Chapter 18 Bambalina
Bambalina
I walk into the living room and stop short. I can’t see very much of the room because it’s shielded from view by piles and piles of cardboard boxes.
“Hello?” I call out, faintly.
Antonia pops her head round one of the piles. “Oh, hi, love.”
I scan the boxes for some suggestion of what’s inside them but there are no words besides ‘Pack ‘n’ Stack. “Um, everything okay?”
“I’m so sorry, Bambi. I’ll make sure these are packed away before the end of the day so we can all have the living room back. I’m just going through old mementoes and photographs.” She glances about and chuckles. “I didn’t realize I was such a hoarder.”
“It does look like you might have quite a job on your hands.”
“I know,” she sighs. “I’m going to have to be ruthless. As much as I’d like to, I can’t keep everything.”
My gaze drops to a small pile of photographs Antonia has set to one side.
Without thinking, I pick them up. The top picture features a young, handsome face laughing into the camera.
Gray eyes, a mop of dark hair, slender build beneath a sports t-shirt.
My chest thumps without warning. “Is this Nicolò?”
Antonia turns around and takes the photo between her fingers.
Her smile is broad and there’s a world of happiness behind her eyes when she looks at the image. “Yes. He must have been fifteen then. Always such a happy kid.”
“He looks the same but different,” I say, with a slight frown.
“I know what you mean. He looks lighter in this picture, not weighed down by grief and responsibilities, and duties.”
She places the photograph on top of a box as my gaze falls to the small pile in my hand. Then my breath stutters in my throat. “Is this—”
I don’t need to ask really. It’s as clear as night and day whose face fills the picture in my hand. Shoulder-length black hair, large brown eyes framed with thick lashes, the same stunning bone structure as Nicolò and his mom, and a smile so wide it makes my heart ache.
Antonia moves behind me and rests her hands on my shoulders as she peers over at the photograph.
Her soft sigh skims my ear. “Yes. That’s my baby.”
There’s a long, heavy pause before she speaks again. “Her hair used to be so thick, and long, like yours, but she’d been through her first round of chemo by then and it took its toll on her hair.”
“She’s beautiful,” I whisper. You would never know by looking at her how ill she was.
I feel Antonia’s face turn toward my cheek. “As strange as it sounds,” she says, softly, “I see a lot of her in you.”
My chest tightens. I don’t want to be seen as a replacement.
I am my own person. But I can’t disagree: there’s a distinct likeness between Sofia and me.
It makes my infatuation with her brother feel all kinds of wrong.
But I know that infatuation won’t go away just because I’ve seen how similar I look to his real sister.
I’ve been nurturing this obsession for months now, and instead of lessening in intensity, loosening its grip, it’s simply grown.
It’s reached a point where I can’t go a few hours without thinking about Nicolò—where he is, what he’s doing, when he might be home, what he might do to me in my imagination.
It’s like a faulty faucet that not only can I not turn off, but the flow is getting faster and less tamable every day.
I release a breath when Antonia steps back to resume sorting through photographs. “I’m setting a few aside for Nicolò to take with him,” she says.
I look up. “Take with him?”
She sighs, heavily. “Didn’t he tell you? He’s found a place of his own. An apartment in a newly converted warehouse in Greenpoint. It will take a little while for the sale to be completed, but—”
I can’t hear another word she says through the pounding in my ears. Blood has rushed to the top of my spine and is whooshing around my head as I try to make sense of what I’m hearing.
“Nicolò is moving out?”
“Yeah. I guess this day had to come eventually.”
“H—how long has he been planning this?”
Antonia looks up in thought. “It’s a good question. He announced it quite suddenly. Just the other day actually. It hasn’t taken him long to find a place.” She looks over a box at me with a sad smile. “It’ll be you next, then your father and I will be rattling around this house just the two of us.”
“I suppose,” I mutter. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”
My vision is scattered as I leave the room. When I reach the hallway, I’m about to head upstairs but I need some fresh air. My brain is foggy and filled with the kind of noise only a lowered temperature and a stiff breeze can fix.
I open the front door and sit on the stoop with my arms hugged around myself. The leaves have long fallen from the trees and the bare branches are dancing like skeletons, taunting me. Despite how cold it is out here, I’m burning up as though I’m coming down with the flu.
Unaware of how long I’ve been sitting outside the house, I’m jolted back to my body by the sound of gates opening and the familiar quiet purr of an engine.
