Page 49 of Dante
The water runs down my back. I tip my head forward and let it soak my hair.
What unsettles me isn't the marriages. Isn't the children. Isn't even the casual way Dante talked about arranged marriages and debts settled with human beings.
What unsettles me is the way he talked about love.
Like it was something that happened to other people. Something he observed from the outside. Something he understood intellectually but had never experienced himself.
Nico didn't trust anyone. He decided love was a liability.
Bruno let someone see who he really was underneath all that anger.
She was the first person who ever did.
Dante told those stories like a man describing a foreign country he'd read about but never visited.
And I asked.
That's the worst part. I asked about the others. I invited this conversation. I sat there and listened and felt something twist in my chest when he talked about people finding their person despite everything.
My fault.
I reach for the shampoo and squeeze some into my palm. Work it through my hair with both hands
I wanted to make sure you were okay.
That's what he said.
Guilt, he said.
I don't believe him.
Or maybe I do believe him, and that's worse. Maybe guilt is exactly why he did it. Maybe he's been carrying around responsibility for what happened to me like a weight he can't put down.
Maybe I'm just another obligation. Another person he failed to protect. Another name on a list of things Dante Castellani needs to fix.
I rinse the shampoo from my hair. Reach for the conditioner.
The water is starting to cool. I should hurry.
But I don't want to go back out there. Don't want to sit in my living room knowing he's twenty feet away. Don't want to feelwhatever I felt when he looked at me and saidcaralike it meant something.
I turn off the water. Stand there for a moment in the cooling air. Steam swirls around me.
I wrap myself in a towel and step out of the shower. The mirror is fogged over. I wipe a streak across it with my palm and stare at my reflection.
Dark circles under my eyes. Hair dripping onto my shoulders. I look exhausted.
I am exhausted.
I dry off and pull on sweatpants and an old t-shirt. Comfort clothes. The kind of thing I wear when I'm not leaving the apartment and don't care what anyone thinks.
Except someone is in my apartment now.
I hesitate at the bathroom door. Listen for sounds from the bedroom. Nothing. Maybe he fell asleep again. The pain medication should be kicking in by now.
I slip out and pad down the hallway to the living room. The couch is still rumpled from where I tried to sleep last night. I grab a blanket and curl up in the corner, pulling my phone from between the cushions where I left it.
I unlock my phone and start scrolling. News apps. Social media. Anything to fill my brain with something other than the man in my bedroom.
