I read the words again, letting them really sink in. I wish for Sophia to be safe. Not happy. Not to be with him. Just safe. Even at eighteen, he knew he couldn't have her. He knew she was out of reach. But he yearned for her anyway.
And I had yearned for him.
How pathetic was that?
I picked up my piece of paper-my bloody oath, my bygone promise-and tore it to shreds.
Then I walked over to the drainage grate near the fountain.
The water rushing below was dark and swift, carrying the night's rain down into the sewers. I let the fragments fall, watching them drift down like dead leaves. They hit the water and scattered; some floated, while others sank immediately.
I watched until the very last scrap vanished into the darkness.
Swept down the sewer, exactly where they belonged.
Then I picked up the locket.
He gave it to me the night his sight was restored. I still remembered that night clearly-the way he looked at me, really looked at me, for the very first time.
His gaze had focused on my face; he was seeing me, not just hearing my voice. And he had smiled.
"This is for you," he had said, pressing the locket into my palm. "It was my grandmother's. She always said wearing it brought good luck. I want you to have it."
For years, I had worn it every single day.
I had slept with it under my pillow. I had kissed it for luck before his surgery. On the nights he didn't come home, I clutched it tightly, believing it would keep him safe.
I popped it open-for the first time in years.
Inside was a tiny photograph-so small I had almost forgotten it was there. It was a picture of us taken before the accident, before he lost his sight.
We were just teenagers, sitting right under this very tree. He was laughing at something I was saying. I was looking at him like he hung the moon.
I snapped the locket shut.
I went back to the tree and dug a new hole, deeper this time.
I dropped the silver chain into the muck.
It landed with a soft thud and disappeared into the shadows. I shoved the dirt back in and packed it down with my hands. I patted the earth flat until the ground looked completely undisturbed.
I wasn't just burying a necklace.
I was burying Elena Rossi.
The girl who believed in wishes. The girl who wrote oaths in blood. The girl who thought love could fix a broken man.
She was dead.
I had killed her.
I stood up and brushed the dirt from my knees. My hands were caked in mud and blood, my arm ached dully, and my cheek stung with a fiery heat. I looked like I had just crawled out of a grave.
Maybe I had.
My phone vibrated.
I pulled it out. The screen was cracked-I couldn't remember dropping it, but there it was, a spiderweb of shattered glass webbing out from the corner.
Dante: Are you okay? Luca said you refused the ride.
I stared at the screen.
Three hours. It took him three hours to check on me. It had been three hours since I walked away from him, out of that alley.
Three hours of him driving Sophia around with his hand on her thigh, while I was bleeding, digging, and burying.
I typed a reply.
Me: I'm fine. I don't need you.
I hit send before I had the chance to hesitate.
Then I turned and walked out of the garden, leaving my heart to rot beneath the peach tree.
