Chapter Five

Danica

Six Years Earlier

-Late January-

“D anni. Babe, you have to get up. It’s been days. You need to eat.” Sierra sniffs, nose crinkling in disgust. “Hell, you need to shower. Just do something .”

Ignoring her, I simply pull the blankets up higher, and roll over to face the discolored dorm room wall. More tears well up, just when I think I have cried myself dry.

“That’s it. I’m calling your brother.”

Fuck her. Fuck all of them. What’s the point? Theo left me. He left. And he isn’t coming back. The tears fall in earnest now as sobs wrack my body once more. After everything. After all the shit we went through together. What he did for me? And now he’s saying he needs someone more ‘mature,’ that I ‘can’t handle it’? As if he doesn’t know the shit I went through, hell, what I’m still going through! Well, fuck him!

I let the tears fall.

“See? See what I mean? It’s been days. She won’t get out of bed. She won’t stop crying, won’t eat. Her roommate couldn’t take it anymore, and packed up and went to crash with her boyfriend. I just. . . I didn’t know what else to do.”

I try my best to tune out the concerned tone of my friend’s voice. If I had any energy left to care, I would probably feel immense guilt about dumping this worry on my friend’s shoulders. She has enough on her plate right now with cramming for the MCATs. She doesn’t need to be dealing with me and all of my issues too. God, I am such a shitty friend. Guess that goes right along with what Theo was saying though. Maybe I really am too immature for him. Maybe I’m just too immature period. It’s no wonder he moved on so quickly.

“It’s okay, I’ve got this. Thank you for all of your help.” The words are whispered, I hear a door closes before soft footsteps move closer. The narrow bed creaks as it shifts under the not so inconsiderable weight of my former hockey-star brother as he balances precariously along the edge.

“Hey Smarty.” The weight of a gentle hand falls on my shoulder, and despite my best efforts to resist, he rolls me until I am facing him.

I know what he’ll see when he looks at me. Red, blotchy skin. Swollen eyes from days of crying. I’m sure my curls are a total disaster too, but I just don’t have the energy to care. God knows he’s seen me looking worse than this before.

“Wanna talk about it?” Caleb’s soft smile doesn’t meet his eyes as he gives me a once over. My face crumbles as I start sobbing once more, throwing myself into the comfort of my brother’s strong embrace. “Shhh. It’s okay, Smarty. You’re going to be okay. Shhh.”

I blink blearily against the dying rays of the fading sunset. I remember crying myself to sleep with Caleb holding me tightly in his arms. Beyond that, I vaguely remember waking just enough to find him carrying me to his car, wrapped tightly in my favorite throw blanket, before I was tucked into the backseat, and being driven away from my home of the last nine months.

“Smarty! You’re awake!”

Startled, I jerk slightly, pulling the blankets more tightly around my shoulders, and breathe a sigh of relief when I see it’s just Caleb. Crumpled awkwardly into a too small reading chair, he must have pulled it up next to the bed, and fallen asleep watching over me. My chest tightens with guilt as I watch him struggle to untangle his awkward limbs as he sits up, while reaching for my hand. I do this too much, make him worry about me. I hate that this isn’t the first time I have woken to finding him sitting vigil by my bedside, worry creasing his features.

“I- “My voice cracks, parched after countless hours of crying. I swallow roughly before trying again. “How long was I asleep?” My voice still comes out on a croak, and Caleb quickly reaches over to the nightstand, before handing me a glass of water.

“You were out for a full day. Probably exhausted from all the crying. Sierra said you had been like that for at least a week by the time I got here.” I gulp greedily at the water, until the glass is empty, before handing it back to my brother once more. “Wanna talk about it?”

By ‘it,’ he of course is referring to the incident. The one in which my boyfriend of over a year, the love of my life, broke up with me; crushed my heart and ripped it to shreds, and left it lying on the floor. No, I do not want to talk about ‘it.’ My eyes well once more at the reminder, and they begin to fall in earnest as I shake my head, lying back on the pillows once more.

“Danni, what happened? Things were so good between you two, and now this? I just, I don’t understand.” It’s hard to make out my brother’s face through the tears leaking like acid down my painfully blotchy cheeks. It hurts to cry. But I guess it’s better than feeling dead inside.

“I. . .don’t . . . know. . .” The words are broken up by sobs. I really don’t know what’s wrong with me. It can’t be normal to cry like this. I feel so unhinged. I didn’t really cry like this when I found out Bradley had died; nor when I found out that the love of my life had murdered him and covered it up. Not like this anyway. Clearly, I am broken.

“Thank you so much for coming. I just, I didn’t know what else to do. She finally stopped crying but she won’t get out of bed. She barely eats anything. I’m at my wits end.” I can hear the exasperation in Caleb’s voice in the hall, but the murmured reply is too soft for me to catch.

