Chapter 68

**Lily**

I was lying on a bed, in Matteo’s house. I understood why it was the best scenario to recover here, but that didn’t mean I was happy about it. He listened to me finally when I begged him not to put me in his bedroom. So, here I was, in a guest room.

I had been home with Guilia and Valeria because Matteo didn’t want me to be alone, not even for a second. Again, I could understand his reasoning, but I didn’t like it. I was glad to have Valeria and Guilia there. For a minute, I had been afraid that Matteo wanted to come with me himself.

Truth is, I didn’t know how I felt about Matteo at this point in time. I think I still loved him, in some corner of my heart, but I absolutely despised him in another corner of my heart. The things I had to endure because I met him still made me sick to my stomach. I got beaten because I was his weak spot, I got sexually assaulted because of him, and I lost a baby because of him. And still, after all of that, I couldn’t just say goodbye and leave him behind.

I don’t know why I couldn’t. Maybe this was what love meant? That you would forgive him for the worst of the worst? No matter how much time passed, I still felt something when I saw him. And didn’t they always say that there is a fine line between love and hate?

You know what the strangest part is? I don’t even know why I loved him. There had been no grant gestures, no big moment. It had just sneaked up to me without realizing it. And he said he felt the same, but did he?

I had been talking to Norah on the phone a lot. About love, because I knew that she shared something like that with Adam. She joked a lot, but I wanted to know what it felt like. Norah said that you just know, that it wasn’t a scientific feeling unfortunately. You couldn’t reason with love. And above all, she said that it was okay if I still loved Matteo, even if I couldn’t understand it myself.

“Hello!”, Chiara said cheerily. It was too early in the morning for the volume of her voice, but I didn’t want to bite the hand that fed me. Or in her case the hand that healed me. Chiara still wanted to check up on me a couple of times a week.

“How are you?”, she asked as she walked over to the bed. She started to measure my blood pressure, my temperature, and other bodily functions. “Have you been doing your exercises?”, Chiara asked. I nodded. I had been exercising exactly how she had asked me. Regardless of everything, I wanted to make a full recovery, and I trusted Chiara to know what I should do. I felt grateful for Matteo to have Chiara be my doctor still, even if she didn’t have to.

“I can tell you have been doing your exercises.”, Chiara grinned. “Your muscles are getting stronger again.”

I grinned at her remark. After a few weeks in the hospital, all my muscles had disappeared. It wasn’t like I had many to begin with, but still. I was told it was normal, and now I would have to work to get it all back. Well, it’s not like I had anything else to do!

“Are you talking to someone?”, Chiara asked suddenly. I was weary of where she was going with her remark immediately.

“To my friends, why?”, I replied to her, sounding slightly defensive. Chiara nodded appreciatively.

“That’s good. You share all the gory details with them?”, she prodded a little deeper.

I shook my head. “I can’t. They don’t know what Matteo is.”, I said softly. I wouldn’t know how to explain to them that I had been tortured and shot.

Chiara nodded in acknowledgement. She wrote something down in her notebook. Her lips were pursed when she looked up at me again. Chiara put her notebook aside, and I could see her searching for the right words. “You need to talk about everything.”, she said professionally. “There is someone within the network we use. She knows what world we live in, so you can share what you want.”, Chiara said.

I could tell that she was searching my face for a reaction. I don’t know what she could read on there, because I didn’t know what to think about her suggestion. I guess it made sense, maybe it would be nice to share it.

“What does she know about this life?”, I asked her curiously. It seemed weird that there was a regular person that they would initiate to their world.

“Adriana is the sister of one of the men from Vita’s team. Her family has always served the Espositos.”, Chiara explained. I should have guessed it was something like that.

“Fine.”, I agreed to her suggestion. I’m not sure what I agreed to, but it made sense to me. Chiara looked satisfied at least, so I guess I’m back to being the perfect patient.

Here I was, on the couch in this clinical room. Luciano just dropped me off because I didn’t want Matteo to do so. Adriana was sitting opposite me, waiting for me to open up to her, but I was still too busy looking around.

“Lily, I’m not sure what Chiara has told you about me?”, Adriana asked me, drawing my attention back to her. I looked at her. She didn’t look like a mafia woman to me.

“Not much. You are a sister of the guys that work with Vita, and you are someone we can talk to openly.”, I summarized what Chiara had told me. Actually, it wasn’t even a summary, it was more like the exact words she had used, because it was all she told me.

Adriana nodded. “I work as a psychiatrist in the outside world, but because of my knowledge of the Espositos, Chiara sometimes asks me to talk to someone in her network. Usually people who have been tortured, have seen terrible things, like yourself.”, she shared.

“You know what I went through?”, I asked her, surprise ringing in my voice. Adriana nodded.

“I know the clinical details because Chiara has shared them with me. Don’t worry, because of the doctor-patient confidentiality I will not share them outside of the doctor network. What I don’t know is how it affected you mentally.”, she said. At least she was honest.

“I don’t know how it affected me.”, I shrugged.

“Tell me about losing your baby.”, Adriana said. Her voice was not warm, but also not cold. It was factual.

“I must have lost it because they beat me up so hard. I didn’t know for too long that I was pregnant. I never got around to telling Matteo about it. Maybe because I didn’t need to hear from him that he didn’t want it. Or that it was too soon.”, I told her, mirroring her tone of voice.

“Vita told me that it broke him to see you having a miscarriage.”, Adriana stated. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. I didn’t know about that. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe he would have wanted to have a baby with you?”, she probed. It felt like she was poking me with a stick.

“No.”, I answered. It hadn’t. I had only considered the worst-case scenarios. I was convinced that he wouldn’t want the baby. That he didn’t really want me.

I shook my head, shaking all these thoughts out of my head again. “It was way too soon anyways.”