"How was your trip?" Marco teases the minute we're in the door, being embraced tightly by Giovanni's aunt. As she hugs me, I look over her shoulder, eying Giovanni, who glares at his cousin.
"It was enlightening."
"Mhm. How was the beach?"
"Freeing," I respond, and Luca begins to laugh, slapping his hands on his knees. Marco gapes but quickly wipes the look of disbelief when Maria turns to him.
"Enlightening, freeing? What beach did you go to?"
Giovanni walks up to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "You don't want to know, Zia. How was your day?"
His segue miraculously works. We all watch him get out of the situation with envy.
"Sun-kissed is a good look on you, Scarlett," Marco says with a smile as we follow them.
"Stop flirting with Giovanni's woman."
"I'm not. I'm stating fact."
I shake my head, grinning. "Um, thank you."
"You don't happen to have a sister or–?"
"Afraid not," I hum with amusement, "sorry."
"Damn." Marco sighs. "Cousin?"
Luca groans. "You are so pathetic."
Suddenly, there are large excited hollers. My head snaps to where Giovanni is, finding him at the threshold of the living room. Maria is clapping excitedly beside him. His eyes are wide and aware when he turns just enough to look at me, his mouth hanging slightly.
I reach him, pressing a hand to his back, peeking in, and freeze.
The room is filled to capacity with people.
"Um, Zia?"
"It's just some family and friends! You're leaving in one day! Everyone wanted to see you both." She reaches out for me, pulling me close. I'm a head above her, but I bend, my eyes darting around the room.
"I told them all about your lovely girl. Everyone, say hello to Scarlett. This is Giovanni's girlfriend!"
I smile wide, frightened and intimidated.
"Hello, Scarlett!" they holler in unison.
"Now, don't be shy. We want to make her feel at home here, alright?"
"Zia," Giovanni reproaches, his voice low.
"She hopefully will be part of this family someday soon."
When the first group of people approaches me, Giovanni plants himself beside me. They reach out for my hands, and I offer them in return. I'm shocked when they tug on them, crushing me into an embrace–each of them– one after the other.
"Ah, she is so sweet! So beautiful!"
"Giovanni, you're a lucky man!"
My heart is racing when I pull back. I glance at Giovanni, positive I look fear-stricken. Immediately hands pull me in again. Nearly everyone introduces themselves to me, uttering hopes for a future between Giovanni and me, a big family, a long life. Giovanni does his best to save me but is constantly pulled away by a loving, persistent family.
I always imagined Giovanni's family consisted of his mother, sister, and brother. I never expected he'd have this army on the other side of the world. And it's a beautiful, sweet army.
A family like this is unheard of to me. Even with my mother's love early on in my life, it was a different kind of affection. It was a love sustained by fear and need. She was all I had. As much as I try to open myself to this outpouring of affection, I'm struck by the reminder of her, of my father– well, of the people I thought they were before I found out the truth. The pain is like a thorn in my chest, piercing my heart with a slowness, trying hard to make it to the tendons within and ruin my happiness.
As much as I want to open myself up to Giovanni's family as if they were my own, I can't. I physically try to. I smile, I hug, I keep up with conversations as best as I can, considering their accents. But, that darkness I'm so accustomed to feeling hovers like a cloud over my emotions, making me nearly cry every time someone pulls me into an embrace.
I don't want to run either. I don't want to check out and find a place to nurse my wounds. I don't want to take this moment away from Giovanni, so I don't leave his side despite how much I want to. Not during their cocktail hour, not during dinner. Giovanni's aunt is supposedly famous for her Carbonara. She made bowls upon bowls of it to feed the crowd. There weren't enough seats. Some people stood, some sat on the stone ground, some scattered to other rooms, but never once did the laughter and chatter die down.
My eyes constantly moved from their faces, their body language with each other to the scattered cheese and olive plates, the empty wine glasses and bottles cluttering the long dining table to Giovanni, who sits beside me, one hand firmly on my lap, holding my hand. Hours later, my heart still hasn't relaxed.