Caleb really has tried everything. After flying out here to come check on me himself, and dragging me out of my dorm to his rental place didn’t fix it, he called in the calvary. First Finn came down from Seattle. Then he went so far as to fly Bash in from New Jersey, though he had to turn right back around to get back to practice the next day. Nothing has been able to drag me out of this funk though. I know I should feel bad, instead I just feel. . . empty. For all the shit Brad put me through last year, all the times he beat me and raped me, even after he put me in the hospital. . . Theo did the one thing Bradley never could. He truly broke me.

I am lying with my back to the door when it is thrown open with a loud bang, though I don’t even flinch.

“Mio Dio, cos'è questa puzza?”

That gets my attention. I bolt upright, tossing aside the throw blanket I have been wrapped in for days.

“Ma!” My jaw drops in shock at the sight of seeing Theo’s mother standing in the middle of my temporary bedroom. “What are you doing here?”

Nose wrinkled in disgust, most likely at the sight of me- I’m sure, she simply shakes her head. “What do you think I’m doing here, my girl? Your brothers called me, practically in tears, begging me to come out here to help you. Three grown men!” Elena gives me a once over with her critical eye, shaking her head. “Mio Dio, ragazza. Guardati!” She tsks, muttering under her breath as she moves closer, and grabbing my hands as she sits next to me on the bed.

“Now. Here’s what’s going to happen. First, you are going to shower. Then, you are going to tell me what that son of mine has done. Then, you are going to eat. Look at you! You are practically wasting away!” She eyes me critically, and whatever she sees must not meet her approval, because before I know it, she is back on her feet and ushering me to do the same.

“Up. Get up. Now. Let’s go.” Not taking ‘no’ for an answer, Elena pulls with a surprising amount of strength for someone so petite. Before I know it, I am being maneuvered down the hall into the bathroom, stripped of my clothing and shoved into a scalding hot shower. “Now, can you manage to bath yourself, or must I help you with that as well. ”

My laugh sounds foreign to my ears, rusty from disuse over the last few weeks. “No Mrs. Giovanni. I can bathe myself.”

More tsks sound from outside of the shower curtain. “I was ‘Ma’ when I entered the room, now I am ‘Mrs. Giovanni’? I think not! Now, get to work!”

With that, I hear the door close forcefully behind her as she leaves.

It takes a surprising amount of effort to bathe. Who knew crying for days on end could be so exhausting? But eventually, I manage to bring myself once more to a semblance of my former self. Stepping out of the shower, I roughly dry myself off and throw my hair into a loose braid, not wanting to deal with the tangle of curls that has gone unmanaged for far too long. As I step into the hall, I am bombarded by the comforting smells of Elena’s delicious Italian fare, and I follow my nose to the kitchen, where I see her working away at one of the counters. My brother is noticeably absent.

“Sit.” She gestures to the stool at the bar with the knife she had been using to chop veggies. Unwilling to cross her with her vaguely threatening tone, I do as she says. “Now,” she slides a bowl full of heaping, mouthwatering pasta in front of me, “talk.”

I stare at the food, unseeing, as I try to process that loaded command. Where do I even start? When I don’t speak, she starts for me.

“Alright. I know you found out that boy of mine did what he had to do with your brother and their friends to deal with that horrible Bradley boy.” Well, shit, this is news to me. I thought it had just been Theo. But then, I guess that makes sense. They had already been doing everything together to try and help me up until that point.

“What you probably do not know, though you may have already gathered, is that that boy of mine is a protector. He has been protecting people long before you came into his life.” She continues chopping away, throwing veggies and seasonings into the sizzling pan as she speaks, never making eye contact with me as she does so. “My husband. . .he was not a good man. He was cruel. The leader of the local mafia and feared by all who crossed his path. My Theo,” she pauses for a moment, as if to gather her thoughts. “He saw what his father did to me. He was raised with the expectation that he would do the same. I tried to protest. My boy was too sweet, too soft for the cruelness my husband wanted to instill. But my Eduardo, he was determined to have his way.”

I sit entranced, barely daring to breathe as I hang on to every word that Elena is willing to share. Neither she nor Theo ever spoke about their past much, nor about the man who had been the head of their family. I drank this news in like I was dying of thirst, too afraid to speak and break this moment of narrative that I had been graced with.

“Often, Eduardo would make Theo watch when he decided I needed to be punished, or made an example of. Often, I would be punished as a manner of discipline when Theo made a mistake, as incentive to reach for perfection. He knew I was Theo’s weakness. Any time Theo tried to step in, my husband would punish Theo after he was done with me; when I was too injured to step in and try to stop him. He took Theo with him to work on many occasions. Tried to show him what it means to be a ‘true Giovanni” leader. Not ‘weak’ like his younger brother Dante. Theo was made to do terrible things. Unspeakable things, as just a boy. Things a child should never have to see or do. But this was our reality. This was the world in which we lived. And I know you are probably wondering why I didn’t just leave? Take Theo in the night and just run.”

