Chapter 6 #11
My father closes the door behind us, calm, collected, and then… he slaps me.
Hard.
One sharp slap across the face, so sudden that for a second I’m not sure it really happens.
It burns. God, it burns.
Not a dream then. This is real. This actually happened.
I just got slapped by my dad at twenty-two years old.
He never hit me before. Not once.
Not even when I was younger. Not even when I failed exams or skipped company dinners.
He shouted, sure, gave me the cold shoulder, threw words like knives, but this, this is new.
My mother doesn’t move. She looks sad.
"Dad, why would y—"
"I told you," he shouts. "I told you to fucking stay away from that walking piece of trash!"
I blink, stunned. "Who—?"
"Don’t fucking play stupid," he snaps. "That Gio boy. That disgusting parasite. I warned you. I fucking warned you. And you went and shoved your tongue down his throat?"
I want to disappear. I want to crawl out of my skin. I want to go back in time and erase every second that led to this.
"I told you countless times, Weston," he says. "No contact. No association. No appearances outside those meetings. That boy has nothing to offer you but rot."
I try to speak. "It wasn’t—"
He raises his voice. "Don’t fucking lie to me!" He slams his hand on the table.
"I wasn’t—Dad, it’s not like that. It was just—"
"I saw the photos," he hisses. "I heard what people were saying. What they saw. You are absolutely disgusting."
I swallow hard.
He steps closer. "You let him kiss you," he says. "In public. Surrounded by people who know your name. Who know mine."
"It wasn’t real," I say quickly. "It was for someone else. It was fake."
"You think that matters to them?! You think they care why it happened? Nobody gives a shit! They don’t see a strategy.
They see weakness." He paces now, hands clenched. "You let someone like him touch you. Someone who’s made of scandal and garbage. Someone who’s never done a clean day’s work in his life. "
I flinch. "You don’t know that."
"I know enough," he says sharply. "I know what his father was. You think this Gio will help you? That he cares? He’ll pull you under with him and laugh when you drown."
"It’s not like that—"
"You were warned," he says, voice rising. "I told you. You don’t mix with him. You don’t speak to him. You don’t look at him."
"I didn’t plan it," I say, desperate now. "It just happened. I didn’t think—"
"No," he says. "You didn’t, Rava. That’s the problem." He steps closer again. "You’re too soft," he says. "Too easy. That boy sees it. He knows it. He’ll break you just like he breaks everything he touches."
"You’re wrong," I say, almost breathless.
"Am I?" he snaps. "Then why are you defending him? Why are you standing there looking like you’re about to cry for him?"
I bite the inside of my cheek.
He stares at me. "You’re not like him," he says. "And you won’t become like him."
"I’m not."
"Good," he says coldly. "Then let this be the last time I hear his name come up next to yours." He turns his back like it’s over, like the conversation never even happened, but my head spins, my cheek burns, my chest hurts worse, because the truth is I don’t know how to stay away from Gio.
Not anymore.
…
I’m way too humiliated to stay home after that.
I get dressed on autopilot, grab just my keys, and walk out without saying goodbye.
They don’t deserve a goodbye. Not him for hitting me, not my mom for standing there and doing absolutely nothing.
I end up in front of this old building I remember from when I was a kid, the one with the crazy view from the rooftop.
There’s a big red "DO NOT ENTER" sign on the door.
I ignore it.
No one ever checked before. No one stopped me then. I push my way up the stairs, and I finally reach the top. I stand there for a minute, staring like an idiot at all these tiny lights.
Then I walk over to the edge, sit down, and let my legs dangle over the side.
I’m genuinely sad. Not angry. Not at Noah, not at Gio, not at anyone. Just sad.
Because I knew. That’s the thing that hurts the most. I knew exactly how this could go wrong. I knew what my dad was capable of. I knew what would happen if something slipped. I knew the risk. And I still didn’t stop. I still kissed him.
I pull my knees up, hug them loosely. Why did it feel worse than I expected? Why did it feel like I couldn’t fix it?
I pull out my phone.
One new message.
CARLA:
-OMG.
-Did you actually kiss Gio??
For a second, I smile. I think she’s impressed. Excited. Like she sees me.
ME:
-Yeah. Are you jealous?
CARLA:
-ARE YOU INSANE???
My smile vanishes.
CARLA:
-What the hell were you thinking?!
-He’s Gio.
-Like, actual disaster Gio. Remember?!
-You’re not like him. He’s a joke.
I stare at the screen. Of course she says that. Honestly, that’s on me. Shame on me for even thinking that someone might actually be on my side.
CARLA:
-Don’t be stupid. You’re not one of his games.
-Stay away from that idiot.
