CHAPTER 46
NINA MARCHESI
I clench my teeth hard when the neighbor I used to greet whenever we crossed paths crosses the street just to avoid walking on the same sidewalk as me. The indifferent expression on my face doesn’t waver, though. Not here. Not now.
The next person in my path isn’t nearly as subtle. Cleonte, the neighborhood pharmacist—an elderly man with white beard and mustache—spits on the ground after staring at me for a few seconds. I keep walking, unshaken.
Not here. Not now. Five gates to go, Nina. Just five more gates.
I quicken my pace when I see a group approaching. I can handle one person’s contempt at a time, but a group—all at once—I’m afraid would be too much, and I’d crumble before reaching the safety of my house, now just three gates ahead.
The entire island knows.
Every breathing soul in Khione knows and is talking about Nero humiliating me on the sidewalk outside the exporting company—and somehow they’ve all seen the same photos he shoved in my face.
How much must he hate me to have been capable of that?
Was everything he said, everything he did, not enough?
I get inside and let my body fall against the door the moment I close it.
Tears burst from my eyes, immediately followed by sobs tearing from my throat.
My shoulders shake, and I can’t stop myself from nearly screaming in the middle of a despair that neither fades nor eases.
The emptiness on my right ring finger bears witness to that.
Two weeks ago, Atlas dropped me off at home, and I barely made it to the bathroom in time to avoid throwing up all over myself. It amazes me that I managed to delay my body’s inevitable reaction to those photos for so long. Disgust.
Not at the images—but at what they meant. Proof of a betrayal that never happened, that I could never have committed. The revulsion overtook me all at once, until I thought I’d die before I stopped expelling everything I had—and didn’t have—inside me.
My mother came home from the shop a few hours later, brought back by the buzz that had already begun to roam the island. For the second time in a short span, Rosa held me while I fell apart in tears because of Nero Zanthos.
I told myself I’d give myself one day to grieve. One day—and then I’d move on. I’d continue my life, look for a job, do my best to raise my child to become a man who would never expose any woman to anything even remotely like the humiliation I’d been subjected to.
I couldn’t get out of bed for five days.
Amid the despair and the dull pain suffocating my chest, I lost track of time and space, reduced to crying, thinking, growing exhausted from doing both, and falling asleep only to wake a few hours later and do it all again.
I got up on the sixth day—not because I intended to immediately leave everything behind and act like I was some unbreakable wonder woman, but because I knew I couldn’t think only of myself.
What I didn’t expect was that the entire island would have already judged and condemned me as the shameless woman who tried to trap its most precious jewel with a pregnancy.
And if Nero’s actions sent me spiraling into despair, the weight of public opinion threw me into a pit of apathy. I couldn’t bring myself to care about anything for days, and today was the first time I opened my eyes feeling even minimally capable of living instead of merely continuing to exist.
I went to Athens, needing a proper medical appointment, desperately needing to hear my baby’s heartbeat and know that, even after all this, he was okay. This time, I didn’t even try to seek care in Khione.
If I couldn’t manage it before, now it’s likely the island’s clinics would rather shut their doors than have to treat me. But not depending on Khione’s residents for medical care didn’t spare me their stares, comments, and recriminations.
On the way from my house to Athens, I felt like a prisoner on death row. Everyone was certain I was guilty and watched me as if they truly wished me dead.
It was only when I stepped off the ferry terminal in the capital that I felt like I could actually breathe again. And no matter how much I tried to prepare myself psychologically for returning to the island, it didn’t work.
The recriminations make me want to lock myself inside and never go out again. I know I can’t. Because it’s not just me depending on myself anymore—not now. Still, I decide that for the next few minutes, I’ll allow myself to sink.
I slide my back down the door until I’m sitting on the floor and hug my knees. Just for the next few minutes, I tell myself. Just a few minutes—and no more.
***
“Nina?” my mother calls as she comes up the stairs, and I frown.
I check the clock and see it’s three in the afternoon, confirming my suspicions. It’s far too early for her to be home.
“I’m in my room,” I say, and moments later she’s coming in.
Her eyes sweep over my entire body, stopping at my still-red face and swollen nose. She lets out a long sigh, steps closer, and kisses my cheeks. I hold her tightly and stay there for a while, simply absorbing her calm.
“How was the appointment?” she asks when we pull apart.
“Everything’s fine.” I bring my hand to my belly, drawing in a deep breath that makes my shoulders lift. “We’re at eight weeks.” My smile is sad, and I feel guilty for it.
It feels wrong that even about something as wonderful as my baby being healthy, smiling for real still feels impossible. My mother’s smile is a little wider than mine. Her hand reaches my abdomen, covering mine.
“Two months. We’ll blink and he’ll be out here, crying and nursing.” The image forms in my mind, and it’s the first moment since everything happened that I feel even a gram of peace.
“The doctor warned me about stress and strong emotions,” I comment, twisting my mouth. “How am I supposed to control that?” The question is rhetorical, and my mother knows it, because she answers with another.
“Did you manage to schedule the next appointment?”
“I did. Today’s doctor will follow my care.”
“Good,” she nods.
“Why are you home so early?” I ask. Her shoulders lift and fall.
“I decided to close the shop early today.” Something about that doesn’t sit right. I narrow my eyes at her.
“Why?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to know how your appointment went.”
“That’s not a reason, Mom. You could’ve called me or asked me to come by the shop. I could’ve told you there.” My mother bites her lip and looks away. “What’s going on?” I insist, and she forces the air from her lungs.
“For the past two weeks, not a single customer has walked into the shop,” she says, and my eyes widen.
“What?” Despair hits me all at once, along with a wave of stupidity.
Of course I wouldn’t be the only one directly affected by all this, would I?
While I hid and cried all day, my mother was out there, watching her dream wither because of something that isn’t even her fault.
“Mom…” I whisper, already feeling tears slide down my cheeks.
God, how I hate this. How I hate that I’ve suddenly become nothing more than a well of tears.
“It’s all right, my daughter. None of this is your fault.
None of it.” She reassures me, reading it in my eyes.
I hug her again. “We’ll get through this, my love, like we always have—together.
” She pulls back, cupping my wet cheeks with both hands so my gaze locks onto hers.
“Together.” I nod and inhale. “People will forget. Sooner or later, they’ll forget. ”
“And if they don’t, Mom?”
“They’ll realize it’s a lie. They’ll see who you are and understand this is nothing but a sordid plan.
” My mother’s certainty doesn’t seep into my skin, but it sends a tiny ripple of hope through my heart.
She kisses my forehead, and the moment she steps away, the doorbell rings. “I’ll get it,” she says.
I wait anxiously for her to come back. People refuse to look at me, refuse to go to the shop to buy anything—who would be willing to visit us now?
The answer comes faster than I’d like and is definitely not what I want to hear.
Less than five minutes later, my mother appears in my doorway, her expression tight with apprehension.
“There are two men downstairs, Nina. They say they’re Nero’s lawyers.”