I wear his name like a scar.
Alessandro Rossi stole everything from me; my freedom, my future, the lie I told my father to keep him alive. He thinks I'm a tool to be used, a bride to be displayed, a Fraga to be broken. He thinks the ring on my finge...
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I woke to the quiet rhythm of Alessandro's breathing beside me.
He lay face down, bare-backed, his face half-buried between our pillows. For a fleeting moment, the sight almost made me smile. He looked unguarded, unshaped by the harshness he carried when awake.
That small softness never lasted long, though, because when my eyes lingered on his back, the smile dissolved.
I saw the scars. They crossed over his tattoos, too rough to be clean knife wounds. They looked blunt, old. My chest ached as I traced their shapes with my eyes, and a heaviness built inside me, one that made tears sting at the edges.
Alessandro had always been a mystery I could never quite unravel. His past reached out in fragments, slipping through his silence in pieces I collected but never managed to assemble.
I wanted him to tell me, I wanted him to let me in without me asking, but he never did. That truth always hovered between us.
Careful not to stir him, I lowered myself closer, lips brushing one scar with a tenderness that came unbidden, a kiss softer than a breath.
He startled awake. His body jerked, muscles tight, eyes snapping open in panic.
For an instant, I saw fear, pure and unmasked, before he pulled away and reached for his shirt on the couch. Instinct told me to stop him, and my hand went to his arm.
"You don't have to hide from me," I said, my voice quiet but certain. "Not from me."
He looked at me with something caught between vulnerability and resistance. For a breath, I thought he might let me see past that wall, but then his expression closed again, colder, distant.
"There's nothing here worth telling," he muttered, his tone flat, the same one he had worn since Billy's death. It was the way he carried his grief, locked away, keeping him a thousand miles from me even while he slept in the same bed.
I cupped his face between my palms, forcing his eyes back to mine. "Everything about you is worth telling," I whispered, resting my forehead against his.
For a heartbeat, he softened. His shoulders eased, his breath steadied against my skin, and he leaned into me as if he wanted to stay there, as if part of him craved the comfort. Then it passed.
He pulled back, stood, tugged the shirt over his head, and slipped out of the room without another word.
I knew those scars were inflicted by none other than Diego, but clearly they ran deeper than I had imagined, and no matter how much I wanted to chase him, I knew he needed to move at his own pace. Still, I couldn't let him drift further away.