Whatever, Carla. I lock the phone. Let it drop next to me on the rooftop.
No one gets it. I don’t get it either. I know it was fake. That’s the part that keeps looping in my head. It was just a fake kiss, a stupid little stunt to piss off my ex. So why do I feel like shit?
My cheek is still burning from my dad’s slap and somehow that annoys me less than the way everyone talks about it. About him.
About "that disgusting kiss" like we stood up in the middle of the room and licked their eyeballs or something, Jesus.
At least I had a real reason to talk shit about him. He used to mess with me nonstop for years.
But them?! What’s their excuse?
They talk about Gio like he’s literally the worst human being on earth. Like he’s some disease I caught and I should be ashamed.
Why am I bothered?
He’s the one who grabbed my waist. I’m the one who went along with it. We both knew exactly what we were doing.
It wasn’t love, it wasn’t some romantic moment.
It was strategy. It was revenge.
So why do I feel this weird urge to defend him every time someone opens their mouth?
Why do I want to say, "Oh my God, people, relax, it was just a kiss," or "You don’t even know him," instead of just shutting up and letting them hate him?
And the worst part? The kiss wasn’t even that bad.
There, I said it.
It wasn’t horrible. It wasn’t traumatizing.
It wasn’t "what the hell was that, ew, men" level.
If anything, it was annoyingly okay.
Way too good for something that was supposed to be a joke. Maybe that’s why everyone’s comments sting so much.
Because they’re dragging something I don’t fully understand yet. Because when they rip into it, it feels like they’re ripping into me too.
I keep thinking about that second when our mouths touched for the first time and the room disappeared and my brain went quiet and loud at the same time.
Why the hell do I feel the need to protect that?
Why do I feel guilty?
I’m confused. I’m tired. I’m annoyed at myself.
It was fake.
So why does it feel so real in my chest?
36) The Fontana Disaster
Gio
I’m in the bathroom, cleaning my cut again like a responsible citizen, because Rava gave me a whole lecture last night.
"If you don’t follow the steps, you’ll scar," he said.
So now I’m doing it exactly the way he showed me. He would be so proud.
Someone knocks on the door.
If that’s him, if he somehow showed up at my place right now while I’m mid-thought about him, I’m kissing him.
Straight to the wall. Make-out session.
I walk to the door, already smirking.
Deep breath. I open.
Oops. It’s my mom.
Yeah, no. I’m definitely not making out with my mom.
"You could’ve called," I mutter.
"I did," she says. "You ignored it."
"Did I?" I click the lighter once. "Must’ve been busy."
She walks in with this energy I instantly hate. My peace gets kicked in the face the second her heels hit the floor. She starts pacing in little circles with her arms crossed, like I’m fifteen and she just caught me sneaking out.
Newsflash: I’m twenty-three. Twenty. Three. As absent as she was back then, she’s trying to overcompensate now.
Now she wants to be involved. Now she wants to be present. Now she wants to spin around my apartment like a disapproving satellite.
It pisses me off. She wasn’t there when I needed a mom. And now that I’ve figured out how to live without one, she wants to clock in and do overtime. Great timing.
"Pistachio?" I ask, holding up the bag and popping one in my mouth.
"No."
Oh wow. She really woke up and chose zero fun today.
"Your loss," I shrug and eat another one, crunching extra loud on purpose.
"You’re busy with nonsense," she says.
"Something you wanna say, Ma? Because I’m pretty fucking sure me eating pistachios is NOT the downfall of this family."
She raises an eyebrow. "Should I even say something?"
"You don’t usually come here unless someone’s dead. Or I’m about to be."
She doesn’t laugh. "I saw a video," she says.
My smile vanishes.
Oh. That could mean a lot of things.
Did you see a video of me running from the cops?
A video of me throwing punches?
A video of me kissing the golden boy?
I have options. None of them are good.
She drops her bag on the table, takes off her coat slowly.
"Rava," she says, finally. "Seriously?"
I look away.
Okay. We’re fucked. Properly, royally fucked.
Not even twenty-four hours and the Big Brains already found out. Game over.
They’re gonna ship him back to Canada with a bow on his head and toss me to Spain like a problem they can export.
It pisses me off how she’s looking at me. Like she’s cracked some deep moral code about me and him.
You don’t know shit, woman. You just saw a thirty-second video.
I didn’t just walk up and kiss him because I ran out of mouths in the area. It wasn’t "ah, same old Gio, can’t keep it in his pants."
"It was for his ex," I say.
My mother leans back in the chair. "You kissed him for her?"
I nod once. "Yep."
Her brow furrows. "That makes zero sense."
"Not my problem."