Page 99 of Cara
Arturo Marcello will always be my nightmare.
Those men will continuously invade my dreams.
Four years later, which feels like a lifetime, I am still curled up in a ball on the floor of that cell, just trying to make it to the next minute, the next second.
But to remain in that goddamn filth, it’s not an option.
To lose myself to this,theywin.
To keep running, Arturo gets exactly what he wanted.
With my experiences, the years of isolation hang in the air, and even my own pain disturbs me. It’s no wonder Courtney cries once my mouth closes, my esophagus constricting. Everything I said lingers, but my eyes are dry, my heart hardened as easily as I trained it in Iceland.
“Howcould they do this to you?” she sobs, enveloping me, oblivious to the front door opening and the group piling intothe apartment, their laughter fading at the sight of us on the couch. “How?”
She has no idea how many times I’ve screamed that very question into the void. And more.
What did I do to deserve this?
Why am I being punished?
Why am I alone?
Stronger than before, I wrap her in my arms, my lips trembling as I sense how frail time has rendered her. All these years, I’ve missed—time that’s been wasted.
I’ll never forget it.
I’llneverlet Vito get away with it.
Xavier
“How could they do this to you?”
Courtney says what every soul here is thinking.
It wasn’t surprising when Mimi and I heard Sophie start to confide in her. Honestly, I’d hoped for it. Courtney always managed to reveal the deep, endless layers of my wife that she wouldn’t let me reach.
Mimi stayed back when I told her to, holding up my hand by the door so I could quietly listen, hear every struggle Sophie unloaded. Each one, worse than the next.
It took me a year to leave that airport, to accept he couldn’t come.
There wasn’t anyone else.
Not when I saw him everywhere I went.
Eavesdropping was clearly the wrong move because now I’m just standing here, gripping the threshold, unable to move even as Mimi slides by me, rubbing my back in sympathy.
I keep hearing it.
The baby.
I lost it, Courtney. It was painful… So painful.
It happened at night. I tried. I tried to bear through it. I was too scared to go to a hospital?—
I'm shattered, unable to breathe just imagining it: her in a dark apartment, crying… alone. I'm immediately convinced this will become a new nightmare that fills my dreams, another torment I’ll have to learn to live with.
The boys are comforting Courtney, lightening the mood despite her endless tears. Every joke from their mouths aims to soothe Sophie, keep her here with us, and far away from those memories.
