Chapter 4

When I woke up there was nothing in the room but the ticking of the machines.

The door was ajar, and there were lowered voices out in the hallway.

"...she isn't awake yet." It was Matteo's voice. "The doctor says it was an acute asthma attack brought on by an allergy. They want to keep her under observation."

His voice softened. "I didn't mean to snap at you earlier. In that situation... I was scared somebody was going to die."

The other end said a long string of something I could not make out.

Silence stretched for more than ten seconds.

When he spoke again there was a tiredness in his voice I had never heard before.

"Capucine, can you be reasonable? If you hadn't kept turning me down back then, why would I ever have gone and told Liana how I felt?

"I just... wanted to make you jealous. Then her mother got that sick, and if I'd ended it, what was she supposed to do on her own?"

Something sweet and metallic rose in my throat, and I could not tell whether it was the aftertaste of the medicine or something else.

So that was it.

So all along, every moment I had taken for a rescue in those years had never been aimed at me.

And that light had never meant to shine on me. I had simply been standing where it happened to pass.

I stared at the lamp on the ceiling and tipped my head back so the tears would not fall.

Capucine's voice came through in broken pieces from the other end of the line, and I heard her say, "What if I regret it now?"

Matteo sighed. "Stop it. She and I are about to be engaged.

"And her health matters most right now. If something really did happen to her, it wouldn't look good for you either."

The hallway went quiet for a few seconds, and then came his soft coaxing, far more patient than anything he had ever used on me.

I closed my eyes.

That feeling came back.

At Christmas when we were small, Capucine always grabbed the best present first, and I took whatever she left.

My mother and my stepfather would glance at me, and I would have to nod and say it was fine, anything worked for me.

As if the leftover was always going to be me.

I heard him hang up in the hallway, then footsteps coming closer, and the door pushed gently open.

"Liana?"

He came to the bed, and the sight of my open eyes drained the tension out of him. He bent and gathered me in, his chin against the top of my head, his heart slamming fast and heavy in his chest.

"You're awake... you scared me to death, you really scared me to death."

His arms locked tight around me. "Thank God. As long as you're all right, that's all that matters."

I let him hold me for three seconds.

Then I raised my hand and gently pried his fingers open.

His arms loosened and he looked down at me. "What is it? Still feeling bad?"

"I'm fine," I said. "You should go home."

"What?"

"I know you're worried about Capucine. She's alone in the house, she must be frightened."

He faltered, and the discomfort of being seen through crossed his face. "I'm not... I need to stay here with you."

"I'm fine now." I looked up at him and smiled. "Go home. I can manage by myself."

He looked at me for a few seconds, guilt in his eyes.

"I'll just go and check on her, then. I'll be back soon. Wait for me to come and get you."

"Okay."

The door closed behind him and his footsteps faded down the hallway.

I picked up my phone just as a message from my father came in.

"Liana, I'm in your town. Where are you? I'm coming to take you home."

The sky outside was gray. It would probably rain soon.

I had always been waiting for Matteo to come and get me.

Twenty years of waiting.

Not anymore.

I answered my father, then pulled the SIM card out of my phone and threw it away.

This time, I was done taking what other people had already picked over.