Chapter 3: What She Did With Nothing

Valentina POV

The rain was coming down hard. I walked right into it without covering my head.

I had my coat and my bag, but that was all. I turned left away from the big house. That was the only direction that mattered, getting away. The man at the gate didn't look at me, and I didn't look at him. He cleared his throat as I passed. I slowed, almost stopped. Then he said, quietly, "Good luck." Just two words. I nodded without turning around. I didn't trust my face. We both acted like nothing was happening.

I walked for a long time. The streets were empty because it was very early. I kept my head down and my hands in my pockets. I gripped my jaw tight. I promised myself I would not cry in the street. I didn't want to be that kind of person.

I kept that promise for about twenty minutes.

Then, it just happened. I stopped walking in front of a bakery that was still closed. My body started shaking so hard that I had to lean against the window to keep from falling. The tears came out fast. I wasn't just crying a little; I was sobbing. It was the sound of someone who had been trying to be strong for too long and finally broke.

A man walked by and looked away quickly. A woman with a dog crossed the street to stay away from me. An old man stopped. He was the only one. He held out a small paper bag, a pastry, still warm. "Eat something," he said, in the tone people use with children. I shook my head. He left the bag beside me and walked on.

 I thought, Look at me. I’m just a woman crying in the street in a fancy dress at six in the morning. Thinking about how silly I looked made me cry even harder.

I had been so sure about Marco. That was the part that hurt most. I had spent six months trusting him. I spent three weeks thinking of exactly how to tell him my secret. I wanted the words to be perfect.

Stupid, I told myself. You were so stupid.

I pressed my forehead against the cold glass of the bakery window. I let myself feel sad for a moment, but I couldn't stay there forever. The rain soaked through my coat. My shoes were full of water. I counted the money in my bag, I had four hundred and twelve euros. I had no phone, no plan, and nowhere to go.

I stood up straight and wiped my face. I picked up my bag. I needed to find a warm place to sit down. That was the first step.

I saw a clinic nearby with the lights on. I pushed the door open. It was the first door that wasn't locked. A bell rang.

The waiting room was empty except for a man sleeping in the corner. It smelled like cleaning spray and old coffee. I was so happy to be out of the rain.

A nurse came out from behind the desk. She looked tired, like she had worked all night. She looked at my wet hair and my messy face.

"Are you hurt?" she asked.

"No," I said. "I just needed somewhere to, " I stopped. I didn't know how to finish that sentence.

She looked at me for a long time. "Come and sit down," she said. She led me to a chair. "I'm Giulia."

"Valentina."

"Okay, Valentina." She sat across from me. "Tell me what you need."

As soon as she asked that, I started crying again. I couldn't help it. I covered my face with my hands. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I don't usually do this."

"It's a clinic," Giulia said in a calm voice. "People cry here."

"I feel so stupid," I said. "I believed everything he said, and I was wrong. Now I’m sitting here in a wet dress and I have nowhere to go. I can't stop shaking."

Giulia put her hand on my arm for a second. "Okay," she said. "Let's talk about facts. Are you safe?"

I thought about it. "Yes," I said. "No one is going to hurt me. I just have no home."

"Do you have money?"

"Four hundred and twelve euros."

"Do you have family? Can you go to your mother?"

"My mother is in Palermo. I can't go there." I didn't want my mom to see me like this, broken and sad with nothing left. "I can't."

Giulia nodded. She didn't make me explain. She went to her desk and came back with a cup of hot coffee. Then she put something else down.

It was three hundred euros.

"I can't take that," I said.

"You can give it back when you're able." "Do you do this often?" I asked. She smiled, small and tired. "Not often enough." She sat down again. "I know a family in a place called Castelmare, in Sicily. They help people who need a quiet place to stay. It isn’t a charity, you’ll have to work, but you will have a roof over your head."

I looked at the money and then at her. "Why?" I asked.

"Because you are young, you are sitting in a wet dress at six in the morning, and you haven't asked me for anything." She looked right at me. "The bus leaves at eight o'clock. You can make it if you leave soon."

I held the warm coffee cup. I thought about the money and the long bus ride. I realized I still had a brain that worked. This terrible morning was not going to be the end of my story.

"Okay," I said.

"Okay," Giulia said. She went to find a pen to write down the address.

I sat there and told myself that this moment, the rain, the crying, and the kindness of a stranger, was not who I was. What I did next would show who I really was.

I just had to get started.