Elena shakes her head sadly, lost in her own musings. “But you see, his resources were great. He had connections in every branch of law enforcement and the military. There truly was nowhere for me to run. If I had, he would simply have killed me and made Theo watch, before dragging my little boy back to a much worse fate.”

I see the tears sliding down her cheek, but she ignores them as she continues stirring whatever is in the sizzling pan. I realize that is her distraction, her tether back to reality, so I say nothing. Watching in silence, I force myself to remain still as I listen, feeling tears sliding down my own cheeks as my heart breaks for the little boy who would grow to be the man I loved so dearly.

“There was one night when it all became too much. I won’t speak of the details. Only that I was attacked by someone who I thought could be trusted. After dragging myself back home, I did my best to clean myself up, but I knew there would be no hiding it from Eduardo. The signs were too obvious. And I was right. He came home, and in a jealous rage, he would have killed me, had Theo not intervened. He took my place, and in doing so, placed his own life at great risk. My husband was killed in the ensuing altercation, and Theo was ultimately responsible. By that point, Theo was no longer a small child, and because of the situations my husband had placed him in, he already had a reputation with the local law enforcement and he surely would not have come out of the mess unscathed. Dante helped him clean up the mess, and Theo stepped back from his rightful role as Don of the Giovanni Family. Dante gave him a clean start, and hockey gave him a future. ”

Shock hits me in waves as her words slowly sink in. So many secrets. So many past hurts that my Hoodie Guy was carrying on his shoulders alone. And then, when he finally had a fresh start, a bright future where he could escape his troubled past, a spoiled, drunk high school girl barged into his life and dragged him right back down. No wonder he thought I was too immature to be his future. I could barely handle the news of how he handled my abusive ex who surely would have killed me. What was he supposed to think? If he had ever tried to share the weight of the true burdens that plagued him, could he trust my reaction?

He was right to break up with me after how I confronted him with the autopsy paperwork. I was triggered and dealing with my PTSD, with my history of trust issues. But how could he trust me if I couldn’t even sit down to listen to him about how he saved me? A complicated past, he said. Ha. No fucking kidding.

Lost in my own thoughts, I didn’t realize that Elena had paused her retelling to glance over at me, all the while continuing to stir her meal she was preparing. I swallow thickly, the weight of my guilt now heavy as it fights for top spot in my chest over my grief. “Please.” The word is raw as I croak, “continue.”

She smiles a sad smile at me, but continues as requested. “My dear girl. Hockey gave him a future, but you gave him life.”

What? I blink, confused at her words.

“My boy was going through the motions, trying to make something of himself, to prove to himself that he wasn’t his father. But he wasn’t really living. Not until you came. He may have helped you like he helped me get out of a dangerous abusive relationship, but it was you that truly saved him. And don’t think that he doesn’t know that. That it hasn’t been on his heart every day since you told him you love him. Now tell me,” She points the wooden spoon in my direction, “what did my boy say to you?”

I swallow thickly, the words stuck in my throat. I try again, and this time the words flow out in a tumble, like they have been bottled up for far too long and are ready to burst free in an explosion.

“He . . . he told me that I was too immature to date. That I couldn’t handle dating someone of his nature, someone with such a complicated past. He said we were good for each other when we needed each other, and he did truly love me, but we both had some growing up to do. That we both have exciting careers ahead of us and we should see what the world has to offer, that we shouldn’t hold each other back; maybe play the scene a bit.” I am crying as I speak, unable to hold back the tears that fall freely down my face. But for the first time since everything happened, I feel relief, the burden eased by the comforting woman standing across from me in the kitchen. She is Theo’s mother but she has loved me too, and I feel an even deeper connection to her now, knowing what she went through, not so dissimilar from my own recent past. How her incredible son saved us both.

“I didn’t want to believe him. I don’t think I even cried when he told me all of this. But then, not three days later, I saw it blasted all over social media that he was at a party with another woman. She was in his lap and his hands were all over her.” I choke out the words, bitter on my tongue. “She was kissing him and he was kissing her back like he meant it. The videos were everywhere. People kept tagging me in the posts.” I laugh bitterly at the cruelty of being a public figure, how everyone always has to know our business and get amusement out of our presumed suffering. “She was gorgeous.” And she was.

Finally stopping in her food preparation, Elena is quiet as she takes the pot off the hot stove and turning it off before walking over to me and wrapping me in her arms to let me cry. “Cara figlia. Andrà tutto bene. Shhh.”