Текст книги "A Little Too Much"

Автор книги: Lisa Desrochers

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

Chapter Twenty-Five

I WALK OUT of the Pinnacle Creative Management office the next Wednesday evening with two things: 1) an agent, and 2) the certainty that the person I most want to share that news with walked out of my life last week.

I call Jess from the subway. “Hey, guess what!”

She squeals into the phone. “Oh my God, Hilary! Congrats! Pinnacle is huge. You’ve hit the big time!”

I can’t stop the grin. “It does feel a little like hitting the lottery.”

“We’re celebrating tonight. Where do you want to go?”

“Wherever you want, Jess. I have something I need to do, but I’ll be home later.”

“Okay. I’ll have something fabulous planned when you get here.”

I smile again at her enthusiasm. “Thanks, sweetie.”

Ten minutes later, I’m climbing the stairs to Christopher Street. The whole walk from the subway to his apartment, I’m trying to sort out what I’m going to say, but as I step up to his door, I still have nothing. I hesitate with my shaking finger poised at the buzzer.

I haven’t heard a word from him since I let him walk out of my apartment. What I said was cruel . . . and a lie. I don’t blame him for not wanting anything to do with me. Which means I shouldn’t be here.

I press the buzzer.

A minute later, when no one’s answered, I breathe again. Maybe he’s at the youth center. I should go there.

Just to be sure, I press the buzzer one more time.

“It’s Hilary, isn’t it?”

The voice from behind me makes me jump. I spin and find Mrs. Burke and her pug.

“Yeah. Hi.”

Her face goes all sympathetic. “If you’re here for Alessandro, sweetheart, I’m sorry to tell you he’s already gone.”

“Gone,” I repeat as all the blood drains out of my head and stars flash in my eyes.

She nods. “He had a red-eye out of JFK last night. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you.”

I lift my hand and rub my face. “Um . . . you know, I think he did. I just forgot.” I don’t know why I lie.

“I hoped he might stay for you. St. Veronica’s is going to miss him.”

My erratic heart stalls in my chest. “Why would he stay for me?”

She tilts her head and a knowing little smile curves her lips. “People do things they’d never expect for love, my dear.”

Oh, God. “Um . . . did he happen to mention when he was coming back?”

She tips her head and raises her eyebrows sympathetically. “He’s not, as far as I know. He said his family needed him.”

My heart slams to the ground. “In Corsica?”

She nods.

Just at that moment, everything I wanted to say comes clear in my head. But now it doesn’t matter. I’m too late. He’s gone.

JESS PICKS A dance club we’ve never been to. It’s full of Columbia kids, mostly, shouting over music so loud it’s vibrating into my bones. I’m sweaty from dancing, so I stick to the vinyl as I lean back into the booth and take the last, long swallow of my drink—the second of many, if my plan holds.

I glance at Jess, still on the dance floor. I didn’t tell her that I went to Alessandro’s today because I don’t want her feeling all sorry for me. And pretty soon, it won’t matter. Because my plan is to get totally shit-faced. My plan is to revel in the parts of my life that are really good right now and forget the parts that aren’t.

My plan is to do whatever it takes to forget Alessandro.

“I haven’t seen you here before.”

I look in the direction of the voice and see Mike from my acting group grinning at me from the end of the booth.

“Hi.” I yell over the music.

“Can I?” he asks, gesturing to the empty seat across from me.

“Yeah, sure.”

But instead of sitting on the seat across from me, he slides into the booth next to me.

A second later, Nathan is at the end of the table with a pitcher and a stack of cups. He sets them down, looking a little out of his element, unlike Mike.

“Hey. We missed you last Monday.”

“Yeah. I was busy. Family stuff.” I did go to Mallory’s for dinner, but it was because I was looking for a reason to be out of the city, not because I had to.

“What are you drinking?” he asks, gesturing at my empty glass. “I’ll get you another.”

“Rum and Diet Coke. Thanks.”

