7. Enzo
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Enzo
I see her before she sees me.
She’s curled into one of the lobby chairs like she’s trying to disappear into it, knees pulled to her chest, arms wrapped around herself. Even from across the room I can see her face is blotchy, her makeup smeared, her whole body curved inward like she’s protecting herself from a blow.
Adriana Costa. Ana. My brother’s wife.
Crying alone in my building’s lobby.
The elevator doors start to close behind me and I should let them.
I should go back up to my floor and pour myself a drink and forget I saw anything.
Whatever mess Rafael has made, it’s not my problem.
She’s not my problem. I left that family years ago, and I don’t owe them anything, least of all whatever this is going to cost me to get involved in my brother’s mess.
She doesn’t notice me at first. She’s staring at her phone, or maybe through it, her eyes unfocused and red-rimmed. The doorman catches my eye and I give him a look that says mind your business. He suddenly finds his computer screen very interesting.
I’m still standing by the elevator, still telling myself to leave, when she feels it.
Her head comes up, some animal awareness of being watched, and her eyes find mine across the room.
For a moment neither of us moves. She just stares at me like I might be a hallucination, like the universe couldn’t possibly be this cruel.
Then my feet decide for me, and I cross the lobby and stop a few feet from her chair.
“Ana.”
“Enzo?” Her voice is wrecked. Scraped raw. “What are you doing here?”
“I live here. Top floor.” I nod toward the ceiling. “What are you doing in my lobby?”
It comes out harsher than I intend. She flinches, and something twists behind my ribs. Guilt, maybe. Or something else I don’t want to look at too closely.
“Waiting for Amelia.” She swipes at her face with the back of her hand, smearing her mascara worse. “She lives here. She’s not answering. I didn’t know where else to go.”
I look at her. Really look. The expensive dress, wrinkled and creased like she’s been sitting there for hours. The careful makeup ruined, dark streaks down her cheeks. She’s folded herself as small as possible, taking up no space at all, like she’s used to making herself invisible.
Something happened. Something bad.
“Come upstairs,” I say.
“What?”
“You shouldn’t be sitting down here like this.” I hold out my hand to her. “Come on.”
She stares at my hand like she doesn’t understand the gesture. Like no one has ever offered her help before without wanting something in return. Maybe no one has.
Then, slowly, she takes it.
Her fingers are ice cold. I close mine around them and pull her to her feet, and I don’t let go as I lead her toward the elevator. She doesn’t pull away. She just follows, silent and shaking, her hand gripping mine like it’s the only thing keeping her upright.
The elevator doors close behind us. She leans against the wall, her eyes fixed on some point I can’t see. The tears are still falling, sliding down her cheeks in silent streams.
I should say something. Offer some kind of comfort. Do whatever normal people do when someone is falling apart in front of them.
But I’ve never been good at this. At feelings. At comfort. At any of the soft human things that most people seem to manage without thinking.
So I stand there holding her hand and watch the floor numbers climb.
In the penthouse, I bring her to the couch. She sinks into it like her legs won’t hold her anymore, pulling her knees up again, making herself small. I look around my apartment and realize I have no idea what to do next.
Tissues. Crying people need tissues.
I find a box in the bathroom and bring it to her. She takes them without looking at me, pressing a handful to her face. I stand there awkwardly for a moment, then sit down in the chair across from her.
What else do crying women need? I don’t keep chocolate in the house. I don’t have tea. I don’t have whatever else people offer in situations like this. I have whiskey and black coffee and a cleaning service that comes twice a week. None of that seems helpful.
Tissues. That’s all I’ve got.
She wipes her face. Blows her nose. Takes a shaky breath that sounds like it hurts.
I wait.
The silence stretches between us. I watch her cry, watch her try to pull herself together, watch her fail.
It’s uncomfortable in a way I’m not used to.
I don’t know what to do with my hands, with my face, with any of it.
I’m not used to being around people when they’re vulnerable.
I’m not used to caring whether they’re okay.
But I can’t seem to make myself leave.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask finally.
She laughs, broken and wet. “Not really.”
“Okay.”
More silence. She wipes her face again, crumples the tissue, reaches for another one.
“Rafael,” she says.
I go very still.
“What did he do?”
She doesn’t look at me. She’s staring at the coffee table like it holds answers, like if she looks hard enough she’ll find something that makes sense.
