Santo's POV
"Santo, don't you think you should ease up on the drinks? You know you can't focus when you do this?" Dante asked as drank down the bottle of gin.
"That's the point," I told him. "My wife just ran away from me, what else do you want me to do?"
"You could've stopped her," Jaz said as she tried to turn on Emilia's laptop.
Dante hit me. "You're such an idiot."
"She didn't want me to stop her. She said she never wants to see me again," I told them as I lowered my head.
"Didn't you say this was her first relationship?" Dante asked me and I nodded. "Then you should've stepped up."
I took another mouthful as I tried to get myself drunk as possible.
"I know she hurt you but don't you think you hurt her too?" Dante asked. "She must've been scared being left like that. She's been protected her whole life."
Every word Dante said kept making me feel worse than I already felt.
"Whose side are you on right now, brother?" I asked him.
"Your side but you also did some messed up things," he said.
"I'm team Emilia," Jaz said as the laptop finally turned on.
I rubbed my forehead as I tried not to get frustrated.
When I walked in the house and saw that she wrote an essay about me, I freaked out.
I didn't want to hear what she had to say.
It reminded me of when everyone kept saying I was a psycho and that I killed my brother.
It reminded me of why I have trust issues.
The house feels to lonely again without her.
The silence nearly drove me crazy last night.
"Santo, are you crying?" Dante asked me and I wiped my eyes.
"No, something in my drink is making my eyes watery," I lied.
This is what I was afraid of. This is why I didn't want my heart back.
Dante sat down next to me and poured himself a drink. "Holy shit, Santo is crying over a girl."
I started to strangle him. "No, I am not!"
He started to strangle me back. "Yes, you are! You're such an idiot."
"I'm going to kill you!" I shouted at him before we started to fight.
"You had such a good wife and you just let her leave!" He shouted as he punched me and I didn't fight back.
He kicked me in the stomach over and over.
"You keep sabotaging yourself and I'm sick of it!" He angrily shouted before storming out.
I groaned as I struggled to get up.
"Hey Santo," Jaz called me.
I ignored her as I drank more of my gin.
She put the laptop in front of me. "Did you even read what Emilia wrote?"
I turned away my head. "I don't want to see it."
I don't know how much more insults I can take.
She turned my face to the screen. "Read it."
I took another mouthful of my drink before deciding to see what Emilia had to say.
Even though my subject can be obnoxious, impatient, unpredictable, repulsive, and dangerous-
I immediately stopped reading. "Is this what you want me to read?"
"Just continue," she said and I sighed.
He is also affectionate, intuitive, caring, and listens. To me, these things outweigh the bad.
As I studied my subject these past couple of months, I have learnt that he only does them as a protective mechanism.
He doesn't want anyone to get close to him so he acts the worse way possible to others.
However, that didn't work with me.
I couldn't allow him to fool me like he did others.
My subject is not who everyone thinks he is, he just takes the blame.
I started this thesis to understand my subject better but he ended up helping me to understand myself better instead.
He thought me things and made me feel things that I never imagined could be possible.
He made me realize that marrying him wasn't the end of the world and that loving him was possible.
"Shit," I said, realizing that I had made the biggest mistake of my life.
Jaz handed me my phone. "Call her."
I took it before immediately dialling her number.
The phone rang until it went to voicemail.
I called ten times and still no answer.
I decided to put my pride aside and call Enzo.
"You have some nerve calling me Valentino," my father-in-law answered.
"I need to talk to her."
"Not right now," he told me. "She couldn't sleep all night and she finally crashed a few minutes ago. Let her rest."
"How is she?" I asked and he started laughing.
"Santo, you broke her heart and then sent her away. What do you think?"
I scratched my head as I tried to figure out what to do. "Could you at least tell her I called?"
"Get your shit together first. I don't want you giving her hope and then breaking her all over again," he said before hanging up.
I ran to my office and grabbed a flash drive before transferring her essay unto it.
"What are you doing Santo?" Jaz asked me.
"I'm making sure my wife gets to graduate," I said before pulling out the flash drive and starting to walk before Jaz pulled me back.
"Santo, you can barely walk in a straight line and how are you going to get her to graduate?"
"Relax," I told her. "I have this all under control."
I grabbed my car keys before going outside to see Dante throwing stones at one of my cars.
"That's destruction of property and you can spend up to 15 years in jail for that," I said as I walked up to him.
"Go fall off a cliff," he said as he continued.
I handed him my car keys.
"You were right. I acted like an idiot but I want to fix things. Help me."
I could see a small smile on his face. "What's the plan?"
"We're going to find a Professor Kate," I smiled.
...
"I don't owe any loan sharks money," she said as she walked past me to open her car door.
I closed it back. "Good because I'm not one."
I handed her the flash drive. "Give Emilia a chance."
She laughed. "Look Mr. Scaryman, I don't know who you are to her but I can't. The deadline already passed."
"I'm the reason she didn't turn in her assignment," I told her. "Look, I'm not asking for you to pass her or anything. Just read it and give her the grade she deserves."
She looked on me as she started contemplating it. "I can't."
"She's my wife and graduating is the one thing she's ever wanted to do. We might not be together anymore but I at least want her to have the one thing that she wanted."
She took the flash drive. "She's so young and married already?"
"I ruined her," I said. "Don't ruin her too."
She nodded. "I will look at it but this does not mean that she will be allowed to graduate. The content in this essay must be what I asked for."
"Mark her fairly," I said as I opened the car door for her.
"Don't show up at my workplace again. This is highly inappropriate and you're lucky I didn't call the police," she said as she got in.
"Thank you," I said respectfully before closing the door.
She drove away and Dante walked up to me.
"I still don't know how you manage to always charm older women," he said as he shook his head.
I put my arm on his shoulder. "I will do anything to get Emilia back."