He smiles and turns for the bar.

Mike leans in. “You look amazing.”

Jess picked my outfit, a snug black cotton tank, a short green skirt, and, of course, my killer boots. “Thanks.”

“You want to dance?” he asks with a tip of his head toward the dance floor.

“Sure.”

He stands and holds out his hand. I take it and we move through the crowd to a spot at the edge of the dance floor, not too far from Jess. She sees me and grins.

Mike was actually pretty good in our Antigone bit for acting group last month, and I find out he’s not a bad dancer either. The alcohol has definitely hit my bloodstream, because I feel all my wariness drop as I shimmy around him. When he puts his hands on my hips and starts to grind his in rhythm with mine, I don’t push him away. When the song’s over, we head back to the table and Nathan is there with my drink.

“Looks like you worked up a thirst,” he says as I slam it.

I smile at him. “I did. Your turn.” I grab his hand and tow him to the dance floor. He’s not as bold as his friend, and keeps his distance. But I decide he’s cute.

We dance off and on, and Jess floats in and out of our group. The boys keep buying me drinks, and by my fifth rum and Coke, I’ve decided I’m definitely going to sleep with one of them tonight. The question is who. Mike, who is one-night-stand material, or Nathan, who has relationship potential?

Hell. Maybe I’ll sleep with both of them. I’ve never done a ménage à trois before. And as the alcohol flows thicker through my bloodstream by the second, what I’m rapidly deciding is that, more than anything, mindless sex is what I need right now.

I knock back my drink and the three of us head out to the dance floor. Mike dances up behind me, snaking an arm around my waist and pulling me against him. Of course he’d be first to make a move. So, it’s going to be Mike, then. I give Nathan a sympathetic little pout as I lift my arms and weave my fingers behind Mike’s neck.

He lowers his face and skims the tip of his nose along the side of my neck. “You smell so good,” he says, low in my ear.

I spin in his arms, pressing every inch of me against every inch of him, and run my hands over his chest. “I taste better.”

The next second, his lips are crushed against mine, and his tongue is darting through my mouth.

I grind into him as we move to the music, forgetting everything but the feel of his hands and his mouth and his body. I come up for air a few minutes later, gasping for breath. “Come on.” He grins as I grab his hand, towing him past the bathrooms to the back exit. We push through the door into the alley, and I barely notice the cold. Mike spins me and slams my back against the building, kissing me hard. I’m getting the feeling he likes it rough—which means I’ve made the right choice.

His hands are on me—all over me—and when one reaches under my skirt and starts to tug down my thong, a sick feeling rolls up from my gut. I tell myself it’s just the booze, but suddenly, I don’t want to see Mike. I don’t want to know who I’m doing this with.

Mindless sex. Mindless.

I close my eyes as his hand slips between my legs and try to lose myself in the moment . . . and Alessandro’s there, behind my eyelids. At the image, a sucking wound in my chest opens up and I can’t breathe.

Damn him for showing up here. He’s gone, and he’s still ruining my life. But now that he’s here, I can’t make him go away.

And I can’t do this.

I open my eyes and push Mike back. “Listen, Mike . . . I just . . .” I start to tug my underwear up, but Mike grabs my wrist.

“What are you doing?”

“I shouldn’t have come out here.”

He guides my hand to his crotch. “Come on, Irish. You’re not gonna leave me like this, are you?”

I wrench my arm out of his grasp. “Sorry. I’m drunk. This was a mistake.”

He angles himself between me and the door. “Just give me a chance. I promise you won’t think it was a mistake by the time we’re done.” He moves closer, so his body is against mine, and starts on my underwear again.

I push away, feeling panic twist through my gut. “Mike, I’m serious. Stop.”

He grabs me and yanks me to him, kissing me hard.

I try to knee him, but he’s at the wrong angle, so I connect with his thigh. I push against him and his grip on me breaks as I twist.

And the next second, Mike is on the pavement.