He's handled them with a certain finesse, deterring their probing questions, their insistences. He clearly knows how to work a room. Normally, I do, too... when the people surrounding me are strangers I'll never deal with again. Work partners that get down to business, who don't care about who I really am or what I've been through in my life.
These people are very interested. And why wouldn't they be? In their eyes, I'm the woman from a shocking scandal, Giovanni's publicist and work partner, who he now has brought home to meet his closest family. I'm the woman he finally brought home. Who he is declaring as family.
It's only natural they want to know who he's with.
As the night progresses, my speech fades, which goes unnoticed for the most part because everyone is either tipsy or exhausted. We move to the sitting room, lounging on the couches with caffé, and as the conversations continue, there's a light buzz from the other rooms where family and friends are still catching up.
I lean into Giovanni, my adrenaline finally fading, which begins to weaken me. He squeezes my hand, and I tilt my head up to him. His eyes are gentle but aware, as they usually are. He has always been able to read me like a book.
"You alright?"
I nod against his arm. "Yeah, I'm good."
He removes his hand from mine, lifting his arm over my head, and I'm only too pleased to move into him, glad to be surrounded by his arm. He runs his hand down my back, pressing his cheek to my hair as they continue to ask him about his new work. With his calm heartbeat pressed to my ear, I find a way to relax to the sound.
...
Beady, bloodshot eyes are inches away from my own. My skin crawls as my father, bent before me, grabs the back of my neck with enough force to pull me up, despite the fact that my legs are shaking too hard to move.
"Look at her! Look at what you did!"
"I didn't!" I sob, trying not to look at my mother unconscious on the ground. "I didn't do anything!"
"You went out when I specifically told you not to!"
"It was for school," I breathe, flinching when his fingers tighten on the back of my throat.
"I work my damn ass off for this family. I don't expect to come home to an empty house, no food, no light, nothing in it. I don't deserve that, right?"
I taste blood in my mouth when I swallow. "D-Dad–"
"I asked you a damn question, Scarlett."
"No, you don't. You don't deserve it."
"I put her in place because I love her, Scarlett. She needs to know who is most important to her in her life."
"It's us. It's us–"
"It's me. I'm the one who's been with her the longest, I'm the one who's agreed to do what she wanted. I've devoted my life to this family, and I expect some respect in return!" He turns his face, showing me where my mother fought him off, where nail marks bled him.
"She did this to me!"
"You hurt her," I whisper through my teeth, glad my tears are blinding the complete view of his face.
The smell of whiskey is strong as he moves closer to me. "I hurt her to help her."
I shake my head, and the tears spill. "No, you hurt her because you're drunk."
He tugs on my neck enough for me to lose balance, struggling to remain upright. "What did you say?"
I suck in a deep breath, gritting my teeth together. My mother stirs slightly on the ground, coming back to consciousness. I'm full of hatred; it surpasses fear.
"I said you're drunk! I said you hurt us because you are drunk! Because you take enjoyment in seeing pain! Because you feel so fucking miniscule that you put on this show to make yourself feel like you're actually something." His eyes widen in warning, but I continue, seeing red. "But instead, you're a deadbeat who can barely hold onto a job for more than a few months, who spends the money on booze and whores and–"
He slams me down into the hard back of the couch and grabs my throat from the front now, causing me to fall back, losing my placing. At the opportunity, I wiggle out of his grip when I fall to the cushions, rolling onto the carpet, scrambling up.
"You fucking ungrateful–"
He rounds the couch as I grab onto a lamp, pulling it from the socket with all my might. There's a spark before the light goes out, and I slam it into him just as he gets to me. It cracks at the second blow to his stomach, but it's still not enough to knock him down. He shoves me into the wall, his hand strong on the back of my skull.
I'm blinded by the pain, but still my hatred is overflowing.
"Teddy! S-Stop!" my mother begs, trying to get herself up.