My heart rate ticks up when I recognize Nicolò’s car coming up the drive. Suddenly, the thought of not hearing that sound every day makes my lungs feel tight.
The engine is cut and the driver’s door opens.
My breath stalls when he extends a leg to the gravel and straightens to his full height.
He looks impeccable as always in a tailored Italian suit.
Sighing inwardly, I realize Nicolò di Santo looks good in anything.
Full suits with vests, button-ups with rolled up sleeves, sweatpants and t-shirt, sweatpants and no t-shirt.
I’ve watched him for months now and I’ve loved it. I’m going to miss that. I’m going to… miss him. I swallow. It’s so true I could hate myself. The object of my obsession is removing himself from my life. I feel way more destroyed than I should.
The car door makes a soft clunk when it closes, then Nicolò turns around and sees me on the stoop. He halts for a beat, then starts to walk toward the front door.
I get up and make my way down the rest of the steps until we’re standing face to face. Or, my face to his chest, given the height difference.
In the past he’d have shot me a frustrated look and asked me what I wanted, but something has changed between us, I can feel it. Instead, he bends his head until his breath skims my nose.
“Are you okay?”
He says it with such depth of emotion I have to bite my lip to stop an embarrassing sob working its way out of my mouth.
I lift my lids to see the same sharp jaw and defined cheekbones as those in the photo, and the same jet back lashes and gray irises reflecting my mood back to me.
“You’re leaving?” It comes out fractured and quiet.
He takes a small step back and glances up at the house.
“Mom told you?”
I manage to recover my voice. “She’s clearing out old photos in the living room so you can take some with you.”
He drops his gaze back to mine. It’s cold yet unbearably warm at the same time.
“I leave at the end of the month.”
The end of the month? Oxygen exits my lungs in a gust, making my shoulders fall. My eyes follow until I’m staring at the ground. His right hand is in his pocket, but the left hangs by his side. Without thinking I brush my fingers against his, almost trembling at the contact.
“Don’t go.” Those two words are whispered so quietly, a part of me hopes he didn’t hear them. But when his other hand reaches up and cups my chin, lifting it gently until I’m staring into his eyes, I can’t escape the fact he did. “I just got used to having you around,” I add, weakly.
His eyes dart over mine as if he’s trying to read an autocue. “Hey. I’ll visit a lot. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
I’m very conscious that he’s still holding my chin, his touch burning faintly into my skin.
I try to turn on the sister attitude to cover up how I really feel. “You better not miss my birthday party,” I say, jabbing him lightly in the chest with a finger. But his chest is a wall of solid muscle, so my finger definitely comes off worse.
A smile tugs at the corner of his lips for a brief moment—barely a second—then he drifts his fingers away from my skin. “A chance to welcome a baby deer into the herd? I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
I narrow my eyes. “Thanks Nicolò. Maybe I’ll uninvite you just for that.”
He shoves both hands into his pockets and tips his head to one side. “Just for what? For calling you a baby deer? It’s a joke. Your name is Bambi, no?”
“Lina,” I growl through gritted teeth, then I turn on my heel, now feeling partially thankful he’s leaving, and make my way into the house.
Back inside my room, my journal on my knees, I need to make sense of my emotions.
They’re running rampant with everything that has happened in the last hour.
The despair I felt at hearing Nicolò is moving out; the bone-shattering sensation of my skin brushing against his and those featherlight fingertips on my face; and the annoyance of hearing him call me ‘Bambi’ instead of ‘Lina.’
I thought we’d moved past that. I thought our relationship was deeper than surface-level teasing. Than simply stepbrother and stepsister.
I guess I thought wrong.
With an angry hand, I scribble down every thought until I can breathe easily again and reflect on his words without feeling the urge to knee him in the groin.
A baby deer isn’t called a bambi anyway. Bambi is a cartoon character. A baby deer is called a fawn.
I click my tongue and write that down.
I lift my gaze from the book and, annoyingly, his face fills my vision. I don’t want anyone to call me Bambi, but most of all, I don’t want him to call me Bambi.
Little Fawn, however… I imagine him whispering those words in my ear as he pushes his fingers down through the waistband of my jeans, into my panties and between my folds, finding me wet and ready for him.
“Is this for me, little fawn?”
I tip my head back and put my own fingers where I imagine his to be. I imagine him calling me his little fawn. Then, keeping my lips sealed tight, I bring myself to a faster orgasm than I ever have before.
Then, I write it all down, in minute detail, into a book that no one’s eyes will see but mine.