I don’t even realize my fist has swung out and connected with his jaw until sharp pain shoots up my arm. But Mike’s split lower lip tells me I definitely did it.

“You bitch,” he whines. “You broke my tooth.”

I hear this last just before the slam of the door, because I’m already gone.

I’VE TEXTED ALESSANDRO at least a hundred times in the last four days, with no response. After the first few, when he didn’t answer my texts, I started calling. It always goes right to voice mail. I try again as I sit on the stoop of Alessandro’s apartment building. When it goes to voice mail, my heart squeezes just a little tighter in my chest.

I know it’s not fair of me to do this. I know after what I said, I should just let him go. But every waking minute, I remember how it felt to let him in, the freedom that came with finally opening myself up to someone and letting myself be me. And every minute I’m asleep, I dream of him in my arms, the weight of his body pressing into me, the things no one else has ever been able to make me feel. I pushed him away when I realize how close he’d gotten—how much of me he saw. I pushed him away because, in that instant, I knew how thoroughly he could destroy me, and I didn’t have enough faith in him to trust he wouldn’t. But every time I look at Henri and see the goodness in him, I know it came from Alessandro. What I’ve started to realize is, some things are worth the risk.

“Alessandro, I know you’re angry, and I know it’s totally unfair of me to expect you to speak to me after what I did and the things I said, but I need to talk to you. Please, if you get this message, call me.”

I disconnect and sit here, staring at the phone, just like I’ve done for countless hours before, as if, through sheer force of will, I can make it ring.

It doesn’t, and finally, I give up waiting. I stand and look over the intercom. There are four apartments on the third floor, where Mrs. Burke got off the elevator that day. I press the button for the first one. After a minute, when no one answers, I push the second.

“Hello?” comes a sharp gravelly voice.

“I’m looking for Mrs. Burke. Is this her apartment?”

“No.”

“I’m really looking for Alessandro Moretti,” I say. “He lived on the fifth floor.”

He hesitates, like he’s thinking about cutting me off. “So why’re you calling Mrs. Burke?”

“I was hoping she might know an address where I could reach him.”

“Why do you want it?”

I breathe out a breath, getting seriously sick of this guy’s questions. “I just do. I’m a friend and I need to get ahold of him.”

“He’s gone,” he growls.

“I know. He’s in Corsica. I just need his address.”

“If you’re a friend, why don’t you have his phone number?”

It’s taking all my restraint not to punch the intercom. “I’ve tried calling and he doesn’t answer.”

“I’d take that as I sign,” he grumbles.

“Forget it,” I say, lifting my hand to the next button.

“I’ve got his address.”

My heart lurches. “You have it?”

“Stay there,” he barks, then the intercom goes dead.

I’m just about to give up and punch the next button when the door opens and a scrawny old guy with a cane comes hobbling out. He waves a piece of paper in my face. “Why should I give this to you?”

I snatch the paper out of his hand without answering. On is it Alessandro’s messy scrawl with an address in Corsica. I spin and start up the sidewalk.

“You can’t take that, honey,” he says to my back.

I turn around.

“I’m the super. He gave me his address to send anything that shows up for him here.” He raises his bushy gray eyebrows at me. “Which I’m thinking might be you. You’re the one, aren’t you?”

I’m just pulling out my phone to type in the info, and I look up at him. “The one?”

“The one who broke the poor guy’s heart.”

That nearly stops my heart. I type in Alessandro’s information and send up a little prayer that it’s not too late to fix this. “Thank you,” I tell him, handing him the paper.

“You’re welcome.” He spins for the door and disappears through it.

When I get home to my apartment, Jess is at rehearsal. I snatch a sheet of paper from the printer tray and a pen from the kitchen junk drawer, and stand at the counter for a long time, just staring at it.

It’s not enough to tell him I need to talk to him. I need to actually say something. And not just anything, but something that matters. Something that might begin to make up for the horrible things I said to him that made him leave.

