A white, fluffy blanket covers the left side of my body, my gaze fixed on the wall and ceiling adorned with hundreds of hand-painted, fluorescent stars. Jean has a knack for murals, but she has sure outdone herself with this one. When night falls over Ivanhoe, the painting looks like a window to a far-away galaxy. Like one of those projectors that you can buy online.
She had no idea when she spent a few days creating this masterpiece three years ago that one day, it’ll be the only thing keeping me sane at night. Insomnia might be the most sickening side-effect of a broken heart.
An old-fashioned clock on a dresser by the door ticks loudly, the rhythm of passing seconds a close match for the rhythm of my heart.
A creak in the hallway outside the bedroom breaks the comfortable silence I got myself used to. Aunt Amanda starts work at six in the evening, and Jean hardly spends time at home, always out with her friends. The creak is quickly followed by a light knock on the door. I turn to face the wall, tucking my knees close to my chest, and throw my arm over my face. Not that it’ll stop the unwanted guest…
Jean’s persistence is tiring.
Another knock. Louder this time. Five more seconds pass before she turns the knob and enters the guest bedroom, uninvited as always. “I know you’re not asleep.”
What gave me away?
With a sigh, I turn again, away from the wall this time to face the door, knowing she won’t leave without a fight. She’s relentless in the so-far futile attempts to drag me out of the comfort of the house and over to a nearby bar with her friends Tayler and Rick.
As expected, she stands in the doorway of the small bedroom, an unflattering scowl across her pale, freckled face. She stomps her foot, arms crossed over her chest. Looks like she’s resigned to trying a different approach today. I can’t keep up with her mood swings. From cheerful to annoyed in three seconds flat. From supportive at first to pleading the following day. Neither worked, so she worked her way through every emotional sabotage trick known to parents worldwide. Bargaining, bribery, pleading again, and more bargaining…
This is new, though. She looks positively aggravated, so I guess she’s ready to shout. Maybe throw around a few unsupported, idle threats. Clean your room, or I’ll take your toys!
“You’ve been crying again! And you’re not ready! Tayler will be here in half an hour, and you’re wearing…” she scrunches her nose, eyeing my top, “this monstrosity!”
“It’s pj’s, Jean. I’m not going. I told you yesterday, the day before, and all the other days since I came here. I can’t go. I don’t want to go. I won’t go. I’m fine here.”
She scoffs, sizing me up, one eyebrow raised high enough to hit her hairline. “This is what you call fine? Ha! Don’t make me laugh. You’re a mess, girl. You’re pathetic. And because of a guy… c’mon! You’re a Harston, for fuck’s sake! Harston girls don’t mope over guys. Where’s your pride?”
I move my eyes from her enraged face back to the ceiling. “It won’t work, Jean. Say whatever you want. Scream, if you must. Throw a tantrum. I. Don’t. Care.” Neither about the way she sees me nor about anything, really.
Yanking my blanket away, she plops onto the bed, her lips in a slight pout. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout. I’m just running out of ideas on how to cheer you up, you know? You barely eat. You’re locked in here all the time. It’s not healthy.”
“I know. I’m sorry too, but I can’t go. Not even if I wanted to. If someone would see me—”
”Of course, someone will see you! It’s a bar; people attend, drink, and laugh. Remember? I’m sure you have bars in Chicago, right? You know the drill. And sure, everyone will stare at you because you’re new here, but they’ll get ove—”
“You said it. I can’t go.”
Jean waves her hand dismissively and rushes to the dresser. She opens the first one, makes a mess, and continues her journey, rummaging through my clothes.
“Here.” A pair of jeans lands on my face. A flannel shirt follows thirty seconds later. “Put it on, and don’t you dare say no. again. Erase that damn word from your dictionary while you live here. You’ve been crying for two weeks! Enough!”
“Twelve days.”
“Whatever. I tolerated your compulsive, obsessive…” she pulls her eyebrows together, searching for another adjective, “just plain stupid need to spend every evening here by yourself. Not tonight. You’re coming whether you like it or not. Either that or you’ll tell me why you’ve cried two rivers so far.”
A long time ago, Jean knew all my secrets. Her mother’s house was my home during the summer months every year until I turned twelve. Back then, we were inseparable. Then Frank killed Dino, and Aunt Amanda found out how her brother made a living. She refused to speak to him or his family ever again, and my friendship with Jean ended… but when I knocked on Amanda’s door twelve days ago, she took me in. Reluctantly, under merciless conditions, but she did.
“If anyone shows up here looking for you, I’ll lead them straight to your room, Layla.”
