Recollection

twenty-seven | motorcycle

song: Halsey - Without Me

The window's reflection blurred into a distorted haze of the clouds below, and I just sat there, trapped in my own silence. Roman's private jet hummed around me, but it felt hollow. There was too much noise in my head, memories flashing like a slideshow I never asked to see. The disbelief of the past year, the grief and rage I'd clung to, felt like broken pieces that wouldn't fit together anymore. I couldn't even remember the person I'd been before all this.

Seeing her coffin lowered into the ground was a sight I would carry to the end of my days. Every fiber of me had believed I'd lost her. Lia was gone, and I was left with an emptiness I couldn't fill, no matter how many miles I put between myself and Italy, between myself and that part of my life. I told myself I could start afresh, but it was just a lie. I'd spent more than half of this year in some kind of living death, telling myself that any peace, even a false one, was better than facing the truth.

And then she'd come back. Somehow, impossibly, she was alive. But instead of relief, I felt the ground rip open beneath me all over again. It was like some cruel twist, she was actually here, and yet she was more of a stranger now than she'd ever been. I had convinced myself that my place was with her, no matter what, but it felt like a betrayal to admit I didn't care. Because I did. I could never stop. But my question was:

How do I move on from everything that happened?

I hadn't realized I'd spoken until Haley's voice broke through the fog in my mind, her words gentle, and warm. She'd always had a way of calming the storm inside me, even when I didn't want it. Haley was the only mother I'd remembered, the one who'd stepped in when no one else had, and right now, that part of me, the part that trusted her, was barely keeping me together.

"You take it day by day," she said softly. "Love isn't easy. It's not a straight road you drive to happily ever after. It has bumps and curves and it takes time."

Her words made me feel like I was standing at the edge of a cliff, staring down into an abyss where Lia waited. Could I jump, even if I had no idea where I'd land?

"Tell me how you feel, honey," she coaxed gently, her eyes full of that warmth I'd leaned on so many times. "I might be of help. A mother knows best."

I couldn't look at her for a moment. She wasn't wrong, she'd always been there to fill the space that my own mother left. My mother, if she was still out there, had been lost to me since before I could remember, another shadow in a life I couldn't make sense of. Haley was here, though. She always had been.

"I don't know, Auntie," I said finally, my voice low. "I love her so much, but the way she made me feel was... it was like she'd cut the ground out from under me. I lived for her, you know? She didn't trust me enough to let me help her, to let me in. I would have done anything... I just—"

Haley's hand closed around mine, grounding me again, and I looked up to find her watching me with that fierce protectiveness she wore so naturally.

"Let me tell you something," she said, her tone firm but gentle. "She was scared, Atticus. Imagine growing up the way she did, losing people over and over. When everyone you love leaves you with only a couple of exceptions, sometimes it feels easier to pull away first. To protect yourself. Trust wasn't a constant in her life. She was afraid—afraid of losing her family, of losing you. She wanted to hold on, but sometimes holding on the wrong way looks like letting go."