tucking her dark hair behind her ears and laying her hands in her lap. There were four years between Sophie and me, yet, she’d always been my best friend.
“I had to kiss Malcolm,” she said on a gasp, her body wriggling around under the blanket.
My mouth dropped open, and I stared at her with a mixture of horror and jealousy.
Sophie was on a Nickelodeon television show called Terifficness. She was the best friend to the main character and acted with my crush, Malcolm Dennis. He was so cute, I even had pictures of him plastered up on my bedroom wall, but I made Sophie promise that she would never tell him.
“Was it… good?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me. Sophie was fifteen, so she’d already had her first kiss. At eleven, I still wondered sometimes whether it was possible for boys to have cooties.
She shrugged. “It was okay.”
I raised my eyebrow, I could always tell when Sophie was lying to me. “Sophie…”
She sighed and fell back onto the bed, grabbing hold of my hand. “I know you like him, I don’t want you to get mad at me.”
I frowned at her. “I could never get mad at you.”
“Never?”
I shook my head. “He’s just a boy. Why would we let a stupid boy come between us?”
She grinned back at me, her soft brown eyes warming me inside. “Nothing will ever come between us, Emmy. You’ll always have me, and I’ll always have you. Nothing else matters.”
I felt comfort knowing that no matter what happened, Sophie would always stand beside me. I knew growing up would be hard. There would be boys who would probably break my heart, there would be school work and university, and dance too. I was learning new tricks every day, and it made my muscles hurt sometimes so badly that I would cry at night.
I couldn’t tell Mom or Dad, though, because I knew they would use it as an excuse to pull me out of dance class, and dance was everything to me. I loved the music, the way I could use my body to tell a story and how happy it made me feel when I was on the dance floor.
I could make it through anything with Sophie by my side, though. We were two different people, but sometimes I felt like we shared a soul.
“You’ll never leave me right, Soph
ie?” I asked her, just needing to hear her say the words.
She stared at me for a moment like I was absolutely crazy, but soon she smiled and without warning leaped on top of me, her arms wrapping around my neck. I started to laugh, unable to keep it in as she smothered me.
“Okay, okay, I get it,” I protested through giggles, trying to keep my voice as low as possible.
“I’ll never leave you, Emmy. I promise.”
My body shivered as a cold chill ran up my back, and my eyes flicked open. I could feel wetness on my cheeks, and my breathing was labored. Shaking my head, I wiped them away, memories of Sophie making me want to scream out loud and throw something at the wall. She had always been my rock, even when we were kids. Sophie was years older than I was, but she never once treated me like I was an annoying little sister that she didn’t want to spend time with.
She would give up time with her friends and other famous kids to come home and hang out with me or come to my recitals. Looking back, it almost seemed as though Sophie was somewhat taking the place of my parents, encouraging me to follow my passions when my parents would prioritize my studies.
She was never supposed to leave me.
It should have been me.
It was meant to be me.
Would this kind of guilt ever go away? Sophie seemed to have so much more to bring the world. People everywhere loved her, cherished her, and looked up to the amazing woman that she was.
Did I have anything like that to offer?
No, not at all.
I had nothing spectacular or amazing to offer the world. Lawyers were one in a million, so were dancers. What else did I have?
Feeling frustrated, I tossed the blankets off me and climbed out of bed. The clock on the nightstand read 6:00 a.m., but I was wide awake. I often got up early for training if I had a competition coming up, or occasionally when my body ached to get out there and dance.
Like it did right now.
I ignored it though.
Dance brought me joy, happiness, and I knew for those moments that I would be free and that all of this crazy atmosphere surrounding me would disappear. The idea was enticing, it was something I actually did often—used dance to escape.
Right now, though, I didn’t feel like I deserved it.
Making my way down the hall, I was careful to keep my footsteps light, not wanting to wake the beast. He was probably cranky in the mornings. I was surprised when I reached the open plan living room that the balcony doors were already pushed wide open, the morning sun shining in through them. Curiously, I peeked outside, my mouth going dry when I spotted Angelo standing at the edge of the balcony looking out over the street. A pair of suit pants hung low on his hips, but he was naked from the waist up and held a coffee cup in his hand.
I licked my lips.
The man had the body of a fucking god. While he looked mighty fine in a suit, the outfit matching his harsh character, it definitely did not do him any justice. I wondered how often he worked out because a body like his took effort, it took strict diet and hours upon hours at the gym.
I should know, being a dancer, I was pretty lucky with my body shape, but building muscle strong enough to do the things I could do on stage, it took work. A lot of fucking work. And you have to watch the kind of food you take in, or you become that girl who isn’t willing to make sacrifices and fight for her craft.
“Do you have any tattoos?” I asked, not surprised when he didn’t flinch at the sound of my voice. Angelo knew everything, who was where and at what time.
He turned his body toward me, leaning back against the brick surrounding. “Tattoos are easily identifiable.”
He made his point without saying it, and I nodded. “Right. Point taken.”
Angelo started walking toward me, and I hurried inside, making a beeline for the kitchen as my stomach growled loudly. I’d given Andre a list of the types of food I liked the night before, and my smile grew as I spotted the grocery bags waiting for me on the counter top.
