He just stood there, his chest squared towards me. His gaze was unfaltering. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Say whatever you need to say.’
‘Don’t patronize me!’ My face was wet and I realized with surprise that I was crying. Tears were dripping down my neck, soaking into the collar of my T-shirt. ‘Ever since your family came into my life, everything has gone wrong!’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘And now I have nothing.’ I was sobbing so hard the words were catching in my throat. I coughed and it turned to wheezing, and I doubled over, spluttering, on to the bed.
Luca moved his hand towards me but I slapped it away. ‘You’ve destroyed my whole life.’
‘That was never our intention, Sophie.’
I backed up, hitting my knees on the bedside table. I dragged my hands across my face, wiping away the moisture. ‘You’ve obliterated me.’
He edged towards me. ‘I know what it’s like, Sophie.’
‘No.’ I prodded his chest. ‘You don’t know. You gamble with people’s lives all the time. You’ve probably taken as many as you’ve grieved. You are used to the possibility of death, you live inside the nearness of it. My mother and I lived in this house, in this peaceful place where we worried about pork chop dinners and making rent and getting the car fixed and making sure the dishwasher didn’t break down again! She didn’t deserve to die the way she did.’
‘I’m not trying to—’
‘You have brothers and cousins and uncles and a mother who loves you!’ I cut in. ‘Even with all the bad things you do, you have a whole family to turn to, and I don’t have anyone.’
‘Sophie—’
‘I thought you’d protect us from them,’ I choked out.
‘We will protect you, Sophie. Come home with me,’ he urged, ‘where he can’t get to you any more.’
‘Don’t you see?’ I said, hearing my voice rise to a manic level. ‘He’s already gotten to me.’ I pushed Luca and he stumbled backwards, clutching at his side. His wound. Pain flared behind his eyes.
‘Just get it out,’ he said, gritting his teeth. ‘Get it all out.’
‘Get it out?’ I said. ‘Get out my “feelings”, is that what you mean? How about this—’ I pushed against him. He faltered, his hands clutched harder around his torso. ‘I.’ I shoved him again and he turned sharply and backed against the wardrobe. ‘Hate.’ I pushed him. ‘You.’
He ground his teeth. ‘OK.’
‘Not OK,’ I shouted at him. ‘NONE OF THIS IS OK.’ I curled both my hands inside his T-shirt, scrunching the fabric in my fist. ‘Why did I save you? Only to have it lead to this!’
I shoved him and he hit his head against the wardrobe. His eyes grew, two big expanses of startling blue, shadowed by his frown. I felt a flicker of something unpleasant – regret, remorse? I hadn’t meant what I’d said – not really – but the words weren’t coming from a logical place.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, breathless.
I stared at my hands still curled in his shirt. I fell back from him, examining my fingers. They were twitching in and out of fists. I looked at Luca. His body was dipping towards his injured half. His lids were at half-mast. How many ways had I hurt him? How far could I go? He was letting me – even though he could stop me easily, he hadn’t. I had come at him with every drop of venom I had in me and I felt none of the relief I had expected. I felt like a damaged version of myself. My mother was gone, and in her absence I was bitter and cruel.
A familiar feeling of panic took hold of me. I didn’t know what to do, how to make him go away, how to tell him this wasn’t really about him at all. It was about her. The tears were breaking through a second time, coming harder and faster down my cheeks. Strangled cries sprang from me and I realized I was hyperventilating. I am breaking down, I realized with horror. I am losing myself.
Luca pushed against me and I thought he was finally going to retaliate, to do to me what I had just done to him. But he didn’t. He rounded on me, pulling me into his chest and crushing his arms around me. I collapsed into him, feeling the weakness in my legs. I was so startled I let him hold me, feeling the hardness of his body beneath my cheek, the frantic thrumming of our heartbeats pressed against each other.
He was talking to me, his voice low and urgent against my hair, but I couldn’t hear him. Something inside me was breaking; he had pricked the balloon in my chest and the pressure was draining. My cries were muffled against him, my tears staining pools across his T-shirt. I was inhaling his scent, my fingers pressed across his collarbone, and his hands were on my back holding me together as sobs quaked through my body.