Page 4 of Tell Me Softly
“Fine,” I said. But my mind was elsewhere.
Just then, Dad came in. He was tall with a big belly, his dark hair speckled with gray. His smile touched my very soul. He came over and kissed me on top of the head.
“Hello, precious,” he said as he sat down next to me.
My father was everything my mother wasn’t. If you saw them, you really would believe that old story about how opposites attract. They must have seensomethingin each other once to get married and have two kids, but I feel like relationships like that have an expiration date. One look at them proved it. The only thing that kept them together was that my father was too good to confront her, which meant that this cold, distant woman got to keep running our lives.
I loved my father a lot. He had been as good a father as he could be given the circumstances, and a part of me felt guilty for confessing to him what my innocent eyes had seen on that fateful night eight years back. Some people say what you don’t know can’t hurt you, and I guess that was my dad’s philosophy. My dad, who was now sitting next to me wolfing down scrambled eggs as if he didn’t have enough cholesterol in his veins already.
When my brother appeared in the doorway, I was happy to go, to leave behind that kitchen full of tension and unspoken reproaches.
My brother had left all his toys in the bedroom and—thank the Lord—had dressed in the clothes Mom had laid out for him: designer jeans and a polo shirt that would look like a dog had gotten hold of it when he came home. I could never understand why they’d spend thousands of dollars on a bunch of Ralph Lauren clothes for a kid who was just going to go roll in the dirt on the playground.
On our way to my car—the white Audi convertible my mother had driven until she changed it out for her glimmering red Mercedes—I couldn’t help but look at the moving truck parked next door.
My heart stopped for a moment, then started racing.
“Are we going to have neighbors?” my brother asked, excited.
The house next door had been empty since the renters, a couple in their twenties working remotely, had left after buying a house in the countryside. My brother was so excited––he thought maybe finally there would be someone in the neighborhood for him to play with. I should have been excited for him, but instead I was filled with foreboding.
I lowered my sunglasses to see better and felt a tingle in my chest as I watched a motorcycle park in front of the truck. Someone got off and went inside.
It was hard to see who it was from where I stood, but that feeling that had overtaken my entire body could only mean one thing.
“You’re going to be late,” my brother said from behind me. I had frozen as I’d tried to make out that figure and had completely forgotten where we were going.
“Get in,” I told him, opening the passenger door.
“Can we ride with the top down?” he asked, hopping up and down in the seat. I hit the button and the roof folded back, the warm breeze striking us in the face. I was doing everything automatically. I had to. My mind was entirely focused on the person who had gotten off that bike.
I started the engine, and we reversed into the street. We would pass right by the house next door, and I would see who was going to be moving into the house that held so many memories. But I already knew.
In a second, I had confirmed what every cell in my body wastelling me was true. He turned toward me, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses, and my entire body tensed. The Di Bianco brothers were back. Or at least, one of them was.
***
I listened to my brother’s theories about who our neighbors might be the whole way to school. I didn’t want to tell him that I already knew who they were and that they definitely didn’t have a child his age. I let him keep dreaming, and when we got there, I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek goodbye. He barely let me; he hated me hugging and kissing him—in public, at least.
I drove into the parking lot. Thankfully, my parents’ plot to send me to a private school had never gone anywhere. My mom had gone to one, but Dad had argued it would give me character if I got to knowall kinds of people… I don’t know exactly what that was supposed to mean, but I’m sure it had something to do with my classmates’ parents’ bank accounts.
This was my last year, and I had sworn to myself things would change, that I would show people who I really was. I was tired of putting on that perfect face that hid all the turmoil inside me. This year, everything would be better. Butbetterdefinitely hadn’t meant running into Thiago Di Bianco in front of my house.
It was hard to reconcile the person I’d seen a half hour before with the kid with messed-up, dirty blond hair and green eyes. Thiago had changed. He was at least as big as his father, which didn’t surprise me. Even when we were younger, he was taller than all the kids his own age.
Why had he returned?
When I got out of my car, everyone turned to look at me. They’d all expected to find the popular girl I’d effortlessly become. I knew what they were going to do: stare at my clothes, my hair, my makeup. And if anything was out of place or I looked slightlyless glamorous than what they were used to, the nasty comments would start spreading around the school. Behind my back, of course.
A mop of bright blond curls blocked my view of the gawking students, and a second later, a warm, friendly hug enveloped me.
“Hello, Lady Kamila,” my best friend, Ellie, said. We’d been close since our first year there. Because she’d been a transfer student, she didn’t look at me like some kind of celebrity the way everyone else did.
“Please don’t call me that. You know I hate it,” I said, squeezing her. “Unless I get to call youElfie.”
She stuck out her tongue at me. She couldn’t stand that name. It was her parents’ fault. Her full name was Galadriel, like the elf inThe Lord of the Rings. Much to her father’s dismay, she detested the movies, the books, anything to do with Middle Earth, up to and including her own name. I liked it, though––it meant I could get under her skin whenever I felt the need.
A second later, the rest of my friends showed up to catch up on what we’d done over the summer. They always wanted to know where I’d gone and what I’d bought. Carsville was a small town, and it was dull too, so any news was welcome—especially for my classmates, most of whom had spent the three months between their homes and the public pool. My family’s trips, for them, were like something from a movie. Little did they know there was nothing about my life worth envying.