I close my eyes and try to think of words to describe the feeling of him running through my veins; how much a part of me he is and always has been; how he makes me something more than I ever could be without him. And then I write it all down.

TERRY IS AMAZING. She seems to know everyone on Broadway. She’s booked me for three auditions in the next two weeks. They’re all for secondary parts, and not a single one is in a musical. But, of all of them, this is the one I really want: Don’t Look Back. Off-Broadway, open run.

I’ve submerged myself in preparing for this role. I’ve been over my lines with Jess a bazillion times, and I spent an hour in Terry’s office yesterday while she coached me for this part. And now, I stand on the stage and look out over the theater, feeling calmer than I have any right to feel. I think Jess is rubbing off on me, because I’m trusting the universe. I’ve let go of everything that stood in my way and held me back. I’m dropping my armor and letting myself show.

Quinn would be so proud.

“Whenever you’re ready, Hilary,” the casting director calls to me from the seats below.

I take a deep breath, sink into my character, and give the performance of my life.

WHEN I GET home, Jess and Hailey are curled into the corner of the sofa, watching Safe Haven. Tears are tracking down Jess’s face and Hailey is stroking her hair. But the second Jess sees me, she pops off the couch.

“What’s the story, morning glory?” When she’s nervous, she regresses back to all her quirky Southernness, but this is worse than usual. Even her accent is stronger. Opening night for her show is tomorrow, so she’s been a big ball of nerves this week.

“It went really well. I think I’ve got a shot.”

She squeals and throws her arms around me, nearly knocking me over. “You’ll come out with us after the show tomorrow? Please?”

It’s been three weeks since our last night out and my disaster with Mike. After I told Jess what happened, she was so mad she wanted to knock out more of his teeth, but I talked her down. The worst part? I miss acting group, but there’s no way I’m going back if he’s there.

“You know I’m super excited for you, and I’ll definitely be front and center at opening night, but I don’t think I’m up for a night out just yet, ’kay?”

Her face pulls into a sympathetic squint. “Yeah, okay. We’ll celebrate, just the two of us, when you get that part.”

“Definitely.” I turn to Hailey, who’s standing near the couch. “Thank you so much for hooking me up with Terry. She’s amazing.” I’ve already told her this a thousand times, but I can’t help saying it again.

She smiles. “My pleasure. I’m sure she’ll come through for you.”

“You ready?” Jess asks her, shrugging into her coat.

Hailey grabs her coat and tugs it on.

“Last rehearsal,” Jess says, pretending to both shake in her boots and bite her nails.

“Break a leg.”

She pecks me on the cheek and pulls the door open. “Love ya!”

“Bye,” I say as she closes it behind them.

I settle onto the couch, picking up the remote to start the movie over again. I’m thumbing through the mail during the previews when someone knocks on the door. Jess probably forgot her keys again.

“Coming!” I call, dropping the mail on my coffee table. But when I haul myself up and pull it open, it’s not Jess.

“Alessandro,” I breathe, unable to find air.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“HILARY.”

As my heart shatters into a million pieces, it’s everything I can do to not break down into a weepy mess right on the spot.

“May I come in?” he asks when all I can manage to do is stand here, gaping.

“Yeah . . . sorry.” I back away from the opening and let him pass. I close the door and stand facing it for several beats of my racing heart, struggling to collect my thoughts. “You got my messages?”

“I did. And your letter. You’re a hard person to ignore.”

Finally, I find the strength to turn to face him. “So, you’re back?”

“All I can offer you are painful memories and my broken soul, but I love you, and if you’ll allow it, I promise to always love you. If that’s enough for you, then, yes, I’m back.”

Oh, God.

I work to keep my breathing even. “You know what I said about Lorenzo being Henri’s father . . . that was just because you were scaring me and I—”

He steps forward and stops me with a finger on my lips. “I don’t blame you. I was scaring myself.” His face pinches a little as he lowers his hand, but he holds my gaze. “I feel like half a man when you deserve someone whole. Letting you see what I really am scares me, but I will, if that’s what you want. And after you know the real me, I won’t hold you to any promises if you want to leave.”