The first thing I did was search the kitchen for a bowl, finding one just six cupboards later, with no help from Angelo who simply stood in the doorway, watching me struggle. Of course, I could have asked, and he probably would have told me, but apparently we were both a little fucking stubborn sometimes.
I smiled as I poured myself a bowl of Coco Pops, my mouth almost watering. I usually wouldn’t buy this kind of stuff for myself, but last night I’d gone full on fuck-it-all and told Andre to bring me the biggest box they had.
“How can you eat that shit for breakfast?”
I frowned and looked back up at Angelo who was staring at my full bowl, one eyebrow raised.
“What do you mean? Coco Pops are awesome,” I defended.
“You’re eating a bowl of sugar,” he said, staring at the contents as I poured my milk and dropped a spoon in.
I dug out a huge spoonful and shoved it in my mouth, smiling as I did so and then shrugged. “It tastes so good,” I mumbled around the crunchy cereal.
A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth as he pushed off the glass of the door and walked around to the fridge. He grabbed a bottle of water, unscrewed the top, and chugged back half of its contents before placing the bottle down on the counter. “I thought dancers had to be careful about what they put in their bodies.”
I shoveled another spoonful in my mouth, chewing for a few seconds before I answered, “I have good genes.”
He laughed, and I relished in the sound.
Catching Angelo carefree and smiling was rare. I took the moment as I could and committed it to my memory for later. He may seem like he’s hard and scary most of the time, but deep down he was human just like the rest of us. It was this side of him that made things so hard. Knowing that there was a man deep inside there which was capable of feelings and emotions, despite the hard exterior that he displayed.
The sexy bad boy with dark tendencies pulled me in, but it was the man beneath the mask that held me captive. I wanted him so bad my heart ached. But it seemed like the closer I got, the further he moved away.
“I hope you like pizza then,” he commented as he tossed the now empty bottle of water in the trash.
I rolled my eyes. “That’s not even a question. Who doesn’t like pizza?”
“Good,” he replied, heading down the hallway to his bedroom. “Because today you’re going to taste the best pizza in New York, and learn a little bit about your family history.”
Oh, joy.
Andre drove us from Brooklyn, over the Manhattan Bridge, and into Manhattan. While I’d been to New York enough times in my lifetime to see the majority of the city, I still found myself staring out the window in awe of the beautiful buildings and architecture. There was something about New York City. The way it made you feel while you were there, the atmosphere so addicting. It was almost like taking a step back in time. I couldn’t explain it, but it felt almost magical.
As Andre finally pulled the car to the curb and put it into park, I took a look around. There were Italian flags flying proudly from buildings and masses of people bustling down the street.
“Little Italy?” I questioned, looking over at Angelo.
I’d been there once before when I was a lot younger, probably around the time Sophie and I started to really learn about our Italian heritage. My father didn’t speak of it often, but I would occasionally catch a glimpse of something that told me deep down he was still very proud of who he was.
I climbed out of the car and Angelo walked around, meeting me on the sidewalk. “When the first Italian families came to America in the 1880’s, they all seemed to settle in the same place… mostly lower Manhattan. With such a huge migration, suddenly there were shops and businesses and restaurants being opened by Italian families,” he explained as we walked. Soft music flowed out from some of the shop fronts, and I could start to smell certain scents that reminded me of Italian culture. “Little Italy was a pretty poor area of the city. It wasn’t the biggest population
of Italians, but the culture here was brilliant. People helped each other. They supported the other families who lived here, and while they made barely enough to keep them going, they stayed true to who they were.”
Angelo stopped, and I pulled up beside him. He pointed up at a large terracotta-colored building. It was traditionally beautiful with the old style windows and brick that seemed as though they had been preserved perfectly through the centuries.
“It was up there that the DePalma family lived when they first moved here… your great-great-grandfather.”
My jaw dropped open, but my heart skipped a beat. This place was part of me, it was part of my history and who I was. How had my father never showed us this before, or explained this story to us? Was he ashamed of where his family came from?
Dad was always so caught up in being the best, and portraying this untouched family image, that I had to wonder whether he had simply wished that this all wasn’t a part of who he was. It made me sad to think he could deny his history so easily.
“I want to know more,” I encouraged Angelo.
His mouth pulled up into a smile. “The DePalmas weren’t the only mafia family to make a home here, but as the years passed, they became the most powerful. They built legitimate businesses, some to help build up the area and give people jobs, others to run illegal money through. They created a life for themselves in a poor neighborhood.”
I listened, eager to learn more. While I was still apprehensive and a little angry about the fact that my family had this dark secret, and that what they were involved in had caused me to lose my sister, I couldn’t help but be fascinated.
“Every family had their thing, they did whatever they had to do in order to make money. Some people stuck with what they knew worked, by opening restaurants or clothing stores. While others, like the DePalmas, became more… creative.”
We started walking again, Andre followed along behind us, not saying a lot, but when I looked over I could tell he was listening intently as well. The street was full of people, many visiting small souvenir shops or searching the long list of amazing Italian cafes and restaurants for a place to eat.