Chapter 40 #2
In reality, I had no idea how to do it without anyone suspecting, but given the circumstances, I would have to appeal and risk myself by talking to Martha. She was a mother and would understand me, I told myself. She wouldn’t refuse to help me.
That would be too cruel, and Aunt Martha wasn’t cruel.
I let my gaze wander down to the floor while Ben kept explaining how we would do it.
To him, everything was very simple, but to me, it sounded like one of those escapes from action movies.
So ridiculous that I needed to resort to such means, but I had already lost so much of Lucca’s life, and being rational hadn’t helped me at all.
The truth was that Norah’s setup had been very well done. No gaps, no small cracks that could give me a light, a path to follow. I had one thing and another, suspicions, but they didn’t lead me anywhere.
I had no more time. I had nothing left.
And honestly, I was no longer sure I could prove my innocence.
I let out a heavy sigh, feeling like shit… my gaze wandered… distracted, I fixed on one specific point, and then something happened.
My brow furrowed at the feeling of familiarity.
My heart suddenly sped up…
The air grew heavy in my lungs as my memories ran loose, bringing images of a bad memory…
My heart beat even harder.
Ben’s voice was only a distant hiss.
“I-I… know those…” paused and disconcerted, I murmured, lifting my disbelieving gaze to Ben’s face. “…shoes.”
I could have sworn I saw his face freeze, paling, and his body tense in the chair before the impassive mask slid into place. But I was certain of one thing: those shoes were the same ones that…
No. It couldn’t be.
But it was.
Stunned, my incredulous gaze jumped from his face to the shoes, again and again, as the cruel truth took shape in front of me.
“You were there…” I whispered, breathless.
He shifted in the chair, uncomfortable.
“I was the one who took you to the hospital, Antonella.” His voice sounded calm, but something was wrong. His gaze blatantly avoided mine, despite being on my face.
Suddenly, I felt a different vibration, a tension in the air.
“No.” I shook my head, got to my feet, and moved away on instinct, my gaze pinned to him and my hands restless.
“These… these shoes are the same ones I saw before I lost consciousness… And… And if those were your feet there, that means you saw Norah at the top of the stairs… Of course you saw her! There was no way she got out of there in the blink of an eye, because the fall was a matter of seconds and I didn’t take long to lose consciousness…
You didn’t arrive after I lost consciousness. It was before. Oh my God… Ben, you…”
I focused on Ben, and my eyes filled with tears, overflowing. The betrayal, surreal to my mind, had been there the whole time, right in front of me, and I was too stupid to see it.
His gaze away from mine. The indistinct feeling. The strange sensation. The inexplicable something more always hovering over him in our conversations after the birth. His countless “I’m sorrys” and his belief in me…
Suddenly, everything made sense and clicked into place.
It was never about friendship.
“…were her accomplice,” I verbalized the words, unreal to my heart, but the truth of them was so raw not even he could deny them.
“I can explain.”
“Explain?” A nervous laugh escaped. “You can explain? Ah, Dio…”
“Ella, I really can explain. Just let me talk, please,” he pleaded, sounding ruined, even desperate. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”
I looked at the man, now a stranger to me, enraged, even more so because of his pleading expression, as if he really could explain such an atrocity.
“What exactly can you explain? Your lack of scruples? Because let me tell you something, Benjamin. There is no explanation for that. Actually, there is one, and it’s called lack of character, immeasurable cruelty, perversion.
Or maybe you want to explain the falseness clinging to your bones when you said you were sorry and pretended to be my friend?
And guess what, you son of a bitch? There are no excuses for that either! ”
He ran a hand through his hair, nervous, tried to approach, but stopped when I backed away with a horrified look. Benjamin began to speak, disgusting me.
“I admit it, Ella. I was a bastard for agreeing to get into her filth…”
“No! Please, Benjamin, listen to me. Please, please… The two of us can get what we want. Don’t you see?”
“Are you crazy? Do you have any idea what you did, Norah?”
“She’s alive…”
“Tell that to Castellammare.”
“You love her. I know you do, don’t bother denying it… This is our chance to have what we both want. With them separated, it will be easier. We’ll never have another chance… What I did was stupid, but it gave us a chance.”
“No… this is wrong…”
“Being happy isn’t wrong, and neither is fighting for it… You can have her, Ben. Really have her. Make those fantasies as real as this touch here…”
***
“What are you telling me, Ben?”
“The young lady doesn’t like Norah. Look, I shouldn’t be saying this. I know you don’t appreciate Antonella’s friendship with me. And, well, I don’t want to hurt her over a misunderstanding.”
“Spit it out, Benjamin.”
“The young lady hates Norah. Many times she complained about your friendship with her, said she would find a way to prove to you that Norah was no good.”
“So she did it on purpose? Is that what you’re telling me? And Ben, this time, be sure of what you’re going to say, especially that it’s everything. The whole fucking truth.”
“I can’t say whether she threw herself or lost her balance either.”
My mouth fell open. I didn’t know what to say. I felt only rage and horror at the man in front of me while I absorbed his betrayal.
“…I was an unlucky bastard with you… I don’t have words to say how sorry I am.
I didn’t know she would do that, I swear to God.
It was one fucking coincidence that I was the one who walked in at that moment…
I made a mistake by letting myself get carried away by the possibility of having you, and by doing so, I caused so much suffering, but at the time I didn’t think straight.
I wanted you so much, and the opportunity I thought I’d never have appeared… ”
“All this time, I believed you were my friend, someone good, special… trustworthy. That I was lucky to have you in my life… Dio, this…”
My words died, I was knocked off my axis, completely lost.
“Forgive me, Antonella. I never meant to put you through this hell, but try to understand, I did what I did because I love you.”
Ben came closer, and my emotions overflowed.
“I trusted you, you bastard! I opened my heart, exposed myself, while you helped that bitch fuck me over,” I barked the words with hatred, advancing on him in an uncontrollable impulse, fists closed, striking him blindly. “How could you do this to me, damn you? How?”
I saw nothing but my fury throbbing beneath my skin.
Ben didn’t try to defend himself, letting me hit him, but my anger didn’t lessen.
On the contrary, it grew, because even if I had enough strength to cause him real damage with my fists, none of it would bring back the moments stolen from me because of him.
His complicity with that bitch had extinguished the small but important thing I had built.
The life I could have had with my son and with Heithor. All undone by a lie.
My fists gradually slowed against his chest until they stopped, with no strength for more. My head fell forward while I cried, inconsolable.
“You played with my life, with my son’s life, after everything you saw me go through… You watched my suffering, all my anguish…”
I felt his hand in my hair.
“Forgive me, Antonella. It was a shitty mistake…”
I stepped back, pulling away from him as I wiped my face roughly with my hands and stared at that bastard’s face with hate and disgust.