Page 215 of Bitter Poetry

I nod. He can’t possibly realize to what extent. “He looked after me.”

“I suspected as much,” he says.

My sister is quiet. Her hand still clutches mine.

It dawns upon me then, as I sit with my father and sister, as we’re reunited in this tentative peace, and amid a backdrop of heightened danger, that my dreams of two lovers don’t fit into this world.

Nobody would approve.

I love them both.I have loved them both for some time. They are wildly different, yet they are both imperfectly, perfect to me.

“We have all made mistakes,” I say.

“Hey, I don’t remember making any,” Jessica says dryly.

I smile. “No? Give yourself some time.”

“Perhaps the world has turned a full circle,” my father says. “Perhaps the future you should have had will be yours again… He still has feelings for you. He told me they never went away. The way he was with you just now, and all he has done, gives me hope.”

His words taunt me with what I once wanted, what I prayed for, but now recognize is nowhere near enough. I’m greedy. And now I must live half a life that has nothing to do with the terrible experiences in my past, beyond that they changed me.

I want something impossible.

I want it so much it hurts.

Things have come to pass that I shall never forget. But I don’t want to linger on the bad things. I can’t. I’ll lose my mind if I do. “There have been times when I’ve hated you, Papa. Hated you and loved you still. I will never stop loving you. As for my future, I need to take it one day at a time. Please. No pressure. And don’t talk to Dante about me, or us.”

“Of course,” my father says.

“I’m going to spend some time with Christian,” I say. “He's probably asleep. But I’d like to sit with him.”

“Take whatever time you need. Take care of him.” Jessica’s smile is a little wobbly. But she winks at me and leans in to hug me. “I always liked Christian best,” she whispers. “Don’t tell Dante that. And don’t tell Christian, either. I don’t want it to go to his head.”

I leave them.

Christian is fast asleep when I return to his room. I take a seat that gives me a view of the bed, and out of the window where I can see manicured lawns.

Their family home is lovely.

I sit in quiet contemplation.

I breathe.

Ettore is gone.I’m free.Only, now, a different prison awaits me. One that exists inside my mind.

A prison full of hopes and dreams for a future that can never be mine.

CHAPTER 65

DANTE

When I arrive at the Peppermint Moon, Leon is just getting off his phone.

“That was Edoardo,” he says with a grimace.

“Yeah, what did he have to say?”

“He demanded that we return Ettore unharmed along with the rest of his men.”