Neither Jean nor Amanda asked why I asked to stay here. I don’t think they had to. They might live in one of the most boring, remote places, but they have TV like everyone else. Frank’s death, and the Mafia War getting out of hand, was broadcasted all over the media when thirty bodies were discovered in Chicago. While Amanda doesn’t want any inside information as to what exactly happened that night, Jean asks too many questions trying to force the story out of me in private.
“Damn it, Layla!” she snatches the pillow from under my head. “Get dressed! Tayler won’t be pleased if he has to wait for you!” She waves a checkered, red, and black flannel shirt in front of my face. “Do you need an invitation? Should I draw you a map to the bathroom, or will you find your way?”
Enraged Jean resembles an enraged puppy—exasperated, energetic, loud, and utterly ineffective. A lot of yapping followed by a lot of nothing. Of the two of us, she was always fiercer, but it looks like she mellowed a touch since childhood. She used to be a true tomboy, climbing trees, getting dirty, and fighting with boys. On the other hand, I was a girly girl in pink dresses, weaving flower crowns. I guess Jean’s attitude back then left a mark on me. In part, I have her to thank for the feisty bones in my body.
“You won’t drag me out of here no matter how creative your threats might get. You’re wasting your time. Go and enjoy, okay? I’m fine here.” I shoo her away.
A string of quiet curses flies past her lips. It sure doesn’t suit her to swear like a sailor. With a huff, she whirls on her heel, marching out of the room, each step louder than the last as she takes her frustration out on the old, wooden floorboards. The door slams hard, rattling the frame. Even the windows shake a bit.
Tayler’s pick-up truck pulls into the driveway. The engine splutters as the car grinds into a halt. I peek through the curtains, a tiny-bit sad that I won’t join them when Jean hops into the car, her signature frown on display.
They stay parked for a minute which doesn’t bode well for Tayler. I can only imagine the earful he’s getting on my behalf… Jean’s very vocal when she’s annoyed.
Once they back out of the driveway, disappearing out of view behind a row of maple trees, I make my way downstairs. With a thick blanket in one hand and a steaming cup of hot chocolate in the other, I head outside to the back garden, if the piece of unkempt land here can be deemed a garden. Other than a few trees dotting the perimeter and grass that, although dry and dead now, reaches my knees, there’s nothing I’d expect to see in a garden. No flowers, ornaments, grill, or sitting area. Obviously, no pool, either. A beaten-up tractor with half the engine missing is secluded by a wobbly, in-desperate-need-of-TLC picket fence. Jean said it’s here to keep wild animals off the property, but the boards are so far and few that even a bear would find his way in.
My big-city, upper-class upbringing or the summers spent on this very farm failed to prepare me for starting fires in the wild. The first time I tried this, I burned my fingers and a hole in my sweater. Now, I’m not as useless. Starting a small bonfire still takes effort, but after a few tries, it blazes in the middle of the small clearing while I sit on a wooden bench, surrounded by the addictive silence.
Back in Chicago, I thought nights were silent, but now that I’m here, in the middle of nowhere, a few miles away from interstates, cities, and at least three hundred yards from the nearest neighbor, I understand what silence is. Or natural silence, at least. No cars, no people, no factories humming in the distance. All I can hear here are the occasional animals howling in the distance, the flap of bird’s wings, and the rustling of leaves in the wind.
Flames dance before me, consuming more wood with every soft sigh of freezing wind. Large chunks of pine wood blacken, crack, and fall apart—almost like my heart that’s slowly turning to dust. Thousands of sparks take to the biting air, flickering out in a fraction of a second— just like Dante’s eyes when he realized I betrayed him.
They say love is a flower in constant need of nurturing, or it dies. They say love is a dream that arrives when we don’t need it, but when it comes, we want it to last. They say love is bitter-sweet like a fine wine. And like fine wine, it kicks your butt and makes you dizzy. We do stupid things while drunk, but no matter how much we convince ourselves we won’t ever touch wine again, we always do.
In my case, love is a drug that grabbed me by the throat, infested my mind, and spread through my bloodstream. Drug users forever remain addicts, even when they stop using. It’s not easy to stop. Not many people volunteer to sever the connection to something that, in their eyes, makes them feel good. Not many have that kind of willpower. I don’t. I won’t detox. I’ll stay in love, forever in limbo, hoping, dreaming, waiting for a kiss to wake me up.
Unsolicited tears stain my cheeks. I promised myself I won’t cry because tears can’t change the past. Nothing can. Tears make me weak, and I need to be strong. I’m on my own, navigating a world in the dark, unequipped to deal with reality now that it’s diseased with regret.
