Page 9 of Vicious Intentions
“I’ll be taking Annamaria to school today,” my father announces, surprising us all. “Unless you’d prefer to go with the twins and your mother?” he adds, almost as if second-guessing himself.
“No, Papà. I’d love to ride with you,” I say, honestly happy he’s taking me.
It will probably be one of the last times he’s able to do so anyway. I think parents feel those things. The quiet endings. The last time their child reaches for their hand without thinking. The last time they’re asked for a bedtime story. Or even a hug when their child is sad or afraid. Those endings come sooner than any parent ever realizes, when they’re no longer allowed to protect and instead have to stand back and watch their child’s life unfold. I guess my father must feel that quiet ending creeping closer, if he’s offering to take me to school this morning.
“I’ll wait for you outside in the car then,” he says, smiling warmly before pressing a quick kiss on my mother’s lips. “Have a good day,tesoro. Ti amo tanto.”
Every day, my siblings and I hear the same words leave my father’s lips before he walks out the door. It’s almost as if he’s afraid he won’t get another chance to say them to her.
In a way, he’s right. Every time he, or any of my fathers, steps outside our home, there’s no guarantee they’ll walk back through the door again. Their lives are steeped in danger, so they take every opportunity to remind us how much they love us while they still can. None more so than my mother.
My dads dote on her. They adore her, cherish her, protect her in every way imaginable. I would place their love among the greatest romances ever written, if so many of those stories didn’t end in tragedy. I don’t want that fate to ever touch my parents.They’ve endured enough hardship to have earned their happily ever after.
After I say my goodbyes to my mother, fathers, and siblings, I grab my backpack and rush out the door. My father is waiting for me in the back seat of the car, his trusted bodyguard, Bruno, behind the wheel.
“Thank you, Papà,” I say as I slide in beside him. “I appreciate you taking me.”
“Thank you for letting me drive you,” he replies, his hazel eyes warm. “I promise not to make it a habit. I know teenagers don’t like it when their parents cramp their style. I don’t want to be… cringe. Is that how you say it?”
I giggle softly at his attempt to use slang. It’s the effort that matters.
“I don’t mind,” I tell him. “You can drive me every day if you want.”
“How did we ever get so lucky?” he murmurs, pressing a tender kiss on the top of my head.
My smile falters just a little at the endearment. My parents often say things like this to me, almost as if they were thanking me for being easier, quieter, and better-behaved than the others. It makes me feel self-conscious, as though something is viscerally wrong with me. Like I should be more rebellious, more outspoken, more like my siblings. Just… more.
But I’m not. I’m just me. And sometimes I wonder if that’s enough. Or if it’s even a good thing at all.
“Are you nervous about going back to school after Christmas break?” he asks gently, sensing the shift in my mood. “It’s okay if you are. A new year can be daunting sometimes.”
“I’m not scared.”
It’s not a lie. What do I have to be afraid of? It’s not like I’m going to a different school just because it’s the start of the year.I’ll see the same faces I’ve known since primary school, people who never really grew past who they were in kindergarten.
I’ll still be the same girl without real friends to call her own. The same social pariah. The goody-two-shoes with a criminal family no one dares get close to.
I’ll still be alone. That won’t change.
“Okay. Well, I’ve just texted Marcello to pick you up after school,” my father says, interrupting my sullen thoughts, while pressing a few buttons on his phone. “But if you’d rather go with the twins—”
“No,” I blurt out quickly. “Marcello is fine. I… I miss him.” The words slip out of me before I can stop them.
My father frowns, his eyes clouding with sadness. “I thought as much. I miss him too,” he says quietly, leaving it at that.
We sit in silence for a moment, both of us weighed down by things too heavy for a morning drive to school. We don’t speak them aloud, but we feel them all the same.
“Are there any subjects you’re looking forward to this semester?” he asks after a while, steering the conversation somewhere lighter. “Any extracurriculars I should know about?”
“There is one,” I admit, my voice brightening. “I’ve been waiting for it since I found out it’s compulsory in high school.”
“Oh?” He smiles. “And what’s that?”
I launch into an excited explanation about Sacred Heart’s community outreach program. Volunteering is required once you reach high school, but they open the sign-up list every January to seventh and eighth-graders who want to get a head start. I signed up for the soup kitchen and St. Mary’s homeless shelter the second the list went up online this morning.
Even from a young age, helping people has always mattered to me. Offering whatever I can to those who need it most is not only the right thing to do, but necessary.
Especially when you’re born into privilege. Not everyone is given the same luck in life. If you don’t help those who got a raw deal, can you really say you’re living meaningfully? Is being kind to a stranger and offering help not a better use of your time than pretending the need isn’t there to begin with? Isn’t their dignity just as valuable as yours?