“I want to earn your trust back, Alessandro. I want you to feel like you can open up to me and know you could never scare me away.”

His eyes are on fireas he cups my chin in his palm and runs a thumb along my bottom lip, liquefying my insides with his touch. I launch myself into his arms, and he holds me tight and kisses me hard. He finally breaks the kiss, his lips skimming across my cheek, his soft breath raising goose bumps all over my body as he whispers, “I trust you with my life.”

I kiss him again and put every ounce of myself into it, peeling off his jacket and letting it drop to the floor. His fingers twist into my hair as I slide my hands under the tails of his button-down onto warm skin at the waist of his jeans. “Make love to me,” I whisper against his lips.

His gaze burns into mine as he takes my hand and tows me to my bedroom at the end of the hall. The early evening sun is just breaking through the gray sky, casting a golden glow over my white walls. My bed is unmade, the sheets in a pool at the bottom.

I close the door and we just stare at each other for a long minute, but all it takes is for him to reach for the hem of my sweater before we’re both tearing at each other’s clothes. Once we’re both undressed, I pull him onto the bed with me. We touch and caress, and he takes his time getting familiar with my body again, finding all of my most sensitive places with his hands and his mouth. But the physical sensations can’t compare with what’s happening inside me as the walls come crashing down.

My heart opens and lets him in, and suddenly, I need him inside me in every way.

I find a condom in the egg crate that passes for my nightstand, and he shudders as I roll it on. He lies back and I lift my hips and sigh as I sink onto him, taking him inside me to the root. He’s everything I need—the only one who’s ever been able to make me feel. And I want to feel this forever.

My heart swells to absorb the converging flood of physical and emotional sensations, and it’s almost too much. It trickles out of me in tears that course over my cheeks and drop onto his chest.

He flips us so I’m under him and kisses them off my face. “I love you,” he whispers.

I pull him tighter to me, needing to find a way to become part of the same being.

His movements become long, slow strokes as he kisses me, his tongue mingling with mine and bringing us that much closer.

“Don’t stop,” I whimper when his lips move to my jawline.

He props himself on his elbows above me. “I have no intention of stopping,” he says, his voice rough and thick with emotion. “If this lasts forever, it will still be over too soon.”

He kneels between my legs and lifts me off the mattress, lowering me slowly onto his length, until he’s so deep inside me I can feel him in my soul. He guides my hips up and down to his agonizing rhythm, and I feel myself spiraling out of control again. His thickness filling me is the center of my universe, and my whole body pulses with the throbbing ache in my heart and between my legs.

A low groan rolls up from his chest and becomes a growl with his last few thrusts. I gasp for breath and his name escapes on a sob as the most intense climax I’ve ever experiences shakes me from the inside out.

He lays us back on the mattress and holds me until my tears slow. Goose bumps skate over me as he traces the lines of my face with the tip of his index finger.

“You are amazing,” I say when I can breathe.

He kisses me. “It’s all in who your teacher is.”

I smile as another shuddering aftershock pulses through me. “Then you must have had some incredible teachers.”

His fingertips moves down the hollow of my throat and trace the lines of my ribs, finding my nipple and teasing it to a hard nub. “Only you.”

I freeze. I can’t have heard him right. “What do you mean, only me?”

“I’ve never been with anyone else.”

He’s lying. He has to be. He’s twenty-five years old. How can there only have been me? “I don’t believe you.”

He shifts off my body and lies on the bed next to me, propping himself over me on an elbow. “Hilary, I almost became a priest.”

“But after that?” When I think of the girl he loved—the one he left the priesthood for—I see someone smart and confident and strong and funny. All the things I’ve been pretending to be, but am not.

“You loved her.” The thought sits like a stone in my gut.