Every day I wake up determined to climb out of the ditch. I tell myself that despite how bad things look, the world didn’t really collapse. Life isn’t over. I should thank God I came out alive, almost unscathed. The finale to Frank’s plan could’ve been much more sinister.
Every day I create a new scenario of what my life will look like going forward. A screenplay where Dante’s lead role has been cut. A movie sequel in which he has no part. Regardless of my efforts, I can’t change that. Even though he’s not around, he’s still everywhere. He occupies every cell of my body, every thought, every dream. He’s omnipresent but absent, and I fall to my knees like a house of cards every night, pushed to the ground by my sins.
I wipe my cheeks when the sputtering of Tayler’s pick-up reaches my ears. There’s no mistaking the ear-splitting rattle of a defective engine as it pulls into the driveway. That car is a death trap, waiting to give up on Tayler when he’ll need it most. A deep breath helps me bury the pain under a pile of rubble that used to be my heart and mind. Pathetic doesn’t begin to cover my current state. I know I should stop wallowing in self-pity, grit my teeth, and push forward, but this… this is easier. It requires no effort.
A few pairs of pants rustle in long grass for a moment before Jean plops beside me with two bottles of wine. She hands one over, gazing at the fire, as she unscrews the cap on her bottle and takes a hefty sip. Tayler and his best friend, Rick, plop down on the bench opposite with a handful of beers.
“Is the bar closed?” I ask, guilt like a thorn in my throat because they changed their plans to keep me company.
Jean shakes her head, clanking her bottle to mine. “I won’t let you spend another evening crying.”
“I wasn’t crying.”
Tayler snorts, trading a loaded look with Rick. They’re two ends of a spectrum. Tayler’s twenty-two and the most gullible guy I’ve ever met in all my nineteen years. A five-foot-eight, one-hundred-and-seventy-pounds of a goofy softie. No one takes him seriously. Not with the ever-present surprise on his young, delicate face, careless attitude, or complete lack of a backbone.
On the other hand, Rick is a tall, over-the-top muscular stiffness. Five years in the army explains the lack of facial expressions and tense stance to an extent, but Rick seems almost robotic, as if he was programmed with not enough emotions. He’s gravely intelligent and perceptive, but there’s no joking around with him.
“Instead of lying, start talking,” Tayler says, opening a bottle of Bud Light. “You can’t hide the reason forever. Tell us why you ran from Chicago. You’ll feel better when you get it off your chest.”
“Exactly.” Jean clicks her tongue. “I can’t look at you anymore. You’re a shadow, Layla. You’re getting skinnier by the day. You’re absentminded, fucking frightened… what happened?” She squeezes my hand. “You can trust us. I promise.”
The secret weighs down on my shoulders. I really want to let it out. Vent. Cry. Scream at the top of my lungs, but fear stops me whenever I ponder the idea of opening up to Jean.
Tayler scratches his head, stealing a sideways glance at Rick. “I mean, we know most of it anyway, right? It’s all over the news, and Jean told us about your father.”
I glare at my Judas of a cousin. “Way to keep a secret.”
“A secret? As Tayler said, it’s all over the news! You do have the same surname as Frankie, you know? And it’s not like I never told them I’ve got a cousin who used to visit every summer. They would’ve riddled it out by themselves by now.”
Rick? Yes.
Tayler? Not so much.
“What have you told them?”
Jean shrugs, eyes fixed on the fire that’s slowly dying down. Rick takes the hint, adding wood to the pile.
“Nothing that isn’t readily available online. Only that your father was a mobster, and you dated his enemy, and that Frankie is, obviously, dead.” Jean huffs. “Oh, go on. Just spill it. Tell us what happened so we can tell you it’s not a big deal and take you out for a drink tomorrow night.”
I sip from the bottle, weighing my options. God, I want to tell them every last detail and hear an opinion. I want to know if they think there’s a chance Dante will ever forgive me. I trust Jean. Tayler’s unconditional, one-sided love for her means he’ll never breathe a word to a living soul as it’d risk him losing the slim chance he has with her. Rick is a different story, though. His defense walls are always up. I can’t read him, so there’s no guessing his reaction. But in the grand scheme of things… what difference does it make if they know? There isn’t much either can do with the truth other than inform Dante of my whereabouts. Deep down, I hope they will, even if all it’ll bring upon me is death.
“One thing you should know about my father is that he never should’ve had children,” I say, peeling the wine label off the bottle. “He wasn’t fit for the role. Maybe because he was too young when I was born, or maybe because he was a sociopath and a manipulator.”
“He was a cold, heartless bastard,” Jean cries, imitating her mother’s condescending tone as she fakes outrage. “He had no decency! He was a criminal!”
