Page 18 of Choosing Hope

I swing my legs off the side, restless, exposed. The need to move overrides everything.

My pulse is thudding in my ears. My head spins.

I stumble toward the window—the furthest place from that damn chair—like distance might give me back some sort of control.

“Are you okay, Spencer?” Dr. Klein asks. I hate people asking questions they already know the answers to. She’s a fucking doctor; shouldn’t she be aware I’m not?

I don’t speak. Standing by the glass, glancing down at the bustling street below, with my back to her, my tension gradually subsides and my chest relaxes.

“Due to our intense love for Chess, our loss was too enormous to bear. Devastation overwhelmed us.”

“I can see that,” she replies, her voice soft. “Did you have support? A parent? Nonna?”

“No. We were at a crossroads in our lives; having graduated boarding school, we lived in Carlo’s luxury penthouse apartment. Its walls oozed wealth and comfort. Yet, we were alone once again and had never been so fragile.”

“That must have been incredibly hard. How old were you at this point?”

“Eighteen. I did everything I could to support my friend; my love for him knew no bounds; I gave him everything I had. But I was young, immature, and didn’t have a clue how to handle our grief.”

A tear slowly crawls down my cheek.

“Carlo leaned into me, never allowing others near him,” I mumble, needing her to understand how hard I tried to make things right for us.

“At first, he seemed to torture himself for allowing Chess to leave Naples. As if it were his fault. Yet gradually over weeks and months we redirected the finger of blame.”

I push my hands into my pockets, the familiar swell of anger in my gut rolling in under a great black cloud and hiding my previous emotional outburst.

“After despising Alonso his entire life, Chess’ death was the final nail in the coffin of their relationship. That alone eliminated any possibility of a future relationship between them. Carlo became bitter and eventually blamed his father entirely for our loss.”

That wretched pen scratched on the paper. I couldn’t see her now, but I could hear the endless notes she was scribbling about me. Notes about Carlo as if he were some sort of science project.

My words got stuck in my throat as the torrent of anger and blackness raged around in my head.

“How did you support Carlo?”

“For a few weeks, I held him night and day, trying to put the pieces of him back together. He barely spoke or ate; simply gripped on to me as if I were his lifeline.”

I rub my hand around my neck, freeing some of the tension that’s built up there.

“Once he’d apportioned the blame to his father, he took his protest to the absolute maximum by not only refusing to speak to his parents but also refusing to touch his trust fund.”

Realizing I haven’t explained this point yet. I forgive her relentless pen, accepting her need for notes, but I still eye the chair with suspicion.

“On Carlo’s eighteenth birthday, his trust fund matured, making him a millionaire several times over. Yet, since we learned of Chess’ death, he never touched a penny.”

I snort through my nose.

“We still lived in his apartment, though,” I smile, hoping to show her the worst of the storm has passed.

Her responding closed-lip smile is warm, bordering on affectionate.

“His father continues to this day to pump millions into an offshore account for him,” I say, shaking my head.

“What Alonso couldn’t seem to comprehend was that money was of no importance to Carlo; he only ever wanted love.”

“Then he was lucky to have found it in you.”

My eyes snap to hers. Her blatant reminder of the intensity of emotion I have for my friend makes my body tingle. I stop to consider her words.