Welcome to The New Classic, where the past and the present merge, to form a new future.
Once that no one can see coming...
Join Angelo, Vanessa and the rest of the gang three and a half long years after that fateful night.
Lo kept count. V didn't...
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Legacy.
It was something I had spent a lot of time avoiding.
My legacy ended not in one fell swoop, but in a series of ruthless stabbings, each wound deeper than the one inflicted just seconds before.
But it wasn't just my legacy that came to a brutal end.
My late wife had been an only child. So when I started receiving parts of her body she very obviously couldn't live without, I became painfully aware of my responsibility to her parents.
Holly's father couldn't have been more displeased at who his darling angel decided to bring home. My reputation preceded me, and while that usually worked to my advantage, in this instance it meant that any attempt at an introduction was futile.
Salvatore Bianchi needed no introduction.
He never really came all the way around, especially since he eventually had to retire early due to the negative light my involvement in his daughter shone on him.
But the stoic career policeman managed to dredge up a few words of the day his daughter and I were to be wed.
"She's deeply, deeply loved, Bianchi. She has a home, and people she belongs to. So if you ever grow tired of my baby girl or you stop being able to protect her, all you have to do is bring her back to me. That's all I ask."
There weren't many men that affected me in any way, let alone make me doubt myself.
But Holly's father, despite the fact that he was shorter than me, always found a way to get under my skin.
I remember cursing him that day, as he had cast somewhat of a shadow on what was meant to be a momentous occasion. It wasn't until my Celine was born, that I understood what he was asking of me that day.
In the time between her emergence from inside the person she'd called home for almost a year, and the first breath she exchanged for a toe-curling scream, I learned more about myself than I had in all my time being alive.
I never knew how much I could grow to love just a tiny, little hand. Or a toe, tipped with a nail-bed the size of half a rice grain.
She wasn't even aware of her own existence yet, and she had already changed mine on a fundamental level.
So upon reflection, my father-in-law's plea for Holly's safe return was the manifestation of a love I never got the chance to fully understand.
Celine barely got to show me who she was, but she was undoubtedly my most prized possession.
And knowing what I knew now, it was almost impossible for me to imagine giving her hand in marriage to someone like myself.