His expression grows wary. “Who are we talking about?”

“The girl . . . the woman you gave the priesthood up for.”

“I did,” he says, pensively, catching the corner of his lower lip between his teeth. “She made me feel things I hadn’t felt in a very long time . . . things I never thought I’d feel again.”

“But you never slept with her,” I say, still trying to absorb what he said.

He shakes his head slowly, keeping his gaze locked with mine. “No.”

“Do you still love her?”

“She holds a special place in my heart.” When I lower my gaze, he trails his fingers, which had been playing with my nipple, up my throat to my chin, lifting it so I’m looking at him. “As a friend, Hilary. She’ll always be a friend.”

“A friend?”

“A friend,” he confirms, his fingertips trailing down my body. A smile tugs at his lips and there’s a wicked glimmer in his eyes that sends electricity crackling under my skin. “You’d tell me if there was something else I could to do please you?”

I glide a hand down his pecs and abs. “Being with you is . . . it’s never been like this for me.”

His eyes tighten a little. “Been like what?”

I nip his upper lip, then kiss the corner of his mouth. “I mean, it’s never been this easy for me to come. I’ve needed . . . more.”

He lifts his eyebrows. “More?”

“Pain. I’ve always needed it rough.” There’s a tortured look in his eyes as he gazes at me and I realize how that sounded. “I’m not a masochist. I don’t mean it like that, it’s just . . . I thought the pain grounded me—made me exist—but maybe it just connected me with my body so I could feel.” I run a hand over his strong shoulder. “It’s always been different with us. With you, everything is so much more intense, I don’t need the . . . extra stimulation. I mean, hell, just thinking about sex with you takes me halfway there.” My fingers trace over his happy trail to his tuft of hair. I slip off his condom and drop it over the edge of the bed behind me, then grasp him. “As a matter of fact, whenever you’re ready . . .”

His eyes flash and one corner of his mouth pulls into a sexy smile as I feel him stir in my hand. “I am your enthusiastic pupil. Putty in your capable hands.”

“Is it weird?” I ask, squeezing him.

He tips his head at me in a question.

“You were almost a priest and now . . .” I trail off, stroking his growing erection. “Though you make sex a religious experience for me, what we’re doing is very unpriestly.”

He rolls on top of me and reaches across for a condom in my egg crate. “Which is why I didn’t become a priest.”

I push him back a little. “But still, to go from nothing to all this . . .” I say, flipping my hand at the bed.

“Being with you makes me very happy. Obviously,” he adds, glancing down at his erection. “If you’re asking me if what we’re doing is against the teachings of the Church, the answer is yes. If you’re asking me if I regret it, the answer is no.”

I slip the condom from his fingers and tear it open. “Are you going to hell?” I ask as I roll it over him.

His smile is a little wicked and it makes the sensitive point between my legs pulse. “Probably.”

I spread wide and roll my hips under him, taking him deep inside. “Good. Take me with you.”

WHEN I WAKE up, it’s dark, and the other side of the bed is empty. The cool night air prickles my skin into goose bumps as I sit up and scan the room, my heart skipping at the thought that Alessandro in my bed was just another of my fantasies. But then I see the moonlight reflecting off the long, lean curves of his naked body as he stands at the window, looking out into the New York night.

“Alessandro?” I croak.

He doesn’t turn, but I see him stiffen.

I slip out of bed and move slowly toward him, and when I reach him, I skim my fingertips down his back. He shudders under me.

“I don’t deserve to be this happy. Not when I’ve hurt so many people. I don’t even have names or faces for most of them. There’s nothing I can do to atone for my sins. So they sit right here,” he says, lifting a fist to his chest over his heart, “and they feed on my soul.”

I slip my arms around his chest and press myself against his back. This is it. He’s giving me what I asked for, a look into his soul. The honest truth is, I’m a little scared of what I’m going to see there, but I have to step up to the plate and be strong for him. I told him nothing I saw would scare me away, and I’m not going to let him down. “Who are these people, Alessandro? And if you say me, I’m throwing you out this window.”

