“Honestly?” I asked.
“Mhm.”
“I wanted to be a teacher.”
I watched her eyes widen in surprise. “A teacher? Like, kids?”
I chuckled. “Yeah, like kids. High school, preferably.”
“What subject?”
“Math,” I told her. “Maybe a little science.”
She gasped and then giggled. “So, Luca Varasso is a total nerd?”
I snorted and ducked my head. “Yeah, he is.”
“I think that’s adorable,” she replied. I met her gaze and was surprised by the affection I saw in it. I knew I was going a little crazy for her, but I hadn’t been silly enough to hope that she felt the same way. But, the way she looked at me… maybe the world wasn’t such a cruel place after all.
“What about you?” I asked her.
“What?”
“What did you want to be when you grew up?”
She didn’t hesitate. “A doctor.”
I wasn’t surprised. She was a nurse, after all. We’d met because she’d been the one to treat a minor stab wound that I’d described as a job-related injury. It wasn’t technically a lie.
God, would she ever be able to handle the truth about me? The truth about my family and our line of work and the legacy I was expected to carry forward? Or would she simply turn and run as far and as fast as she could the moment she found out?
I wanted to think that we would have a happy ending.
Not only that, but, for the first time in my life, I found myself thinking that I desperately wanted that kind of happy ending for myself.
Maybe this girl--this vibrant, beautiful, lively girl--would be the one to break the Varasso curse of endless, cyclical tragedies. Maybe she would be the one to save us. To save me.
I dared to hope.
After Alana, I knew I would never be the same.
I felt the change within me, deep and long-lasting. It was like I was turning to stone. Little by little, starting with my heart, the very core of my chest grew cold. The nothingness that hit the moment my body collapsed onto the tile outside Alana’s hospital room had morphed into something darker, harsher, more animal.
The stone-cold feeling spread from my heart to my lungs, until every breath I took felt like I was fighting against the weight of the world. It snuck into my shoulders, sank down to the tips of my fingers. The pit of my stomach, full of twists and tumbles and butterflies at varying moments, grew still. My stone legs and feet carried me heavily through the city, dragging like lead.
And my mind… my mind got the worst of it. Bright bursts of wonder that erupted in Alana’s presence were stamped out. Thoughts colored with hope for the future crumbled to dust. Memories became clouded with a murky fog. The tone of my voice chilled, the light in my eyes went out, and the once rosy color in my skin turned to ashy gray.
I was a man transformed. A man ruined.
Alana had been gone for seven weeks by the time I was able to bear the sight of her gra
ve at my feet. I went alone at dusk, ducking out of the meeting in my father’s office without a word. No one bothered me much about my comings and goings anymore, though I knew the tolerance, especially from Angelo Varasso himself, wouldn’t last much longer.
Her favorite flower had been daisies. I laid a bouquet of them on the fresh mound of earth and traced the curve of the perfect, brand new headstone.
Before I knew it, my stone legs had shattered beneath me and my knees collided with the ground. I steadied myself with a hand on her headstone, kneeling over the muddy grass as I gasped for air. It had been raining again.
“Our daughter has your eyes,” I whispered.