“I went home today. I was going to tell him…” She stops, shakes her head. “Doesn’t matter. I went home. Found him in bed with someone.”
The words land like a fist to my gut.
“With Viviana.”
For a moment I don’t process it. Viviana. The runaway bride. The sister who disappeared on her wedding day and left Ana to take her place, to marry a stranger, to build a life on someone else’s abandoned foundation.
“Viviana’s back?”
“Apparently.” Ana’s voice goes flat. Dead. Like something inside her has stopped feeling. “Back long enough to fuck my husband in his bed. Our bed. The bed I was going to…”
She stops. Presses her lips together. I see her throat working as she swallows.
“What happened after you found them?”
“Told him I wanted a divorce. Told them both to stay away from me.” She finally meets my eyes, and there’s something there underneath all the pain. Something that hasn’t been broken yet. “I meant it. I’m not going back. Ever.”
Steel. That’s what it is. Steel under the tears.
Good. She’s going to need that.
“Viviana said I should scram.” Ana laughs again, that terrible broken sound.
“Like I was the intruder. Like I was the one who didn’t belong.
Like I’d just been keeping his bed warm until she decided to come back.
” Her hands clench in her lap. “Rafael just stood there. Didn’t argue with her.
Didn’t tell her to leave. Just stood there and let her say those things to me. ”
“He’s a coward. Always has been.”
“He said one thing led to another. Like that explains it. Like that makes it okay.”
“It doesn’t. Nothing makes it okay.”
“I know.” She pulls her knees tighter to her chest, curling in on herself. “I know that. I just don’t know what to do now. Can’t go to my parents. My father would send me back. I have no money. I have nothing.”
“You have your friend. Amelia.”
“Who isn’t answering her phone.” Ana holds up the device, screen dark. “Called her six times. She’s probably at work. Or on a date. Somewhere she can’t hear.”
“Then stay here.”
The words come out before I think about them. She looks at me, startled, like I’ve said something incomprehensible.
“What?”
“Until your friend calls back. Until you figure out what you want to do.” I try to make it sound casual, like I offer my penthouse to crying women every day. “I have room.”
“I can’t just stay here. I don’t even know you.”
“You know me.”
“From a few parties years ago. From one conversation at a wedding where you told me I was nothing to Rafael but a warm body and a signature on a contract.”
“And now from this.” I gesture at the space between us. “One awkward evening of you crying on my couch while I fail spectacularly at emotional support.”
Something flickers across her face. Almost a smile, there and gone.
“Why?” she asks. “Why are you helping me?”
“Because you were sitting in my lobby looking like the world ended, and I couldn’t just walk past.”
“Most people would have.”
“I’m not most people.”
She studies me for a long moment. I can see her trying to figure me out, trying to understand what I want from her. She won’t find the answer. I’m not sure I know it myself.
“Okay,” she says finally. “Just until Amelia calls.”
I nod and stand up. “I’ll get you some water. It’s about all I’ve got that isn’t whiskey.”
“Water. Please.”
I go to the kitchen, grateful for the excuse to put distance between us. I fill a glass from the tap, then stand there gripping the edge of the counter.
Rafael. Rafael and Viviana. My idiot brother, who had this woman for seven months and threw her away the second the prettier, louder sister wandered back.
Seven months married to her, and he still couldn’t tell the two of them apart in any way that mattered.
He never could. At the wedding he stood at that altar and said one Costa daughter was as good as another, and apparently he meant it.
I think about Ana walking down that aisle at the wedding. The terror in her eyes that she was trying so hard to hide. The way she said her vows in a voice that barely shook. The way she looked at Rafael like she was searching for something worth believing in.
I watched her marry my brother, and I told myself it was none of my business. I walked away.
I should have done something.
With the glass in my hand, I go back to her. She takes it with both hands, like she needs something to hold onto.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
I sit back down across from her. The silence is different now. Less uncomfortable. More like two people trying to figure out what happens next.
“I want them to hurt.”
The words come out fierce, sudden. She looks almost surprised at herself, like she didn’t mean to say it out loud.
“Is that terrible?” she asks. “I want Rafael and Viviana to feel what I feel. Want to throw it in their faces. Make them regret what they did.”
“That’s not terrible. That’s human.”