Page 17 of Forbidden Sins

Sebastian rides up front in the car that takes my father and me to St. Patrick’s. The hearse drives just ahead of us, and that feels cruel in its own way, to make us look at it for the entire drive. A few miles into it, I lean forward, slapping the button that will raise the divider between us and the front seats. I don’t want to be separated from Sebastian, but I don’t want to see the car carrying my brother’s body anymore.

“You need to control your emotions, Estella,” my father says firmly next to me. “Control your grief. Don’t let it control you. You are the heiress to the Gallo name now. You must seem like it, where others can see you. The best way to achieve that is by controlling yourself always—even when others can’t see you.”

My throat tightens, and I feel that surge of anger again, like bile in the back of my throat. I clench my teeth, saying nothing, and look out the window instead at the scenery passing by, tears blurring my vision when I remember that Luis will never see it again. He’ll never see anything again, at all.

It’s so fucking unfair.

“Don’t curse, Estella,” my father says automatically, and I realize that I must have whispered it aloud. My hands curl into fists in my lap, my nails biting into my palms hard enough tohurt. I take the pain, because if I don’t focus on something else, I’m going to slap my own father.

The car rolls to a stop outside of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and Sebastian steps out to open my door for me. I catch the look of worry and sadness on his face as he helps me out, see the way it’s aged him, too. He looks tired, and I have the urge to reach out and hug him, to try to comfort him the way he’s comforted me. It’s so strong, for a moment, that I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop myself.

Grudgingly, I have to admit that my father might have been right about one thing.

Once you let yourself cross boundaries in private, it’s harder not to accidentally slip up in public.

Sebastian holds out his arm, and I realize that he’s offering it for me to take. Numbly, I do, as we follow Luis’ coffin up the steps of the cathedral.

Inside, the cool air strikes my flushed face, the scent of old wood and incense filling my senses. I breathe in, seeking the comfort of it that always reminds me of holidays, of Christmas Mass here with my father, and I realize with a fresh stab of grief that it will never comfort me in quite the same way again.

Now, I’ll remember this day. My brother’s funeral. The scent of white roses and lilies from the arrangements where the coffin is set down in front of the altar, close enough to the front pew where my father and I sit that it overpowers the smell of the incense. The sorrow on the priest’s face, who knows my family so well. Who baptized my brother as a baby, and gave him communion for the first time when he was eight years old. Who gave him his confirmation name, Francis, because my brother loved animals and our father never allowed us pets—so he chose their patron saint as his.

I touch the cool beads of the rosary wrapped around my hand, and I try to feel some kind of comfort, but there’s nothing.I need something more than words and rituals and promises and faith. I needsomeone.

I need Sebastian.

I twist around to look for him, and I see him in a pew further back, in a spot where he can easily see several vantage points in the room. I see Brick, too, and other members of our family’s security, sprinkled throughout the mourners. The Yashkovs are here, and the Gallaghers, and other faces that are somewhat familiar to me, but there’s no one else here who means anything to me. Marilee texted me several times in the last couple of days, but she doesn’t know that my brother died. Unless she happened to look at the obituaries in the newspaper, she won’t—unless I tell her.

I’m not sure that I want to. I’m not sure I can handle the platitudes, theI’m so sorrysand the promises that it will get better in time. I’m not sure I have the strength to lie about his death, to say it was an accident, or come up with some other story.

Maybe it’s better to just let that friendship fade. After all, I’m the Gallo heiress now. It’s not as if my father will want me having friends who aren’t a part of the families, or their connections.

My father clears his throat, and I twist back around, facing the priest and the altar and the closed coffin where my brother’s body lies.

I’ll never even get to see him again to say goodbye. Whatever happened to him, the coffin won’t be opened.

I don’t hear much of the priest’s service. It fades into the background, into white noise mixed with the quiet sobs of mourners in the pews, sniffling, and the shifting of bodies against wood. Tears are sliding down my cheeks, too, but I don’t bother to wipe them away. I just sit there, straight and still, until it’s time to go back out to the car and make the trip to the graveyard.

The sky has gone gray while we were inside the church. “That’s better,” I whisper as I look up at it, my arm linked with Sebastian’s, and I see him glance at me out of the corner of his eye, but he says nothing. He just opens the door for me so I can slide into the car, and then takes his spot up front.

My father says nothing, either, as we drive. I sneak a glance at him, and I see his eyes are bloodshot, but he hasn’t shed a tear.

Somehow, it doesn’t surprise me. I’ve never seen my father cry, and I can’t imagine I ever will. But if this didn’t do it, then I don’t think anything could.

Rain has started to fall by the time we arrive at the cemetery, in thick, slow drops that cause everyone to pull out their umbrellas—a sea of black moving across the path that winds through the green grass. The priest is standing at the head of the open grave, Bible in hand, as he starts to speak again once everyone is assembled.

The ache in my chest increases until I feel like my ribs might crack and my heart spill out of my chest. I want to look for Sebastian, but I force myself to stand still. If my father reprimands me, I might break, and that’s the last thing I need right now.

Sebastian has done all he can to comfort and take care of me, I know that. But like that first night when I wanted him to sleep next to me, I wantmore. I want him to be able to be at my side, to be able to link my fingers through his and hold onto him, to be able to lean on him. To have himreallyat my side, instead of always in the shadows, in the background, protecting me but never beingwithme.

There’s no point in wishing for the impossible, princess. I can hear the thought in his voice, deep and gruff, and I bite my lip, looking down at the grass around my shining black pumps. Itgleams wetly in the grayish afternoon light, and I close my eyes, wishing for all of this to be over. To be able to go home.

Even once we do go home, though—once the coffin is lowered and handfuls of damp earth are thrown atop it and the mourners pass by telling my father and me how sorry they are—it’s still not over. I never realized before howmuchthere is after someone’s death, how many rituals one has to go through, from the service to the burying to the reception afterward. I think they’re all meant to comfort the ones left behind, to remind the living that there are people there for them—but all I want is to be left alone. To hide in my room with my memories and my grief and let them swallow me whole.

Instead, I’m forced to play hostess. When we return to the mansion, the staff have set up a feast in the formal dining room and made sure the formal living room is prepared for guests, and those guests drift between the buffet table in the dining room and the gathering in the living room, soft murmurs filling the rooms and the hallways, as if speaking louder than a whisper might rouse Luis’ ghost.

I see Sebastian staying on the outer edge of the room, slipping in and out to check on things, his eyes always on me when he’s near. And just like at the cemetery, I ache to have him next to me. To have his warm, solid presence where I need it the most, instead of hovering in the background.

We don’t always get what we want. Luis never really got what he wanted. And I won’t, either.

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