Chapter 6
Mina
Four years later
“See you tomorrow,” I call out, waving as Katrina and Priya head toward the parking lot.
“Don’t forget, Giodorno’s Pizza at seven,” Katrina shouts back. “If you’re late, I’m eating your garlic knots.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“Try me!”
I’m laughing as I watch them go, still grinning as I hoist my bag higher on my shoulder. The sun is warm on my face, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue. Classes are almost over forever. In three more weeks, I’ll be done with exams and done with high school. Summer is coming.
And then my steps falter. There’s a figure leaning against the wall by the gates. Tall. Broad. Arms crossed. Blond curls falling over his brow. His old spot. The place he used to wait for me, back before he showed me who he really is.
For one dizzying moment, the world tilts. Cristiano is waiting for me at the school gates after four years of silence.
The boy shifts, turning his head, and I see his face properly. It’s not Cristiano. Just some random senior waiting for his girlfriend. I let out a breath as my pulse slowly returns to normal.
It’s been four years since he locked me in his wardrobe.
I should be over him. I am over him, but it would be easier not to anticipate Cristiano around every corner if I wasn’t still living with him.
I envy my sister Rosa, who’s five years older than me and moved out of the Montoni mansion years ago.
I push Cristiano out of my mind, the way I’ve learned to do, because I have better things to think about.
Like the massage therapy program I’m enrolled in after summer.
Six months of anatomy and physiology and hands-on training, then the licensing exam, then a real career.
Something that’s mine. I chose massage therapy first of all because it’s affordable for me.
My grades are very good, but Mom could never pay for real college, and the alternative, starting out in life with a huge debt, is too frightening.
But most of all, I like the idea of helping people feel better.
Easing pain with my touch, releasing tension, and making someone’s day a little less hard.
The walk home takes me through the quieter streets of the neighborhood, past mini-marts with their awnings casting stripes of shade, old men playing dominoes on folding tables, and kids shrieking as they chase each other through the spray of a water fountain.
The air smells like warm asphalt and someone’s cooking, a savory scent that makes my stomach growl.
After a few blocks, I pass into the wealthier part of northeast Malus, home to people who rub shoulders with the Montonis. The cars become more expensive and so do the people.
I’m three blocks from home when I see the motorcycle. It’s stopped at the traffic lights across from me, sleek and black. A Ducati. The rider is in all black too. Leather jacket, jeans, boots, helmet. The visor is down, hiding his face.
But I know it’s him.
My stomach tightens. Four years later, my body still remembers the click of a lock. The darkness of the wardrobe. His voice through the wood, so cold and frightening.
Cristiano bought the racing bike just over a year ago.
Italian-made, of course, with an engine noise that throbs deep inside you.
Most of his friends drive bland, expensive cars, but Cristiano opted for something more rebellious.
Something that turns heads. Like he doesn’t get enough attention from women as it is.
He hasn’t moved, and hasn’t done anything to acknowledge my existence, but I feel his stare through the dark visor like heat on my skin. I can’t explain it, but I know he’s watching me. He’s making me feel like prey he’s decided not to chase. Yet.
I turn sharply and head down a side street, my pace quickening. It’s a longer route home, but I don’t care. I just need to get away from the crawling awareness that he’s watching me.
Behind me, I hear the rumble of the motorcycle approaching fast.
My whole body tenses. I keep walking, refusing to look back, my hands curled into fists at my sides.
The rumble grows louder. Closer.
And then he roars past.
Straight past. Doesn’t slow down. Doesn’t turn his head. He’s just a black blur disappearing around the corner, and the sound of the engine fading into the distance.
I stop walking and press a hand to my chest, trying to calm my racing heart. Maybe I was overreacting. He was just going the same direction as me, and maybe he wasn’t staring at all. It’s been four years of ignoring me. What am I doing, hoping that he’s still interested in me?
I force a laugh and shake my head. Absolutely not.
When I reach the Montoni mansion, he’s already there.
The Ducati is parked at the curb, and Cristiano is straddling it, his helmet hooked on the handlebar.
His black leather jacket is unzipped, revealing a white T-shirt stretched across his chest. He’s not looking at me.
His attention is focused on adjusting something on the bike, his brow furrowed in concentration.
