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ANASTASIA

My life is a sick, twisted joke.

It wasn’t always this way.

Once upon a time, I was someone else. Daddy’s little girl, blissfully unaware life can change on a dime.

Bonetti.

The name itself is like poison on my tongue.

Everything begins and ends with them, the family that put the collision course of my life into motion. Without them, none of this would have happened.

They took everything from me, and now I’ll return the favor.

Revenge is sweet, and mine.

Luca Bonetti.

Lorenzo Bonetti.

Nico Bonetti.

Massimo Bonetti.

I trace over their names on my sheet of paper, and linger on the last one. Shoving away the pang in my chest, I tilt my head back, looking to the sky.

“I’m sorry it has taken so long. Things got complicated. I made you a promise, and I will see it through.”

The scent of fresh cut grass surrounds me, as I smile at the red roses in the flower holder attached to the gravestone. I lean forward, and inhale the smell of the bouquet, embracing the instant comfort it provides me. A memory of a better time, before the end of happiness. Pressing a kiss to two of my fingers, I place them against the headstone. My therapist once told me the stages of grief are different, depending on the person. Some people move through them quickly while others do not. I’m beginning to wonder if some people don’t move through them at all, because I’m stuck on that day. Whether I’m awake or asleep, it plays on repeat, like a song you can’t get out of your head. The visions flash in front of my eyes, and I’m taken back to that time, unwillingly, like I’m being escorted by the ghost of the past, as if I’m a character in some new fucked up version of a Charles Dickens novel.

I’ve contemplated suicide more than once, but that would mean handing them my defeat. I will not give in. I will not let them win.

Gone is the girl they once knew.

From the ashes they left me in, I’ll emerge as a new woman. The weak can become strong. The victim becomes the villain. Rising from the wreckage of destruction, caused by evil men in my life, I am reborn.