Page 170 of Ruin Me Gently

“Why Colorado?”

“We had family there. Distant cousins. Mamma didn’t know them well, but it was something. Didn’t last long though, we were mostly on our own.”

I thought about the last time I saw my grandparents. Nonna crying at the train station, peppering kisses all over my face, stuffing biscotti in my pockets like that would somehow keep me close. Nonno, standing a little behind, trying to look like he wasn’t about to cry, shaking my hand like I was a man and not an eight-year-old kid.

“Non ti dimenticare, eh?”

Don’t forget us, okay?

Like I ever could.

“Do you miss it?”

I paused for a second. Did I miss it? No one had ever asked me that before.

The narrow village house, the smell of garlic in the walls, the Sunday markets, the constant noise from the neighbours. The way Nonna would hum while making fresh pasta, the way Nonno would sit outside with a cigarette, shaking his head at the world like everything in it had disappointed him.

I lifted my coffee again. “Every day.”

Lilith was quiet for a moment as she watched me. “Graves doesn’t sound very Italian,” she said, then winced a little. “Sorry, that probably sounds ignorant.”

I huffed a laugh, smirking slightly over the rim of my mug. “That’s okay, you’re not wrong. It’s because it’s not.”

She arched a brow. “So what’s the deal? Where’d it come from?”

“It was supposed to make things easier.”

“Easier how?” she asked.

“Mama changed our last name when we moved. Said it would help us blend in, keep people from treating us differently. Our real name is Gravina.”

“Silas Emilio Gravina.” She tested the name like she was already trying to fit it into the version of me she knew.

“Not a huge change. But Mamma wanted us to sound… American. Figured it would help with jobs, school, everything.”

Lilith studied me. “And did it?”

“Not at first.”

Because no matter what our last name was, we were still different. And I learned real fast that people didn’t care what you called yourself when you still looked, sounded, and acted like you didn’t ‘belong.’

So, I adapted. Learned to speak their language, walk their walk, play the game exactly the way they wanted it played. I let them see only what I wanted them to see. What I could do. What I was good at.

I figured out real quick that being the smartest guy in the room wasn’t just an advantage. It was the only fucking way they’d let me stay in it. So I made damn sure I was. Out-thought, outmanoeuvred, outworked everyone. Until eventually, they weren’t the ones letting me in anymore.

Because I was the one who owned the room.

I hadn’t realised I’d stopped talking until I heard Lilith’s soft inhale.

“That sounds exhausting,” she said quietly.

“In a way,” I muttered with a shrug. “But it was necessary. It was what it was.”

I glanced over at her. Her eyes were soft, searching. Like she was trying to piece me together, figure out how all the parts of me worked. It made something tight curl in my chest. Silence stretched between us for a minute as she tapped a finger against the island. “So you’re a manufactured mountain man.”

I huffed out a laugh, thankful for her change in topic. “Something like that.”

Her lips twitched. “I can just imagine it. You, out in the woods, chopping firewood with those arms. All sweaty and rugged.”

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