Chapter 4 #2
I push off the wall and head to the kitchen on shaking legs, my hand pressed to my pounding chest. Part of me is glowing. Part of me wants to cry. I’ve never felt so valued in my life, and I’ve never felt so guilty.
The next few days pass in a strange haze. I see Cristiano at school pickup like always. He waits by the gates, takes my bag, and walks me home. We talk about homework and teachers and the book I’m reading. Normal things. Safe things.
But something has shifted.
I catch myself watching him differently. Noticing the way his muscles flex when he’s moving. The way his hands look when he’s carrying my backpack, strong and capable. The way his eyes soften when he looks at me.
I don’t tell him I overheard what he said and what his father did to him.
I don’t know how to bring it up without admitting I was eavesdropping, and without making him relive the humiliation and pain of being hit.
Mom has warned me not to breathe a word to anyone about the fights we hear between Mr. and Mrs. Montoni, because men like Mr. Montoni are above the law, and we mind our own business to stay safe.
I don’t know what that means, above the law, but it makes it sound as though Mr. Montoni is superhuman. Almost godlike.
On Thursday, I’m in a stall in the girls’ restroom between classes when I overhear a group of girls come in.
“—don’t understand what he sees in Mina.”
I freeze, my hand on the stall door I was about to open.
It’s my classmate, Elaine, and she must be with her friends. The same girls who circle Cristiano at the gates every afternoon, hoping he’ll notice them.
“She’s not even pretty,” Amber says. I recognize her voice. “Like, she’s fine, but she’s not pretty pretty.”
“Maybe she’s easy,” Trina suggests, and they all giggle.
“Has to be.” Elaine’s voice is sharp with spite. “What else would a St. Peter’s boy want with someone like her? He probably gives her things. You know. Payment.”
My face burns. My stomach drops.
“He’s always carrying her bag, like she’s some kind of princess,” Trina mocks.
“She’s the housekeeper’s daughter,” Elaine says, drawing out the words like they’re dirty. “Her mom cleans his toilets. I heard her dad ran out on them years ago. And she thinks she can date Cristiano Montoni?”
More cruel laughter. They use the restroom and then walk out, their voices fading as the door swings closed.
I sit down on the toilet. My legs feel numb and my chest is tight. Cristiano and I are friends. Just friends. He carries my bag because he’s kind, not because I’m—because we’re—
Oh, God. Do people really think that about us? Does everyone think that?
What else would a St. Peter’s boy want with someone like her?
I think about Cristiano’s bedroom, that I’ve only glimpsed through the doorway. Huge and furnished with dark wood and expensive fabrics. He even has his own bathroom.
Then there’s my room, the tiny space at the top of the house, barely big enough for a bed and a dresser. The bathroom I share with Mom. The pre-owned and bought-on-sale clothes in my closet and the secondhand paperback books on my bookshelf.
His future is college, somewhere prestigious. Marrying someone appropriate like Ashley Ricci.
My future is…what?
Community college, if I’m lucky. Some kind of unimportant job. A small apartment. A small life.
Cristiano’s family owns a huge portion of Malus.
I’ve seen the casinos. The skyscrapers. All that will be Cristiano’s one day.
His world is golden and gleaming and full of possibility.
Mine is gray and ordinary and forgettable.
A daughter abandoned by her own father, just like Elaine pointed out.
I haven’t laid eyes on Dad since I was four.
I’ve always known this, and it’s never bothered me before. So why does it hurt so much now?
I press my forehead against my knees and close my eyes.
Cristiano and I are friends, and a girl like me can never be anything more to a boy like him. Not really. Not in any way that matters.
Our friendship won’t last. Not beyond high school, or once Cristiano grows into his self-confidence, which won’t be long because he’s getting more and more handsome every day. Soon he won’t need my small kindnesses and encouragement anymore.
Maybe I should thank Elaine for the short, sharp reality check.
I wipe my eyes, straighten my spine, and unlock the stall.
My reflection in the bathroom mirror looks pale. Ordinary. Mousy, just like Mr. Montoni said.
I wash my hands and go back to class, reminding myself that sitting at a graffitied desk in an airless room among students whose parents also work minimum wage is where I belong.
“I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.” I recite Demetrius’s words to the sky.
I’m lying on my back in our spot at the bottom of the garden, the grass soft beneath me, my battered copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream held up against the clouds. Saturday afternoon sun warms my face, and the hedges block everything else out. The mansion, the world, all of it.
