Page 135 of Green Flag
It wasn’t her fault that she blamed Don. Unless you worked in the championship, you didn’t realise who was in control of what. Don was responsible.
“She hates her dad,” I said quickly, sitting up on my knees and facing her. “She hardly talks to him.”
“Where is she for Christmas?” Nonna snapped. Her eyes were dark and furious as her nostrils flared.
When I didn’t answer, she sighed, closing her eyes. “And she hates her father, you said? Hates him so much that she’d start working with him? Hates him so much she spends the holidays with him?”
People started to get up and leave us. Fucking fuckety fuck fuck.
Mamma stayed, watching and nodding along.
“Yes, but she has younger siblings she likes to spend Christmas with,” I said. “The two boys still believe in Santa.”
She snorted.
“You might have met her; she was at the funeral.”
“I know who she is,” Nonna barked. “I saw her. Hiding behind the father she hates. She was the only reason I didn’t go over to him and give him a piece of my mind.”
“It’s complicated.”
“You love her?” she asked, breaths deep. “Because the only reason you would shame your family this badly must be for love.”
Panicked, I glanced at my mother but she was looking straight ahead, still shaking her head in small motions.
“The issue here is her last name,” Nonna went on. “So, if you love her, you change it.”
“Sorry?” I asked in English.
That infuriated her more. She took the deepest breath, her chest filling with air to fuel her rant.“You spend too much time away from us. You avoid us after your own cousin dies and end up in bed with his killer’s family, Luca! You travel the world, but only come home for his funeral, and fly away straight after! Where are your texts? Where are your calls? Your visits? You get to live your life, and find love while I’m drowning here. Your auntie is drowning.”
I swallowed, tears pricking my eyes.
Her lip was curled as she started to cry too. “I’m ashamed of you, Luca.”
I flinched with the assault of those words and wiped at my eyes. “Ashamed,Nonna?”
She nodded. “This isn’t you. I don’t know what’s happened—”
“Neither do I!” I shouted, standing and trying to measure my breathing. “I loved Alv as all of you did. He’s the first person I’ve ever lost. I don’t know— I don’t know how to do it. I keep thinking if I continue as normal, life will eventually become normal. I’m emotionless. If everything is as it used to be, then I could hold everything together. Do you want me to talk about him? Do you want to be reminded? Right now I can’t be reminded, because I’m reminded every second and it hurts.”
I refused to well up. I’d been the strong one. But maybe that was a lie. Maybe I’d actually just been the one ignoring all the problems, and there was very little strength within that.
I tried to breathe as Mamma tugged at my arm to fall onto the sofa where she’d been. I stood tall. “You don’t think I think of him every day? The damn bike I’m on was meant to be his. Every track I race on, he dominated. I just ride. I’m not his replacement but his lesser placeholder until someone better comes along. And, at the same time, why do I feel entitled to grieve so deeply? I’m not his mother, his grandmother, his sister.” I looked at Mamma then and her mascara was streaked down her cheek. “I’m his cousin and I hate that it hurts so much.”
My breakdown was fast and all-consuming. I was on the floor again, the cards from scopone spread out before me, mixed up as my knees fell onto them. “I have no idea how to feel. Sometimes I feel guilty about just how easily I can smile, even if it’s fake — how I feel nothing. Then I’m consumed with anger and hatred towards the one thing I’ve really come to love.”
Mamma was on the floor with me, stroking my arm now.
Nonna slid down her chair to sit in front of me, mouth opening then slamming shut as her brows came together in a deep pain of her own. “Her?”
I hadn’t meant Everly, I’d meant racing. But she was the only one who got genuine smiles out of me. She made me feel something other than alone.
I didn’t want to be, but with her, I was seen.
And I went back to that picture again; I had been abuzz with excitement at winning the fight, but her lip had been bleeding, and my entire being focused on her pain, all excitement evaporating because I would do anything with my aching muscles to protect her.
Because I cared so much about her.