"You're a piece of shit." I laugh in hysterics, dizzy enough that the striped wallpaper is blurred, and he suddenly stops slamming my head into the wall. I don't try to escape knowing there's nowhere to go where he won't catch me. And now that my mother is awake, he could begin to hurt her again.
"You don't learn," he growls, menacingly. "Fifteen and you think you're better than me. You don't know shit about life, little girl. I will show you. I promise you will learn."
My eyes flicker to my mother, who wasn't able to regain full consciousness. Her eyes are closed again, and my fear finally eclipses my hatred. I blow out shaky breaths, tears reappearing.
"Please, stop. I've learned. I know I was wrong. I shouldn't ha–"
He lets go of the back of my throat, and I fall to the ground, too weak to remain upright.
"You think I want your lame, half-assed apologies?"
I turn onto my front, lifting myself enough to crawl towards the chair, wanting to get back onto my feet. But his foot crashes into my stomach in a sharp kick, knocking me flat again. And he doesn't stop.
I curl up; strangled sobs leave at each blow.
"Please, no. Please, D-Dad!"
"YOU. WILL. LEARN!"
"Please!" I scream. "Stop! STOP!"
"Scarlett, Scarlett, baby, please. Open your eyes!" My eyes open so wide I see only a bright light. "Baby, wake up. Please. I'm here."
Unable to catch my breath, a harsh series of coughs begin to strangle me, and I feel two hands begin to pull me off my back, onto my side. I press my cheek into a cushion, blinking, but only bright static-type light is appearing.
My chest tightens when I hear Giovanni's voice, hushed and full of anguish. "Baby, it's alright. It's alright. You're here."
"Giovanni... is she alright?"
"She is fine. Just give her a moment," he says, sharpness in his tongue.
I blink hard, and the room blurs into stillness when I open my eyes. In a moment of absolute horror, I'm left staring at Giovanni's family and friends, who are filling in the entranceway to the living room, still holding drinks and food. I fell asleep on the couch.
By the looks on all their faces, I know in my dreaming, I wasn't silent.
I lift my cheek from the couch, still able to feel what my wounds felt like from my father's blows, gaping at them, trying to find something to say. Trying to find some way out of this.
"I–"
Maria holds her arms behind two people. "E-Everyone, let's give them some space, alright? Come. Come."
My eyes move from them as they begin to file out of the room, their features laced with disbelief, worry, curiosity, and suspicion, to Giovanni, who is bent beside the couch and is pushing back my damp hair from my face with a sweet gentleness.
I take one look at him, and my throat tightens in an effort not to sob my heart out. He attempts to smile, but his fear is there.
"It's alright, baby. It's okay."
My mouth just hangs. I stare at him, unable to move. I try to speak, but a startling, raw sound of pain leaves my lips, filling the silence in the room. He gathers me into his arms, his face grimacing before it's pressed into my shoulder, holding me as tight as he can. The memory of the hurt my father inflicted on me is still radiating across my skin, in my bones, seeping into my muscles. Giovanni's grip on me physically hurts.
I cover my face, hearing an endless torrent of sobs unleashing from my suffocating chest. I can't breathe.
"I- I'm sorry," I cry, shaking my head over and over again, unable to help being angry with myself that I got sloppy and allowed his family to have a glimpse into the private horrors only he and I are used to knowing about. "I'm sorry."
"Shh, shh. Stop. It's okay. You're okay."
But I'm not. I know it; he knows it.
"I'm sorry."
"Scarlett, please," he begs, kissing my shoulder, my neck, my jaw. He pulls back, wiping my tear-stricken face with a frantic fierceness. The touch is still marked by someone else's, and it makes it unbearable to feel. I turn my head away, biting down on my mouth to keep myself quiet, wanting only to recuperate alone. I pull myself from his grasp and slide off the couch to the ground, quickly scrambling up onto resisting legs.
"Scar... Scarlett, stay."
But I'm already out the door.