“I see Amanda wasn’t too fond of her brother.”
“She hated his guts. At some point, she had way too much to say about Frankie.”
I can imagine when. Amanda knew nothing about her brother’s profession until Frank killed Dino and the media showed his face all over the country as the prime suspect. Nothing came out of the accusations, but Amanda found out what profession Frank chose and broke off all contact.
“He was rotten to his core, but he was my father. The main point of this story is that I never had what most would deem a normal family.”
“I don’t understand,” Tayler mumbles, two vertical creases on his forehead. “You’re crying after someone you call a sociopath and a manipulator?”
“Who said my tears have anything to do with Frank?”
He bobs his head twice, gesturing for me to continue. And I do, starting with the poor relationship with my parents, Frankie’s hatred toward Dante, my fake boyfriends, and finally onto Frank’s master plan.
“He wanted to destroy Dante, but he didn’t want to just kill him. He wanted to inflict as much pain as possible and take away more than his life. He wanted to show Dante what it means to lose everything he cared about.” I pause, gathering my thoughts. My throat clogs with a new wave of tears that I’m desperately trying to hold in. “The problem was that Dante only cared about work. That’s where Frank wanted my help. He wanted me to give Dante something to care about.”
“Don’t tell me he asked you to seduce the guy!” Jean gasps, positively mortified. “I mean, seriously? What the hell?”
“That was my reaction…” I sigh, my heart aching, racing, and breaking all at once. “To make things even worse, Frankie told me my whole life was a part of his sick plan. He laid the groundwork for years, raising me to grow up into someone Dante couldn’t resist.”
Tayler exhales a heavy breath. “He wasn’t all there, huh?”
No, he wasn’t. Looking back now, I can’t believe my own naivety. I volunteered to be led into a trap. I allowed Frank to use me as a means of winning the war over half of Chicago. Just half. Frank wasn’t normal by any definition. Because of him, neither am I. Emotional instability, an ever-unsatisfied need for closeness, and a complete lack of common sense—not normal. Frankie raised me to follow him blindly. And I did. Hungry for love and acceptance even though a parent’s love should be unconditional.
Frank’s wasn’t. He was incapable of loving or caring. The one good decision he ever made was to send me on my way to meet the greatest strength in my life… Dante.
“What happened next?” Jean grows impatient, tapping her foot on the grass while Rick adds more wood to the fire. “Did you do it? Did you agree?” She’s halfway through the bottle, her cheeks flushed, eyes wide and glossy.
“There wasn’t a thing I wouldn’t do for Frank. If he’d tell me to jump, I’d ask how high. So yeah, I agreed, and…” I inhale deeply, and a small smile curls my lips. I’m torn between the joy associated with the enticing memories and the regret of hurting the only person who has ever loved me unconditionally. “…and then I met Dante. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with him. That wasn’t part of the plan, but I couldn’t help it. There aren’t many men like him walking the earth. He’s confident, ruthless, arrogant—”
“He sounds lovely,” Tayler mocks, elbowing Rick under his ribs hard enough to earn a scowl.
“He’s intense, protective, and caring, and he loved me with all he had.” The bottle of wine in my hand empties faster once I tell them about the night Delta was set on fire.
The look on Dante’s face when he understood my part in Frank’s plan haunts me every night. Fear writhes inside me, battling with hope. Fear of the man I love and hope that he’ll forgive me. With each passing day, both subside.
Amanda’s house isn’t the safest hiding place; informing Jess that I ran here wasn’t the smartest move, but safe or smart is not what I aim for. Dante would have no problem finding me here if he wanted to. It probably wouldn’t take more than a few phone calls. One visit to my mother’s house… but he’s not showing up. It hurts more than if he arrived with his men and put a gun to my head. At least then, I’d know my betrayal hurt him, that he felt something. Now it seems he moved on without an issue.
“Frankie told me to kill Dante.” My hands start shaking at the memory of the heavy, cold pistol. “I held the gun. I aimed at his heart. I watched him cross the thin line between love and hate.” I wash down the dryness of my throat with more wine. “If Frank hadn’t shown his true colors that night, I would’ve killed him.”
“You would’ve killed Dante?” Jean echoes.
“It’s scary how much power Frank held over me all this time. He snapped at me when I hesitated, and it finally hit home that I was never more than a tool in his hands. He didn’t love me and would never love me regardless of how many orders I’d fulfill or how much I’d try. He didn’t deserve me, my love, or my loyalty.”
Jean inhales sharply, eyes wide. “You killed him?”
“If I didn’t, he would’ve killed Dante.”
One of them had to die that night. I don’t regret my decision, regardless of how rushed and emotional it was.