“I’ll follow thee and make a heaven out of hell, to die upon the hand I love so well.
” Helena’s declaration whispers over my lips.
She’s ridiculous, chasing a man who doesn’t want her, but there’s something about her desperation that makes my chest ache.
To love someone that much that you’d follow them anywhere, and even die for them?
There are muffled footsteps in the grass. I lower the book and sit up as Cristiano limps through the gap in the hedges.
My heart does that little skip it’s been doing lately, but then I see his face, and everything else falls away.
There’s a bruise blooming along his cheekbone, purple and angry. But it’s his eyes that make my stomach drop. They’re red-rimmed and hollow with devastation.
He doesn’t say anything. Just stands there, shoulders hunched, hands hanging at his sides, looking at me like I’m the only solid thing in a world that’s crumbling.
“Cristiano.” I reach up and grasp his hand, my book tumbling to the grass. “What happened?”
He falls to his knees and wraps his arms around me.
I freeze for a second, shocked by the sensation of his big body holding mine. We’re getting too old for this. Everyone disapproves of our friendship, let alone us touching. Mr. Montoni’s face dances in my mind, along with the sneering expressions of the girls at school.
Then I feel Cristiano shaking.
My arms come up around him, holding tight, and I stop thinking about what we should and shouldn’t do. He’s trembling against me, his face buried in my hair, his breath ragged and uneven.
“I’m here,” I whisper. “I’m here. It’s okay.”
It’s not okay. Something terrible has happened.
We stay like that for a long moment, wrapped around each other, his heart pounding against mine. Gradually the shaking subsides. His breathing slows. But he doesn’t let go.
“Sit with me,” I say softly, pulling back just enough so we can sink down onto the grass. He moves like someone who’s been hollowed out, all the fight drained away.
“What happened?” I ask again, sitting beside him.
“Football.” The word is flat. Empty.
It’s Saturday. There’s no football on Saturday. I want to demand the truth, but his eyes are so bleak and lost.
“Okay,” I say instead. “Okay.”
Silence stretches between us. He stares at nothing, his jaw tight, that terrible emptiness in his eyes. I can’t bear it.
“Come here,” I say, patting my lap. “Put your head down.”
He looks at me. Something flickers in those amber depths. Desperate hope. We used to do this when we were children, until his father caught us and he bellowed so long and loud that I’ve been terrified of touching Cristiano ever since.
Slowly, carefully, he shifts on the grass until he’s lying down and lowers his head into my lap. He’s heavy and warm, and I can feel how rigidly he’s holding himself.
I slide my fingers into his hair, threading them through his curls. They’re soft and silky and feel so good to touch. I sweep them back from his brow and twine my fingers through the strands.
A sound escapes him, quiet, almost wounded, and he burrows his face into me and moves his arms until they’re wrapped tight around my waist.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my fingers moving gently through his hair. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
But what if it is? Maybe he hit you because you defended me. Perhaps not the first hit, but what if it was the reason for the second hit? Or the tenth?
I keep stroking his hair, tracing slow paths across his scalp, and gradually the tension starts to drain from his shoulders. His breathing deepens and his pained expression softens.
He’s so handsome. The sharp line of his jaw, the sweep of his lashes against his cheeks.
I’ve always known Cristiano is good-looking.
Anyone with eyes can see that he’s as beautiful and masculine as a youth in a Renaissance painting.
But lately, noticing he’s handsome feels different, and I don’t know what to do with those feelings.
“Don’t stop,” he murmurs.
“I won’t.”
The sun shifts slowly across the sky. Birds sing in the hedges. His breathing grows so steady I think he might have fallen asleep.
Then he speaks, his voice rough.
“Mina?”
“Mm?”
“Don’t ever—”
He doesn’t finish.
He doesn’t have to.
“I’ll always be here,” I say, and I mean it with everything I have. “For as long as you need me.”
“I’ll always need you.” His arm tightens around me. “What were you reading when I came? You were whispering something.”
“I’ll follow thee and make a heaven out of hell, to die upon the hand I love so well.”
He recognizes the line from the play. “Helena. She’s in love with Demetrius.”
“She’s a fool.”
“Is she?”
“She chases someone who doesn’t want her.”
“Maybe she can’t help herself. Maybe not hoping for his love would feel like death.”
I don’t know what to say to that. The air between us suddenly feels charged, like the moment before a storm.