My head hurt. It was going in complete circles.
I grabbed a Henley and pulled it over my tank top then started walking back toward my lonely bed, only to hear a knock at the door.
“Come in,” I called.
“Thanks.” Sergio walked in two steps and looked around, his eyes taking in the giant open concept room with a walk-in closet that was bigger than my entire room back in New York.
The clothes were all designer.
All new.
And all in my size.
I had a moment of rage when I wanted to tear them all off of the hangers and set them on fire, not because I wasn’t thankful, but because gifts weren’t the way to my heart — if he knew that, he’d know it didn’t matter if I lived in a shoe box with one good pair of shoes and a T-shirt, or had a mansion. He’d know that nothing material mattered. Even though for the most part the gift was more the girls than it was him.
Please hug me. I silently begged.
Or at least look at me.
Tell me it’s going to be okay.
I shivered, hugging my body close as Sergio’s icy eyes finally landed on mine.
He might as well be in another country with the way he looked at me, physically putting distance between our two bodies, refusing to move any closer. “So,” he said, and did a little half circle. “By now you know the girls are insane.”
I offered a small smile. “Yeah, I kind of love them.”
“Terrifying, the fact that they’re reproducing carbon copies.”
Small talk? Really?
“Did you need anything?” I asked.
He opened his mouth then shut it, his eyes conveying a deep-rooted sadness and pain that I knew he refused to share with me, which hurt even more than being left alone, because I wanted to help him.
Seeing him in pain hurt me.
He just didn’t know it yet.
“Well.” He rocked back on his heels. “Sleep well.”
“Thanks. You too.”
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet gowns, Quite over canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine. –A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Two weeks later
Valentina
“SLEEP WELL.” SERGIO nodded.
“You too.”
It was our thing.
During the day, he avoided me, slamming doors, running errands. And I caught up on every TV show known to mankind. After a while, boredom won out, and I asked one of the girls to teach me how to do something useful.
Bee came over on Mondays to help me cook, though she had to sit the whole time since she was due any day now.
Trace taught me how to shoot out in the fields, she always had funny stories about Wyoming and made me feel like it was okay to be scared. I cried with her a few times, broke down to where I was so embarrassed I cried more.
But Trace didn’t say anything. She just held me and told me it would get better.
Mil helped with the anger. Fridays I did kick boxing sessions, and she’d taped a picture of Sergio’s face on the punching bag. At first I felt horrible.
And then Sergio walked by the home gym and just kept walking.
The guilt disappeared, and anger replaced it, a red-hot anger. How dare he ignore me!
I stopped reading the notes too. I had one left.
I didn’t want to stop but they made me hopeful.
I was hurting.
I was lonely.
And Dante wasn’t texting me back.
Gio had answered the phone when I called and said Frank was busy with Dante and that I’d get to talk to him soon.
The rest of the guys had returned from New York shortly after I arrived in Chicago but they didn’t stop by right away.
I think it was their way of letting Sergio and I have time together.
Little did they know, there was no time.
Scratch that, there was time, it was just all spent on my own.
Mo visited the most often, sometimes every day. She always tried to get me to go shopping, and when my own black shiny credit card arrived with my new last name and a credit line with no limit, she said we should buy a car and put Sergio in it, set it on fire, and roll it off a cliff. I laughed, but she didn’t.
I wanted to defend him.
But I was tired of lying for him.
Tired of forcing smiles when he was around, when we were in front of people, I knew my moment was coming. When I wouldn’t have any energy left.
When I’d snap.
It was only a matter of time, before he sucked the life out of me, because he couldn’t get over a death.
I flicked off the light and stared at the door, my mind wandering, my heart hurting.
Sergio Abandonato, my husband, was not living.
He wasn’t even dead.
He was a ghost.
And only he could set himself free.
I’ll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes.—A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Sergio
I WAS TORTURING myself.
I figured if I purposefully remembered everything about Andi, going as far as to even keep her room in perfect condition with all the memories of us together — that maybe I would remember what it was like to be with her and only her.