Page 75 of Bad for You

I don’t remember her ever asking if I’m okay, so why the change of heart?

“Fine,” I reply blankly.

She enters and makes clear she has something she wishes to say.

“Valentina, you’re at the age now when I can tell you the truth. It’s your birthday tomorrow, so I wish to give you a birthday present.”

She’s right. It touches me she remembered.

“Adopting you wasn’t a coincidence,” she confesses softly. “I knew your mother.”

And just like that, time stands still.

I can’t speak, so Gianna continues.

“I knew her because she was once a friend of mine. However, I didn’t know your father. Margarette was the first friend I made when I moved here from Sicily. She was so kind to me. She took a chance on me when no one else did.”

This trip down memory lane may hold fond memories for Gianna, but this woman she speaks of is nothing but a stranger to me.

“She was volunteering at the church and welcomed me into the parish. I felt like I finally found a place I fit in. But when she met your father, she changed. We tried to make her see reason, but your mother was stubborn, and I see that in you.

“It’s why I’ve pushed you all these years, because I know her blood runs in your veins.”

This is…a lot.

From being given no information to now this, I can barely keep up.

“Do you know where she is now?”

Gianna sighs before nodding slowly.

A flood of emotion overwhelms me. She knew this entire time, but she never told me. She never alluded to the fact she knew who I was.

I can’t help but feel a stab of betrayal.

“Why did you adopt me?”

Gianna mulls over my question.

“Please,” I beg, not caring how weak I sound. I need to know the truth.

“Because she asked me to,” she finally confesses, her eyes turning soft. “I didn’t know you existed until she wrote me a letter, asking I do this for her.”

“And why couldn’t she?” I question, angered. “She left me on those steps of that orphanage like I was nothing but garbage, and when she could finally make some sort of amends for that, she asksyouto do what she should have done!”

I jump up from the bed, pacing the room with my heart in my throat. “Tell me where she is.”

When there is silence, I stop in front of Gianna, shaking my head incredulously.

“She doesn’t want me to know where she is, does she?”

Gianna frowns, but her silence speaks volumes.

“I cannot believe this. Even now, she still wants nothing to do with me! What did I do?” I cry, tears of anger filling my eyes.

“She can’t see you,piccola.”

“Why the fuck not?” I would never speak to Gianna this way, but all sense of reason is long gone.

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