He looks older. Harder. The softness of boyhood has been carved away, leaving sharp angles and lean muscle. His jaw is lightly shadowed with stubble. His hands are big and capable, moving with practiced ease over the machine.
He looks dangerous.
He looks sexy.
I hate that I notice, and I hate even more the flutter of attraction beneath my fear. My body remembers what my heart wants to forget.
I keep my head down and walk past him, aiming for the gates. He won’t see me. He’s focused on his bike, and I can just slip inside.
Staring straight ahead, I walk past him.
When he and the bike are a few paces behind me, I hear him.
“Mina.” His voice is quiet, almost bored, like he’s greeting an acquaintance he barely remembers.
I don’t respond. I don’t even turn around. I just keep walking, through the gates and around the house toward the kitchen, my pulse pounding in my ears. Irrational anger sparks in my chest because how dare he still have the power to fluster me after all this time?
That’s the maddening thing about the last four years.
Cristiano is everywhere I go, taking up space in my life and my head, whether I want him there or not.
He never approaches. Never gives me a single thing I could point to and call inappropriate.
But he’s always there. Like he’s waiting for something.
I slam my bedroom door behind me and press my back against it, breathing hard. I wish I could stop being so aware of him. I wish I could hate him properly.
But it’s hard to hate someone who isn’t doing anything wrong.
At least, nothing I can prove.
That evening, I’m alone in the kitchen, washing the dinner dishes.
Mom’s already gone to bed. She has an early start tomorrow, and Mr. Montoni has been running her ragged lately with some big event he’s planning.
I don’t ask about it. I don’t want to know anything that happens in this house anymore.
The water is warm on my hands, the soap suds iridescent in the overhead light. I’m scrubbing a pot when I hear the back door open.
Footsteps. Heavy. Unhurried. Harsh and ragged breathing, the way a man sounds after a run. There’s only one man it can be, because it’s not like Mr. Montoni would ever work out.
I will not turn around.
Cristiano walks past me to the fridge, closer than he needs to, and opens it.
He’s shirtless, with his T-shirt tucked into the back pocket of his low-slung running shorts.
His chest is slick with sweat, rising and falling with exertion, and there’s a flush across his cheekbones.
I can see every line of muscle, every plane and ridge of his body.
He’s not a boy anymore. He’s a man. A man who looks like he was sculpted by someone who adores the athletic male form.
I yank my gaze back to the pot in my hands, my face burning.
He grabs a bottle of water and drinks deeply, his throat working, and I absolutely do not watch him out of the corner of my eye.
I can feel him looking at me. The weight of his eyes. But when I glance up, his gaze is on the water bottle in his hand. He lingers for a moment like he’s waiting for something. Or considering something.
Then he’s gone, the door swinging shut behind him.
I stand there, hands in the soapy water, staring out the window, feeling like I’ve run a marathon.
I never told anyone what happened between us.
I wanted to. In the weeks after that night, I was ready to.
I rehearsed the words I’d say to Mom a thousand times.
He locked me in a wardrobe. He pinned me to the floor of his bedroom.
He said and did the craziest things, and I was so frightened by how far he’d go.
If he approached me again like I warned him not to, I was going to tell Mom everything.
But he didn’t.
I warned him never to come near me again, and he obeyed me without question. He’s never far, but he never approaches. He never speaks to me beyond a word of greeting and never does anything that I could call inappropriate.
It should feel like indifference.
Yet it doesn’t.
It feels like calculated patience.
Sometimes, late at night, I wonder if I overreacted that day. If I made what he did into something bigger than it was. He was fifteen and hurting. People do stupid things when they’re scared.
But I remind myself of the click of the lock. The darkness of the wardrobe. Him tackling me to the ground and showing me just how strong he is and how weak I am, and I know I didn’t imagine how frightening he can be.
The question is whether the boy who locked me in a wardrobe is gone.
Or just waiting.
Giodorno’s Pizza is my place with my friends. It has been since freshman year. Katrina, Priya, and I love the cheap slices, bottomless sodas, sticky tables, and a jukebox that only plays nineties hits. It’s the kind of place rich graduates from St. Peter’s wouldn’t be caught dead in.
At least, they shouldn’t be caught dead in.