My words are out before I know it. “How? By shooting whoever you thought it was dead?”
His silence does nothing to console my emotions. I know he’s the victim in this too, but I am so fired up. If only he didn’t leave the keys in the car or nobody was out there to destroy us in the first place, we wouldn’t be turning on each other like we are.
“You should have stayed home and let me handle whatever was going on by myself. Slonne and Oscar would have still been with you! Everything would have been okay.”
“I’m sorry I cared!”
I fall silent, unable to comprehend such a punctured hole in my chest. I cared. I blame myself. I don’t want to blame him also, but within this moment I physically have nobody else to pin it on. Giulio should have known leaving the kids in his luxury car alone in the dark was the worst possible idea.
“Did you bring it, huh? The gun? Were you going to shoot this guy too?”
“I disposed of it.”
“Were you going to call whoever you hired to dispose of the body too?”
“Valencia…” my sister says.
“No!” My finger is trembling when I point at him. “For the last few days I have been trying like crazy to come up with a way to justify your actions, but it is too much for me to take in.”
“I’m hurting for what I did, just as much as you are. But I did what I had to do to protect our family. That’s what parents do and that is what we are. Parents. You and I. Together. United in this. So continue blaming me for this.”
A pulling sensation overtakes me. It fights against me, desperate to take a hold of my entire person. It drags me to my knees and I clutch my chest to ease the pain.
Slonne and Oscar are gone.
Addilyn is gone.
Gone.
The unknown, the fighting, the continuous consequences…it’s all ruining me.
Helena crouches down beside me, rubbing circles on my back in a desperate bid to calm my shaking body. I have always hated the eeriness of the early morning. Now I know why.
“My father was right. All I am is weak.” Giulio’s defeated tone rises from the disturbing silence. “His death protected my life. He hated me for being my mother’s son and proved it with years of tormenting me by hitting me and taunting me with cigarette lighter burns. They were never enough to create scars, but enough to scare me as a child. I am weak…After all, all I’m ever good for is ruining everything. I am the curse that runs deep within this family of ours. Maybe it should have been me that died that night with my father. Maybe I shouldn’t have stopped him when he had the trigger to my head.”
“Please don’t say that.”
I mean it.
I don’t want these thoughts in his head.
I don’t want these thoughts in anybody’s head.
Giulio sits on a kitchen bar stool. One foot rests on the rail, the other long leg is outstretched towards me. I unravel his anguished expression. It only intensifies the pain of losing the twins.
“It’s true.” His mouth quivers. “I would have never had a track record. I would have never met you. I would have never married you. Our children wouldn’t exist. We wouldn’t be eating each other alive because of all the pain. Addilyn wouldn’t have been abducted. Oscar and Slonne wouldn’t have been stolen. I wouldn’t be your husband and maybe that is a good thing.”
I don’t like the rawness of Giulio’s words. They are harsh and precise. Sharp enough to puncture the remaining piece of my heart. The piece that is specifically still for him, even on a night like tonight.
Helena holds onto me tighter, reminding me her quietness is comforting enough.
“You would have met somebody else,” Giulio continues with a low, strenuous voice. “Somebody who doesn’t have any lies attached. Somebody who isn’t so fucked up that he can’t keep his marriage together. Somebody who you can have children with without the fear of losing them. He would have told you all the right things, and made you smile every single day. Because in the end, I failed as a husband. I failed as a man. I failed as your best friend. All I ever wanted was to live the rest of my life with and for you. I wanted to make you happy, but look at us, look at what we have become. What happened to us? Fuck. You deserve a man better than me, but just know that through it all, I never once regretted the way I feel about you. Alongside our children, I will never love somebody the way I love you. I will forever be sorry for everything I’ve done. I’m sorry my actions have caused our marriage to fade. I’m sorry it took me so long to support you with hope for Addilyn and that my stupidity caused us to lose our three beautiful children. I’m sorry I turned out to be the weak man my father always told me I was.”
Police sirens ring in the distance. They’re close but not close enough to blur the resounding alarm in my head. My heart has never hurt this deep. I have never felt this lost in my life.
I have never wanted him more.
Giulio steps outside and my sister smiles sadly before I rush out behind him.
I never wanted this to happen.
I need to fix this.
I need him to know that everything he said is untrue before it’s too late.
The sirens intensify as Giulio sits on a porch step, head in hands with shaking shoulders. I don’t have to see his face to know he’s sobbing. His attempts to conceal it fail.
This is real life.
Right here.
With him.
The pain in my chest deepens when I gather myself and take a seat in the space beside him. My arms wrap around his torso and I
