Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 98321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
“I don’t get it.” My mother rested her forehead on her fingertips. “You’re in love. I know you are. I saw it. We all saw it.”
“You all saw what you wanted to see. What we wanted you to see.”
My mother looked up at me. “Then why was she crying so hard?”
“What?”
“Last night when she was moving out, why was she crying the whole time?”
I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. “How do you know she was?”
“Because people saw her. Edna Dodson lives right across the street and happened to be looking out her window.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course.”
“Then she went outside to water her flowers, and—”
“At nine o’clock at night, she had to water her flowers?”
“Yes,” my mother snapped, “and thank goodness she did because she called me right away, very concerned. I told her she must have been mistaken, but I can see now that I was wrong.”
Rubbing my face with both hands, I exhaled. “What do you want from me, Mom? I told you the truth.”
She came over to me. “I want you to fix this,” she said, poking my chest twice for emphasis.
“I told you, I’m going to be honest with Dad. If he wants to leave Pietro the company, fine.”
She waved a hand in the air. “I don’t mean with your father—I mean with Bianca.”
“There’s nothing to fix with Bianca. It’s over.”
“Bullshit!” she said, slapping my shoulder.
“Ow,” I said, rubbing it. “Jeez, I forgot how violent you are when you’re mad.”
“And I forgot how much you remind me of your father when you’re being stubborn and ornery—you look me in the eye and tell me you don’t love that girl, and may God strike you down if you lie!”
I looked her in the eye, fully prepared to say the words.
And I couldn’t. I fucking couldn’t.
“Look, it doesn’t matter how I feel, Mom,” I said. “She’s gone.”
“You know what she needs to hear to come back.”
“No, I don’t!” I yelled, my temper flaring again.
“Well, figure it out and say it before you lose her to someone who does!” With that, she turned around, grabbed her purse from the counter and stomped out, slamming the door shut behind her.
I half-expected my dad to come storming into the Moretti & Sons office on Monday morning and demand his company back, but he didn’t. He didn’t call, either. I had to assume my mother had kept her word to let me confess my wrongdoings myself, and for that I was thankful. I planned on coming clean with him, fully prepared to deal with whatever the consequences were, but I felt like I could use some time to think.
That week, I worked long hours on Moretti & Sons projects, landing a couple good-sized contracts and overseeing the completion—on time—of several home additions. At least my father wouldn’t be able to complain about my performance or work ethic.
Each night, I’d head over to the Center Avenue house, where I continued work on the renovation. Sometimes I offered cash to a couple guys who worked for Moretti & Sons for a few extra hours of labor, and by the end of the week, the kitchen was completely torn out, the old bathrooms demolished down to the studs, the carpet ripped out, the wallpaper removed, and tons of old junk had been removed from the basement and hauled away.
I’d hoped that staying busy would keep my mind off Bianca, but I thought about her constantly. Every time someone texted me, I was disappointed it wasn’t her. Once I could have sworn I smelled her perfume in a store, and I walked up and down the aisles, sniffing like an idiot, until I was convinced she wasn’t really there. Every time I walked into a room at the Center Avenue house, I’d remember her design ideas and feel like shit. The house was supposed to be something we did together.
And each night, when I’d go home to my empty house, it seemed more lonely than it had the night before. It was too quiet. The meals I made were tasteless. The coffee in the morning wasn’t as good. The smell of her on the pillow faded, and I was so angry, I threw it across the room.
Nothing was right without her there.
Word got around that she’d moved out, and I felt the curious stares of people who wondered what had gone wrong so quickly. But whenever anyone asked about her, I simply said we were taking some time and space. When my friends checked in with me, I said I was fine, but I wasn’t—and lying to them only made me feel worse. I could still hear my mother calling me a dishonest man, and I hated it. When I lay in bed at night, struggling to fall asleep, all I could think about was her body, her lips, the way she’d sigh when I buried myself inside her.