CHAPTER 2: Grief and growing shadows

Rosalie’s POV:

Graduation day smelled like roses and rain.

The sky had darkened just moments after our names were called, the clouds dumping rain on the school’s football field. Everyone scattered, parents clutching whatever they could over their heads, students shrieking with laughter in wet robes. But I just stood there soaking, smiling like I had something no one else did. Hope.

I remember holding my diploma so tight it almost tore

“You did it, Rosie” my dad had said, wrapping his arms around me and spinning me like I was still ten. He smelled like flowers and engine oil he always did, from working in his shop in our garage all day. He cried even harder than mom did. 

“First in the family to finish school. You’re going to college and i’m gonna make sure of it. I promise you, pony.”

He meant it, too.

We went out for pizza that night, the three of us Mom, Dad, and me. I wore my soaked robe like a trophy. I remember the way Mom touched my face and whispered, You’ve always been too big for this town, mi amore. You're meant for so much more.

I believed her. But the world doesn’t always care what you believe. It always has other plans.

      Three months later, he was gone.

It started with a cough, the kind that sounded worse than it should. We thought it was just a fever. Dad hated hospitals, he refused to go. By the time we convinced him, it was too late. The cancer had wrapped itself around his lungs. Two weeks later, he died in the hospital bed we couldn’t afford.

No life insurance. No savings. No plan. Nothing. We were doomed.

 Just an old truck, a table full of unpaid bills, and the sound of his last words ringing in my head: Take care of your mother. You’re strong, Rosie, stronger than me.

I was eighteen, I didn’t go to college, I couldn't afford it. I buried my dreams with him.

      A year passed in the blink of an eye. Mom worked on our garden more often, she sold vegetables in the local market. I took the first job I could find, a waitress at Trattoria Del Fiore. The most expensive and fanciest restaurant in town. The uniform didn’t fit right, and the customers looked through me like I wasn’t real, but the pay kept the food on the table.

Then it happened.

        Mom started getting tired more often. She’d wince when she bent over, her skin paler than usual, she never had appetite. At first, I blamed stress, then age, then work.

She stopped working on the garden, people from the market would ask about her. I told them it was temporary.

Then the blood started showing up in the sink.

The doctor said it with such a casual tone I wanted to slap him. It was Chronic leukemia, stage two.

My mother, my rock. The one who used to dance barefoot in the living room to old Italian love songs was suddenly weak, thin, trembling. When I was younger, I assumed she would live forever. Dad, now her? It was all too much. Fuck cancer.

     That day, in the hospital, I sat on the floor outside the lab and just shut down. No tears, no noise. Just this ache in my throat, like something was blocking the tears from bursting out. Like the universe had pressed pause on my life and replaced it with someone else's. I wanted my life back, I wanted Dad back.

  I didn’t know how we’d pay for treatments. I didn’t know how long she had. I didn’t know anything, that was the worst part.

Then… I met Luca.

     He came into the restaurant one night. Sat at the bar, alone, ordered whiskey. He looked older than me, not by much, maybe five or six years but confident, like someone who had seen the world and decided it belonged to him. Dark wavy hair, golden skin, a knowing smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

I was having a breakdown in the restroom minutes before I served him.

My eyes were puffy, my hands shaking. He noticed.

"You okay?” he asked as I poured his drink. 

"Just tired,” I said avoiding his gaze

He didn’t ask again. But when he left, he gave me a tip that covered half of Mom’s prescriptions and wrote his number on the back of the receipt; Call me. You look like you carry too much weight for one person.

I shouldn’t have called. But I did.

      The first few months felt like a dream, something off of a fairytale.

He was everything, charming, attentive, always picking me up after my night shifts with cheap wine and pizza. We’d stay up watching old french movies on my couch, laughing until we forgot why life sucked. He made me feel beautiful, wanted. He told me I deserved more than this town. He promised he would take me out of this town, promised we would travel the world together.

   He had just graduated from a university in Milan, studied business. Worked as an assistant manager at a travel agency. Not glamorous, but stable at the very least.

    I was in love with how he made me forget. That was my first mistake.

My second mistake was ignoring the little things.

Like how he would get annoyed when I asked about his day. 

How he’d scoff when I talked about wanting to go back to school. “What’s the point? You’re already working. Not everyone’s meant for college, Rosie.”

How he always reminded me who was paying for what.

It got worse gradually. That's the thing about poison, you don’t notice it immediately. It's slow, easy. Then you feel it.

   One day, I spilled water on his laptop by mistake. He didn’t yell, he just went quiet, got up, and shoved a plate off the table. It shattered on the floor, and he looked me dead in the eye and said, Next time, I’ll break something you care about. Told me to get out of his apartment.

   I thought it was a one-time thing, that he was stressed. That he would never touch me, never hurt me.

    Then came the first bruise, an argument over money. I had used the card he gave me to pay for Mom’s medication, when he’d told me not to. He grabbed my arm and twisted it hard left finger marks. Apologized the next day with flowers and silence.

 I forgave him. Again and again.

Because what else was I supposed to do? I couldn’t afford rent on my own. Couldn’t afford to lose another person. Couldn’t afford to be alone.

    It wasn’t all bad, that’s what I kept telling myself. 

There were nights he held me close and told me he loved me. That I was his world. That no one else would understand him the way I did. 

Nights when he touched me and made me feel like the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. With every stroke, every touch, every kiss. He felt like a whole different person when he layed with me.

    There were moments he paid for Mom’s chemo when I couldn’t. Moments he held my hand during doctor visits. 

Moments that made me question everything I knew about love.

    But love doesn’t bruise you. It doesn’t silence you. It doesn’t make you feel smaller every day. It doesn't beat you up and leave you for dead.

   One evening, I came to his apartment late after covering someone’s shift. He was already there, sitting in the dark. I hadn’t texted. I’d forgotten. And just like that, he was screaming, accusing me of cheating, of lying. He smashed my phone against the wall.

That night, he didn’t hit me. He just stood there, breathing heavy, fists clenched. locked myself in the bathroom until morning.

And that’s when I knew.

This wasn’t love anymore, maybe it never was.

It was possession. It was power. It was him reminding me I had no other options.

         The day I ended it felt like cutting off a part of my body.

There was no screaming.No drama. Just me,standing by the front door, holding the knife with shaking hands ,mom was in the hospital.

“Get out.”

“You’re serious?”

“Dead serious.”

He stared at me like I’d lost my mind.

“You can’t survive without me."

Maybe he was right. Maybe I couldn’t survive. But at least I’d do it on my own terms.

He left. Slammed the door and disappeared.

And for a few minutes, I felt like I could breathe again.

Until the silence grew. Until I realized I still had no money. No plan.

Only a sick mother and a part-time job.

And a heart

that didn’t know how to beat without carrying someone else’s pain.