Page 86 of Savior

He looks worried; lines mar his forehead as he smooths and brushes through my hair with his fingers.

I tell him about Mary. About the things we shared, how she was there for me when no one else was, even if she was a homeless alcoholic, down on her luck.

I’ve never talked about her before. Dante was the first person I admitted to knowing Mary. It had felt so freeing.

He listens adamantly, his face never giving away any thoughts.

“She sounds like an amazing woman,” he finally says, and I nod in agreement, overwhelmed by how it feels for someone to seeme. I want to see through the facade and the sass to the truth of who I am.

“She was.”

“It doesn’t matter how you knew her, Sloane. She was a part of you and how you grew into who you are today. If she’s important to you, talk about her more often. Give her life beyond her death.”

Emotion chokes me. “Sometimes I wonder where she’s buried; wonder how I can visit her? But then I think I’m being silly for wondering.”

“It’s not silly to love someone, no matter what walk of life they’re from.” His words seem to affect not only me but him as well. Something unspoken passes on his face, but he seems to toss it away.

“Did you ever try to get my dad clean?” I ask him, and I don’t know where the question originated. I try to disassociate Luca from my father because they’re so different, and the things I’ve done with Luca are hard to comprehend when I think of him as my dad’s friend.

“Many times, yes. But I think a person must want to get clean before they’ll be receptive to help. And he never found that drive inside himself. I think you got all the fire your parents never had. Is your mom still…” he trails off, but I know what he’s asking.

“Yes, she’s still using and still selling herself. I don’t think she’ll ever stop. It’s just who she is.”

He drops his hands into my lap, grasping mine inside his.

They’re massive and smooth. His thumb rubs over the top of my hand, and I nearly sigh with contentment at the feel.

“I hoped you were the answer, you know? When you were born. I thought you would be the precious reason Ray and Belinda found to get clean and live life on the straight and narrow. It was so fucking foolish of me.”

The way he talks about my birth as if he held me when I was a baby makes me realize the age gap between us that’s always been there. I’d been refusing to see it before because of how attracted to him I am, but now it’s alive and well, floating between us like a stark reminder of all the reasons we’ll never be together.

“I wasn’t enough,” I tell him. “It was a good thought, but I wasn’t enough.”

He tips my chin up with his forefinger and thumb, looking deep into my eyes with his. “You were always enough. They were the problem.”

When he leans in and hovers over my lips, I can’t help how my body responds.

My thighs press together to rub out some of the throbbing in my center, my breathing speeds, and my eyes close.

He stays there for what feels like an eternity before he kisses my forehead, and then his weight shifts off the side of the bed.

“Goodnight, Sloane.”

I don’t immediately open my eyes. I sit there and imagine that he hasn’t left. That he’s still hovering in the space before me, fighting the urge to kiss me.

“Goodnight, Father,” I whisper as I open my eyes to my empty bedroom.

For a moment, I wonder if I dreamt of him being there.

As I lay back and close my eyes, I send up my second prayer for Mary’s soul, asking that God saw in her what I had and let her walk through his pearly gates into her afterlife a healed and happy woman.

Even though I know I come from a life where happy endings don’t exist.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

LUCA

Days go by, and Sloane and I fall into an easy routine. We tend to the animals we found out are on the property, find things to do during the day, and after dinner, we both find a book and curl up on the couch. It’s easy.

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