A love like ours ✔️

♛9.How we began

Soraya

Rafael has a new tattoo. I think about it as head to bed, the white Egyptian cotton bed sheets rustle slightly as I slide under their coolness.

I've seen all of the others before. Over the years I've traced them so many times with my fingers and later with my lips and tongue, that it's impossible not to know them by heart. On the back of his left hand there's the tree of life, with its roots embeded into a ying yang representation. As the tree reaches up, on its trunk there are two dates carved in roman numerals, his parents' birthdays. The tree then fades into a beautiful misty forest, where three wolves stand before a river, one for each Russo sibling. Elena's is a little shadowy, ghostly even, in comparison with her brothers'. At their back there's a snowy mountain, where a stag stands prindefully, guarding his kingdom. The stag holds the moon in between his antlers, a starry night sky surrounding it.

He got them at 18 and I've always found them extremely beautiful. Now, on his left pectoral, right where his heart beats, there's a new one of a warrior angel with its wings spread wide so one of them reaches hisboposite shoulder. The angel is swinging his sword to aparently protect the constellation Pleiades, also known as the Soraya, that's behind his back.

He has a tattoo of me.

After we became a couple he always said he'd have something done to represent me. I never expected him to do it even after he...No, I refuse to think about it. If I dwell on it I'm certain I won't be able to rest tonight. Therefore, I banish the immage from my mind and let the darkness consume me.

But it's not a dreamless sleep that greets me. It's the memories, the memories of us, but also the dark ones, the ones I'd really like to forget. The ones that give me nightmares.

•☽•☽•☽•☽•☽✹☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•

✹18 years ago, July, age 6✹

I look at the clouds as the plane makes its descend. They're so white and fluffy. I want to sleep hugged by them. Is it even possible for a person to sleep on a cloud? I don't think so. At school I've learned they are made of water drops and ice crystals. Maybe you could bring a floatie, and float on them like one does in a pool.

I want to ask mama, she always tells me stories about kingdoms in the sky. If you can build a palace on a cloud you can most certainly sleep on it. But she's asleep, and she looks so cute with her black hair fallen onto her forehead and her long eyelashes fanning her cheeks, her head resting on papa's shoulder. She's been really tired lately, always falling asleep only when my father gets home. But he says there is some trouble, so he comes home late at night.

Papa says I'm a mini mama. Valeria, my cousin, always teases me about looking nothing like papa except for the fact that I have his dark chocolate brown eyes, while she's like a copy in female form of uncle Mario. She's always so mean to me, but the joke's on her. Papa says that mama is the most beautiful woman in the world, so that means I am too. Ha! Take that, Val.

We're visiting the Russos in Tuscany. Papa has business with them. I've never been here, but mama grew up in the area. Angela Russo was her childhood friend. She said she's going to love me, and that me and her two boys can be friends. I love making new friends. Sometimes I wish I had a sibling too, but when I asked my parents for one they said that I was their little blessing, because they thought they couldn't have kids. As much as they want to offer me one they aren't able to do that.

A few hours later, after a long car ride, we reach the Russo estate. At the doorstep, a pretty brunette woman wearing a floral summer dress and a burly dark haired man are waiting for us. They greet my parents then I get introduced to them.