He turns in my arms and rests his forehead on the crown of my head. “Then, I won’t say it. But it’s not just you. Every kid in school who I dealt drugs to, every person I let Lorenzo beat and rob, every kid I let him force into the gang, every rival gang member I let him stab.” He lifts his head and looks into my eyes. “And, even if he didn’t rape you, there were others.”

“Did you rape anyone?” I ask, confident I already know the answer.

“No.”

“Who gave you the drugs to deal?”

He blows out a breath and shivers. “Lorenzo.”

“Who beat and robbed those people?”

The moonlight glimmers in the sheen of tears pooling in his eyes. “I helped, Hilary. I didn’t try to stop him. I helped him. I was just as angry as Lorenzo was. He was just better at acting on that anger, so I took my lead from him.” He rakes both hands through his hair and tips his head back, his Adam’s apple bobbing as fights for control. “And I shot a man. It was only by the grace of God that he didn’t die. I don’t even know what became of him or his family. I looked for them when I came back, but . . .”

“Whose gun was it?” I try not to let the shock show in my voice. I can’t believe Alessandro, the boy I knew, the man I know, would have shot anyone. But if he did, I know at whose urging it was.

He lowers his gaze. “It doesn’t matter whose gun it was. I’m the one who pulled the trigger. That man’s blood will forever be on my hands. My hands, Hilary. Not Lorenzo’s.”

I step back into his arms and lay my head on his chest. “Tell me what happened.”

He draws a shaky breath and blows it into my hair. “It’s what finally got us arrested. There was an old man who set up his hot-dog stand at the corner of the park near our house on weekends. It was dusk and just starting to rain . . .” His voice hitches. “Lorenzo didn’t usually carry, but he was short cash for his supplier and he knew they’d be coming after him, so he walked up to the old man while he was packing up his stand and pointed the gun in his face. When the old man opened his cashbox, Lorenzo pistol-whipped him and dropped him to the ground.” He shakes his head. “He couldn’t just take the money, he had to beat that poor man too. He gave him a few kicks to the ribs to be sure he was down, then handed me the gun so he could grab the money. The last thing either one of us expected is the man to take that kind of beating and get up, but he did. Before I could react, he was off the ground and on Lorenzo.”

My face is pinched in a grimace of dread. I force it to relax and push back to look at Alessandro. “So you shot him.”

He lets go of me and rubs a hand down his face, and that’s when I realize it’s tears he’s wiping away. “I didn’t even hesitate. I shot a defenseless old man in the back.” He leans his hands on the windowsill, hanging his head.

For a long time I can’t speak. “You were there . . . in that position, because of Lorenzo, Alessandro. If he hadn’t robbed that vendor, you never would have had that gun in your hand.”

“But I did,” he says as another tear rolls over his lashes. I want so badly to wipe it away for him, but I don’t. “I had a choice. I didn’t have to shoot him. He ended up in a wheelchair.”

“I won’t believe you wanted to hurt that man. You were scared.”

“It’s irrelevant whether I wanted to hurt him. He ended up paralyzed.” He pushes away from the window and turns, reaching up to tug his hair. “When I went to the police and told them what happened, Lorenzo was furious.”

“Wait! What?”

He breathes deep. “He couldn’t understand why I would—”

“No. I mean . . . you turned yourself in?”

He nods.

And still, he insists on beating himself up over this. I take a deep breath. “So there are some things you did wrong, Alessandro. You made some bad choices. You’re human. But you have to separate those things from the things Lorenzo did. You have to let his shit go so you can focus on what to do about your own. I want to help you.” I lift my hand and trace a finger along the scar on his side. He flinches away from me, but I don’t stop. “I want that more than anything . . . for you to let me in so I can make you see what an amazing person you really are. But I can’t do that unless you want me to. You have to invite me in.”