Elisa’s crying again. I’m tempted to lick her tears up. “They’ll come,” she says, hugging her knees.
“They’ll come,” I agree, but I don’t even know whotheyare anymore.
My neck hurts. My shoulders ache. My legs are cramped and my feet are numb. There’s barely enough room for the two of us. It smells terrible. But at least I don’t need to pee anymore. That went away a while back.
There’s a noise. I’m not sure if I’m imagining it, but there’s a slight banging. Like someone’s drumming against the pipes.
“Do you hear that?” Elisa asks, clutching onto me.
“It’s real? I thought it was just in my head.”
“No, I think…” She trails off, straining to listen.
It happens again.
Elisa starts screaming. It’s so loud. I wish she’d stop. But she screams and pounds on the door. I curl into a ball, too tired to do anything. My head’s all cotton balls and fluff. I can’t think. I can’t even move. Elisa keeps kicking and screaming, and I wonder how I’m going to sleep again with all this noise. But my eyelids are heavy, and maybe it won’t be that hard.
Until suddenly, light blasts across my vision. I gasp, covering my face with my arm, cringing away.
“Holy shit! They’re in here!” Raf’s voice. But that can’t be right. Raf’s not in the room with us. “I got you girls. I got you. Just hold on. I got you. Hey! I need help in here!”
Hands grab at me, and Elisa sobs and gasps and hugs me, and all I can do is ask for some water.
“How did that even happen?”he asks, voice strained.
“Marcus was killed, and he was the only person that knew where we were. The panic room was only half-finished, and I guess nobody thought to check inside until Raf went looking for something in the closet and just barely heard Elisa screaming. They thought we’d been killed or kidnapped. We just weren’t important enough for them to put much effort into looking for us. They just didn’t care.”
“Fuck,” he whispers, looking grim. “That must’ve been horrible.”
“I still don’t like cramped spaces. I can handle the dark. I don’t freak out if there’s no visible water source nearby anymore. But I hate tight spaces.”
He leans forward and pulls me against him. I snuggle into his lap as his arms wrap tight. He’s a little sweaty, but I like the smell.
Telling that story wasn’t easy. But it feels good to get it out in the open. Not exactly like a weight’s been lifted, but more like I’m finally letting Luca see this important piece of who I am.
Because those three days define me now. I pretend like they don’t, like I’ve moved on, but a part of me is still trapped in that hollow space behind the closet. A part of me is still dying of thirst and clinging on to the pathetic hope that my sister might survive somehow. Everything after has been my attempt at escaping that place.
“Thank you for sharing,” he whispers, nuzzling my neck. “I’m sure that wasn’t easy.”
“It’s been weird. Everyone in my family knows about what happened. But you always look at me like I’m just another person. I liked it for a little while. Maybe that’s why I haven’t talked about it.”
“You’re still my Fiorella. What happened to you back then doesn’t change anything.”
“Even if it suddenly explains all my crazy?”
“Especially then. I like your crazy.”
“You’re supposed to say something like,what crazy, you’re perfect.”
“Sorry,cara mia, but we’re all a little fucked.”
“Yeah? What’s your story then?”
He lets out a long sigh. I pull back to look into his eyes, but he only shakes his head slightly, like he can’t bring himself to say. I touch his cheek, and suddenly I see a deep hidden pain he’s been hiding from me, a reservoir of hurt. And I realize he’s got a story too. Just like mine, it still pushes him. It shapes him into what he is now.
And I wonder if we can ever outrun our past, or if we’re doomed to keep on reliving the worst days of our lives over and over. It isn’t fair the way we hold onto the terrible while letting go of all the good. But that’s the way people are. The wounds are deep, and they never quite heal. Nice days don’t leave scars.
My phone starts ringing. It buzzes against the mat. I pull it out and frown at the screen. “It’s Raf,” I say, my heart suddenly racing. “He never calls me.”
