Frustration runs through me, and I get off the bed. “I didn’t share all of this with you so you can judge my decision. This is hard enough as it is.”
Cleo’s expression softens as she watches me pace the room. “I know. I can see that. But you need to hear this, so I’m going to say it. I’m not going to celebrate you for sacrificing yourself anymore. I should have stopped doing it a long time ago.”
“What does that mean?”
“Gem, can’t you see? You’ve done this all your life. You make everyone else’s problems your own and try to solve them no matter what it costs you. It’s not your responsibility to do that.”
Ras said something like that to me once. “That’s just how I am.”
Cleo shakes her head. “It’s how our parents forced you to be. Their love has always been conditional, predicated on you doing things like this.”
Hurt blooms inside my chest. “That’s not true.”
“It is true. I’ve been thinking about our childhood a lot ever since Vale ran away. Remembering things. Do you realize we were never given love by them unless we earned it? If we didn’t behave the way they wanted us to, do you remember what they’d do? If we acted out at family events, they’d lock us up in empty rooms and leave us to cry on our own.”
I flinch. No, that didn’t happen. “I don’t remember that.”
“Maybe you chose to forget. What about that time at Tito’s birthday when you ate a piece of chocolate cake even though Mamma said you weren’t allowed. You were eight, and she was already managing your weight. When she saw chocolate smeared on your lips, she lost it. She cut off another slice, put it on a plate, and then… Don’t you remember what she did?”
A fuzzy snapshot surfaces, but a moment later, it’s gone. “No.”
Cleo exhales a low breath. “She shoved your face into the cake in front of everyone and called you a little pig. It was cruel. You cried for hours afterward, which only made her more mad.”
Horror seeps into my veins as the snapshot turns into a movie. “Oh my God.”
She’s right. I remember now.
That poor little girl.
I was so excited about that cake. It was the most beautiful cake I’d ever seen, with elaborate white flowers piped around it, and syrup-soaked cherries piled in the center. It sparkled. Tito was upset. He’d wanted a rainbow cake with cars on it, but they’d made a mistake at the bakery. He said this cake was too girly, but when his ma gave him a slice, he ate it anyway. That first bite made me close my eyes with pleasure. It was so good.
But a few minutes later, the whole day was ruined.
I sway.
Cleo jumps to the floor and leads me to sit down in a chair. “You’re remembering now, aren’t you?”
My eyes flood with tears. “Yes. I can’t believe I forgot.”
“That’s just one time. There were so many others. They made you this way, Gem. They made you feel like if you aren’t being perfect and doing all of these things for them, they’ll reject you.”
The truth in her words hits me right in the center of my chest. I fold over, my elbows on my knees and my head between my palms. More memories come flooding in.
Me at age six. Mother’s Day. Mamma doesn’t like the dress I picked out, even though it’s my favorite—midnight blue with little sparkling stars sewn in. She tells me to change out of it because it looks cheap. I tell her I like it. She starts yelling. I start crying. She tears it off me, the buttons getting tangled and pulling out my hair, and throws it in the fire in the living room. “You have two minutes to stop your whining or we’re leaving you at home.”
Vale tries to argue with her, but she’s only nine. When I come out in the dress Mamma wants me to wear, the anger leaves Mamma’s expression. She smiles. “There, Gemma. The pink dress looks so much better on you. You’re a completely different girl.”
My fingers drift over my lips. It feels like a veil has been lifted, and I can see clearly for the first time.
“I can’t believe I forgot.”
“Maybe that’s what you had to do for it not to hurt so much.”
I meet Cleo’s gaze. “But you didn’t.”
Her eyes are shining. “I stopped playing their game a long time ago. And so can you.”
“I don’t know how,” I mumble through the tears that are now dripping down my face. “Ras told me I was enough for him, but I didn’t believe him.”
“Oh, Gem.” She pulls me into her arms. “How could you believe him when you’ve been told your whole life that you’re not? But he was telling you the truth. You are more than enough.”
I clutch onto Cleo and squeeze my eyes shut as my emotions threaten to overwhelm me.
I don’t think I’ve ever understood the damage our parents have done until now. They’ve robbed us of so much.
A happy childhood.
A loving family.
A mind that’s not filled with fear and doubts.
But worst of all, they robbed me of Ras.
And I let them.
CHAPTER 33
RAS
It’s fucking March, and New York is still a concrete refrigerator.
I pull my coat tighter around me while I wait at the crosswalk, watching a car tread through a pool of icy brown slush.
People crowd around me. I’ve learned in the past few days that Midtown traffic at rush hour behaves more like a liquid than a mass of discrete parts. I clench my fist when someone bumps their shoulder against mine. By the time the light turns green, I’m actually excited to get back to my shoebox apartment, if only to get a bit of personal space.
The studio apartment on 32nd Street is about the size of my closet back in Ibiza. It was the best Orrin could arrange on short notice. A week ago, I called him from Crete as I watched Gemma’s plane take off and told him I needed him to get me back to New York.
He asked me why.
I told him it was none of his business.
He didn’t press it further. He just sighed, told me that at this point I owed him my firstborn, and picked me up on the same cargo plane.
The truth is the location of the shoe box is convenient.
It’s a block away from Gemma’s Pilates studio.
I walk past my building and keep going until I see the familiar neon sign with the name Move On.
I drag my palm over my overgrown beard.
Touché.
I park myself by the window inside the coffee shop across the street and order a cappuccino.
Around ten fifty, the studio’s traffic picks up as women and some men arrive for the eleven a.m. class, but I’m waiting for the black SUV. Gemma’s always surrounded by at least two guards these days, and I know they’ll stay in the car just outside the studio while she does the class. Pietra goes with her to her classes now. They’ve got her on a tight leash.
The car pulls up at ten fifty-five. The door opens, and Gemma emerges in a puffy coat, hair pulled back in a short ponytail, light-green leggings, and a white pair of athletic shoes.
My breath catches. I don’t blink.
I only catch a flash of her face before she turns and quickly disappears inside the studio.
That’s it. Fifteen seconds that are the highlight of my day. It’s all downhill from here.