"On your left shoulder blade," I replied.
The page remained blank for a long moment.
I continued writing, "Dante, I'm begging you, stay out of my life."
An eternity seemed to pass before new words appeared.
The black ink seemed to bleed into the paper, pressed hard with emotion.
"Elara, I live for you. Don't you know that? Why must you be so cruel to me?"
I looked at the line, feeling nothing but disgust.
The tear tracks on my face hadn't even dried yet.
I wrote:
"Live for me? I'm the cruel one?"
"You're the reason Isabella was so jealous, the reason she pushed me into the line of fire!"
"And you! Twelve years later, you've gotten her pregnant with your heir!"
"Dante, you have no right to say that to me."
For countless nights, I would wake with a start, the phantom pain of that ugly scar on my back sending me into a spiral of tears.
Twelve years ago, that street firefight.
Isabella had tearfully begged Dante to take her with him, but he had coldly refused.
In a fit of rage, when the gunshots rang out, she shoved me directly into the line of fire.
By the time Dante arrived, I had already collapsed in a pool of blood.
Seeing me on the verge of death, he let out a guttural, broken roar.
He carried me in a frenzy, rushed me to the family's private hospital, and knelt outside the operating room, praying.
My life was saved, but I was left with a permanent scar on my back and the possibility that I could never conceive.
That day, Dante held my hand tightly, his shoulders trembling as he cried.
"Elara, as long as you're okay... that's all that matters. We don't need children. You are my whole world."
"Elara, I swear in the name of the Falcone family, I will protect you with my life."
And yet this man who loved me so much would, years later, cheat on me with Isabella and even have a child with her.
I closed my eyes in despair.
Now, this diary was the only chance heaven had given me to make Dante disappear from my life forever.
But this time, I received no reply.
Utterly exhausted, I hugged the diary and fell into a deep sleep.
I dreamed I was eighteen again. Dante was kneeling beside me, sobbing and begging me to open my eyes.
A sudden chill woke me. There was no one beside me.
The thirty-year-old Dante had chosen the woman who hurt me most. He wasn't coming back.
I opened the diary. There were two new lines on it.
My dream shifted, plunging me back to that dark street from twelve years ago. Gunshots echoed everywhere, the sky lit with flashes of fire.
I was shoved forward by Isabella, exposed to the line of fire.
I closed my eyes, but the searing pain I remembered never came.
When I fearfully opened my eyes, I saw Dante standing in front of me.
He gritted his teeth and shielded me with his body, taking every bullet meant for me.
Blood blossomed across his white shirt, but he was still using his last ounce of strength to smile at me.
In the dim light, the eighteen-year-old boy slowly knelt on one knee in a pool of his own blood.
Our eyes met. His were bright, burning with a triumphant pride.
A slow, determined smile spread across his lips. "Elara, I love you. I will never let you get hurt."
"I... did it..."
He closed his eyes and collapsed in front of me.
I screamed his name and shot up from the sofa, drenched in a cold sweat and gasping for air.
I wrapped my hands tightly around my trembling body, trying to convince myself it was just a dream.
But when I subconsciously touched my back, I found that the ugly, uneven scar was gone.
In disbelief, I opened the diary.
Two new lines had appeared.
"Elara. I'm hurt. Gods, it hurts."
"But for you, it was worth it."
The knot of tension in my chest began to loosen.
The clock chimed the hour, marking the end of our wedding anniversary.
I wrote expressionlessly, "It wasn't for me. You owed me."
