Page 96 of Dare To Free Us
Becka and Luca left me alone lots of the time. After Steven drove me down to Florida where Luca picked me up in a private plane, all I did was cry. I cried for days, only stopping when I passed out. Becka made sure to keep water and food in my face, threatening to shove it down my throat if I didn’t eat. She held me tight and stayed with me for every second. Luca even held me for a while and as much as it should have felt awkward, it didn’t in the least.
Besides me, Luca was the closest person to Matteo, even if they hadn’t seen each other but once in the past almost three years. It felt like holding onto a piece of him. Luca held and soothed me by telling me how strong Matteo was. That there was no way Matteo would ever leave me. How Matteo was way too stubborn to die.
After a week went by and there was still no word from Matteo something snapped. I stopped crying, stopped talking, stoppedfeeling. Everything inside me went numb until all I could stand to do was sit on the beach and watch the waves roll up onto the sand, wishing I could feel anything from the beauty of the place surrounding me. My mind was stuck somewhere between still waiting and accepting that Matteo was most likely dead.
My heart was a heavy, tired organ in my chest, beating without so much as a single spark of life. It did its job to keep my blood pumping but other than that, was too beat down to look for hope.
My thoughts were the only things that wouldn’t let go. Every moment I sat on the beach my brain worked tirelessly to make sense of everything, of anything.
Soft footfalls sounded on the sand behind me. Becka was coming to check on me. Her belly had grown, hiding her abs for the first time since I’d known her. I knew her long dark hair would be flying in the breeze like mine, and shining bright in the sunlight.
As usual she didn’t say anything as she settled into the sand beside me. Sometimes we didn’t talk, other times we chatted for a moment or two about baby things. The doctor she was using in the city twenty-five minutes away was willing to take me as a patient, but I’d yet gone to see him.
I wanted to wait. I wanted Matteo to be there with me. To stand by my side and see our baby for the second time. Becka pushed slightly, but conceded every time I said to give it a few more days.
It felt a bit irresponsible. My baby meant everything to me, especially since it was the only piece of Matteo I might have left, but I’d been healthy and felt as if the moment I stepped back into life’s responsibilities without Matteo, I’d be leaving him behind in more ways than one. I wasn’t ready.
Becka shouldered up next to me, stretching her long legs out of her loose dress so the waves could tickle her toes. For a moment I thought it was going to be another meeting where we simply let my shredded soul lie at the bottom of a cold prison and allowed her presence say I wasn’t alone.
But something I’d been wanting to say for days just wouldn’t get shoved aside again. Even if it came out jumbled in a tangled mess of sentences because I didn’t really know how to say what I was feeling, she needed to hear it.
“I’m sorry, Becka.” I felt her gaze swing my way and could sense the shock and confusion in her one-of-a-kind green and orange eyes without even having to look.
“Sorry for what?” she asked, sounding confused as hell.
“For what happened that night, and all the days after.” I didn’t need to be specific. Becka would know I was referring to the night she stumbled into the side of my life I’d kept secret from her for years, and because of it she endured things she didn’t deserve.
“Please, Arianna, don’t start that again. We have been over this. What happened that night was not your fault. Lorenzo was going to kill me. If you hadn’t begged for my life I wouldn’t be here right now. Besides, it all worked out in the end.” I looked over to watch her hand run across her baby bump, with a smile so bright it gave the white sand a run for its money.
“I’m not talking about that,” I said, and her questioning eyes shot up to mine. “I’m sorry for not truly appreciating what you went through. I was filled with guilt that all that happened to you but never really understood the full scope of it.” Becka’s lips pinched at the side as her brows drew down, her obvious lack of understanding evident. I took a deep breath and tried to pull my thoughts together.
“When it was all said and done, and you and Luca were married, I was just happy to have you there. I knew that Luca would treat you right and thought that everything was going to be ok. That you would settle in and be happy, like me. I never gave any thought to whatyouwould see in your future.” Understanding fractured her irises.
“I was in denial for so long.” My voice cracked with emotion. “I told myself before that it was because I’d never lived the mafia life and didn’t truly understand the danger, but I see now that that was such a lie. A lie I used to tell myself that everything I choose not to see or downplayed was because I didn’t want to have excuses to not choose him. I fell in love with a gangster. A love I will never regret, but I… I made myself believe I could exist in his world by denying the fact that I hated the mafia.”
It was the truth. I watched it enslave my father and mother to a life they didn’t want to be a part of. Watched it rip the love of my life from my arms and steal my best friend’s life choices from her. I hated the violence. I hated the constant hounding of guards because all it did was remind me I wasn’t safe. I hated the way it took a good woman like Maria and forced her to marry a monster, then turned her children into the next generation of monsters without being able to do anything about it.
I hated how it took Matteo’s ability to be open with his feelings. To only feel safe acknowledging them or let them show when we were alone. Matteo was capable of so much more than what his father twisted him into. But the world he was born in would have never allowed him to be anything more than a brutal leader, or a stain on the sidewalk.
“Arianna, you can’t be so hard on yourself. You have been through a lot.”
“That’s not an excuse. When I got pregnant it changed everything for me. I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. I couldn’t tell myself that it was all going to be ok because I had Matteo. It wasn’t just my future I was responsible for any longer, and now I know that these were all the things you must have been struggling with when you and Luca were happening. You knew the truth while I sat back and chose only to see my friend and how I was happy to have you. And I’m sorry for that. I projected my own life into yours and that makes me so very sorry for being such a bad friend.”
Becka looked down to her lap. The fact she knew I spoke the truth and she’d known all along that I never truly understood the depth of her pain during that time hung in the air.
“Your right, Arianna,” she said quietly. “Everything you are now realizing, I faced from day one. But I never held it against you. I made my choices, same as you. I knew me trying to explain would never work. You had to discover it for yourself. But I need to ask you something I never have before, not point blank that is. Would you take it all back? If you could go back, knowing what you know now, would younotleave the restaurant with him?”
I took a moment to think long and hard, making myself consider for the first time if that’s what I would want. “No, I wouldn’t take it back. It might make me a fool or selfish but I would never take it back. I love Matteo, so much it physically hurts when it fills me up because I feel like I might burst.” Becka smirked and I knew she understood exactly what I meant. The love her and Luca had for each other was strong enough to be felt in the air around them. “I wouldn’t take it back because it led us to a place we couldn’t have gotten to without it. Where webothrealized the prison we existed in and wanted out, together.” My lips pinched shut as my chest grew tight. “And now the pain that he might be gone is trying to tear me apart.” Tears started to form in my eyes.
Becka leaned in to put an arm around my shoulders.
“We didn’t have any time to be just, us. I will never get to see him step out of his chains and just… be. Our child is never going to see their father and know the amount of love he is capable of.” The tears were flowing freely. The words were the same ones I’d cried a hundred times over, but Becka listened to them anyway.
“Arianna, you don’t know that for sure. We both know he couldn’t just snap his fingers and walk away. He’s coming for you. You have to have faith.”
“But I don’t! I’m not like you. I can’t just stare in the face of it and say I’m made stronger, because I’m not!”
“Yes, you are,” she said sternly, shifting us so she could look me in the eye. Even if it wasn’t for her tone, I always found it hard to look away when Becka focused those stunning eyes on me. I think she had that effect on everyone, not only for their beauty but she projected a confidence that made you want to soak it up like a sponge. “No matter what happens you have the strength to withstand it. You proved that the second you chose your child’s life over your own. Something you always remind me of when I forget is, ‘everything happens for a reason’. Stop letting go of the strength you found and use it, use it to hold on to hope.”