I’d woken up that morning, eaten breakfast, taken my meds and then pretended not to be surprised when Nate had told me what day it was. Valentine’s day.
He’d handed me a little velvet bag as hopefulness replaced the pity in his eyes, just for a moment, but then returned when I’d given him a half-hearted thank you and took the bag from him. I’d set it on the nightstand, gotten back into bed, and had looked up at the fall leaves hanging from the ceiling. And that was how I stayed, all day, falling in and out of sleep, crying my silent cries, suffering my silent pain.
Now, he was dressed in a suit, his tie bright red, matching the color of blood… just like the blood that led me here. “Do you want me to bring you back anything? I don’t know how long I’ll be so—”
“Have a good time,” I cut in, my voice husky from lack of use.
He nodded once, then looked over at my nightstand, at the unopened gift he’d given me this morning. “I’m sorry that I have to leave tonight. It’s one of the biggest nights of the year, and I need to be there, but I rearranged my schedule so I could stay home tomorrow and celebrate—”
“Sure,” I cut in, but what I really wanted to say was celebrate what? Celebrate being forced to love someone? I almost said it. Almost. But then he smiled, and I swear the entire room lit up, as well all the empty spaces of my cold, dead, heart. He ran his hand through my hair and wet his lips before kissing my forehead.
“Good,” he said, backing away so he could look at me again. “I know I’ve been working a lot, lately…”
My eyes drifted shut when he placed his hand on my cheek. “It’s okay. I understand.”
I didn’t understand.
I wanted to.
But I couldn’t.
He kissed me again. “Ti amo, mia bella regazza.”
*
It was a gold-plated fall leaf.
I thought the present would’ve been flashy jewelry of some kind, and that’s why I hadn’t opened it. I didn’t want jewelry. I had no need for it. To be honest, I didn’t even love the bracelet he got me anymore. One day he’d come home with a flower charm and all it had done was remind me of what was out there and all the things I’d been missing… all the things I missed.
I wore it for him because there was only so much sadness and misery I could invoke on one person before I began to hate the person who created the misery.
The leaf dug into my palms as I fisted it, holding it tight while I switched off all the lights, bar the fairy lights, and got back into bed. I closed my eyes, feeling the tears trickle down my temples, and then I let myself go back there, back to summers on a lake, bristles of a bright purple hairbrush combing through my hair, my mother’s fingers following after. I got lost in the sound of her voice as she sang to me, her words a declaration of her love for me. I was her sunshine. Her only sunshine. My heart tore in two as I sang the words aloud, and anger swept through my veins. How dare she tell me she loved me? How dare she sing that song? How dare she beg and plead with phrases meant for children, that nobody take me away from her, and then be the one to leave? The anger faded, replaced with sadness and longing, and I found myself crying, though it wasn’t really a surprise. I fell asleep that way, visions of my mother, of my freedom, of my life—all slipping away from me—and I awoke the same way, Nate’s light snoring bringing a soundtrack to my downfall.
For the next few days, I lived and breathed those same thoughts, same memories, same shattered hopes and dreams and so when Tuesday came around, and I watched Tiny unwrap his meal, I looked up from my own and asked him something that’d been on my mind since Nate slid a single fall leaf beneath the bathroom door; “Will you find my mother?”
36
Bailey
I barely saw Nate. He was constantly working, or at the gym, or out late. He’d make sure I had my medication in the morning and that I had dinner at night and was there for all my check-up appointments with Doctor Polizi, but besides that, he was absent to the point where I felt like I was living with Tiny more than I was in a relationship with him… if you could even call it that.
It’d been three Tuesday night dinners since I’d asked Tiny to find my mom, and I hadn’t heard anything back. Only that he was looking. I knew, deep down, that that’s why Nate was being distant. If he’d sat me down and asked me why… Why I wanted to know, and why I’d asked Tiny instead of him, I would’ve told him the truth.
Put simply, I was curious, and Tiny would be able to give me whatever information I wanted without the emotional attachment, without the need to protect my feelings.