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It feels wrong. But not wrong enough.

He’s smiling again. And I… I want to stop feeling like something is broken inside me. Maybe this will help.

“Alright,” I whisper. “Just for a little while.”

His face lights up.

He reaches down and takes my hand, pressing a soft kiss to my knuckles. “You won’t regret this.”

He walks away with his friends, laughing again as they disappear around the bend.

Bea is by my side in a second.

“Are you serious?” she asks, clearly unimpressed.

I glance at her, trying to smile. “He was sweet.”

Bea snorts. “He’s a snake. He’s best friends with Giovanni Ferri, remember? The one who left Lucia pregnant and didn’t even claim her. That whole family had to leave town from shame.”

“That wasn’t Rafaele,” I say quietly.

“They’re the same kind of boys.”

I hold my bag tighter, looking down at my shoes. “I might marry him.”

Bea stares at me.

I nod, more to myself than her. “I think… I think it’s time.”

The softness in her face tightens, her mouth pulling into that little line she makes when she’s holding back something sharp.

“Lune, he’s a two-faced rat,” she says, a little too loud, a little too fast. “He’s a 24-year-old pretending to be a nice guy when he’s just another boy chasing skirts.”

I blink at her.

Her words feel heavy—too harsh for the morning sun, too rough against my ears.

“He’s not even in school anymore,” she adds, gesturing down the road as if Rafaele’s sins were lined up on the cobblestones. “If he was so good, so god-fearing, he’d be in the city, working like the rest of his mates, not hanging around church corners with two other losers pestering naïve twenty-year-olds.”

My mouth parts in quiet disbelief. “That’s not fair…”

Bea crosses her arms. “It is fair. You just don’t want to hear it.”

My heart aches suddenly, like she’s struck something tender inside me. “And how would you know he’s a loser?”

Bea blinks at me, startled by the sharpness in my tone.

I take a breath and press a hand over my chest, trying to settle the heat rising there. “I don’t want a rich man,” I say softly, stubbornly. “I don’t need someone with shiny cars or big city jobs. That’s not what matters.” I look down at my shoes, the leather of them dulled from so many steps. “All we need is a roof over our heads, food to eat… and God. And the Blessed Mother watching over us.”

I feel my cheeks warm as I speak. The words tumble out clumsily, like they don’t quite fit together. But I believe them.

Bea sighs, rubbing her brow. “Lune, it’s not about riches—”

“It is to you,” I whisper.

“No. It’s about who he is. About what he really wants. You think he’s kind, but he stares at you like—like—” She stops herself, swallowing the rest of the sentence. “You deserve better.”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” I murmur, hugging my arms across my chest. “I just need… I need a little space.”