Chapter 137: 35| Love-2

My heart warmed at the consideration in gesture, but I kept my tongue bitten through the rest of the drive. A shrill shiver ran down my spine with the echo of the doorbell, but as I took a deep breath to steady myself, I felt Dante's hand at the small of my back. "I got you," he whispered, "just breathe." The doors opened to reveal my mother, and even though her face fell when her eyes met mine, I caught a spark in them as she noticed Dante. "Your father didn't tell me you were bringing someone," she told me just as Dante extended the bouquet to her. "Peonies," she stated, "my favorite." She looked back at Dante. "Did Anastasia tell you that?" "Yes, ma'am. She did," Dante answered with a polite smile. I stared at him in surprise. I hadn't told him that. "Come in, you two," Mom said, turning around and heading inside without waiting for us. "Why did you lie?" I whispered. "I thought it might make her appreciate you more, Anastasia," he said, "it's the least she should do." Taking my hand, he led me inside. My breath hitched as he brought me into the dining room, pausing to greet my father. "It's been a while, Dante," Dad said, giving him a pat. "It sure has," Dante smiled curtly before shifting to pull out a chair for me. As the food was served and my parents took their seats at the table, the conversation felt cold, and a distinct kind of tension, the kind I was all too familiar with, the kind that suffocated me at this dinner table every time, took over once again. After making small talk with Dante, my parents ran out of things to say. With each bite of food I took and with each tick of the grandfather clock stationed in the corner of the room, I felt my heart pounding a little harder while I slowly started to feel like this room didn't have enough air for my lungs. "Ana," Dad called out. "Hmm?" I set my fork down and turned my attention to him. I slid my hand off the table as a tremor shot through my fingers, and the moment I did, Dante's hand took mine, holding on tightly as he locked our fingers together. "I called you here tonight because I wanted to…" Dad glanced at Dante briefly before continuing, "Apologize. Myself and on your mother's behalf." An agitated sigh left Mom as she took another sip of wine. "The way things happened last time was simply wrong. Your mother shouldn't have said the things she did, she shouldn't have acted the way she did, and I should have stopped her. I'm sorry." My chest felt like it was caving in. The dismissal was at the tip of my tongue, but I was waiting for my mother to snap again out of habit. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen her, and she didn't blame me for Francesca's death. If she didn't do it tonight, it was solely due to Dante's presence, which meant the apology my father was so kindly shoving down my throat wasn't genuine at all. I knew I should let it go, but I couldn't bring myself to tell him it was okay because it wasn't, goddamn it. I kept letting it slide, and my mother kept doing it again. It was a wound she kept picking on. It was getting harder to breathe in their presence. "In that case, I think you should apologize to her, Mrs Vitalio," Dante said, his words cutting through the air like a knife. "Excuse me?" she asked, clearly startled. "It's the least you could do, even though one apology isn't nearly enough to make up for the way you've hurt Anastasia." "Dante-" I cut myself short when he squeezed my hand in reassurance. Eighteen years had passed since everything happened, and I could never stand up for myself when it came to my parents, yet all it took was one night for Dante to stand up for me. A part of me was still drowning in guilt despite knowing that none of it was my fault, and my mother did everything possible to drown me in that guilt further. Dante was the first person to save me from that. "You owe it to her, Mrs Vitalio," Dante persisted. "I don't owe her anything," Mom replied sternly. "She's the reason Francesca isn't here today, and she-" "Do you know what it was like to be locked in that basement for weeks? Have you lived through it, Mrs Vitalio?" I watched the baffled look on my mother's face. "I do," Dante said. "In fact, the only people who know what Francesca went through are us because we lived through it too," he added sternly. "You have two daughters, Mrs Vitalio. You've already lost one, but why are you so adamant about pushing the other one away? You might feel like nobody understands your pain, but you are not the only one who lost someone that night. Anastasia lost a sister too." I tugged at his hand. "Dante, that's enough." "You think the guilt doesn't weigh down on her enough as it is?" he persisted. "You are the person she needed most after surviving the things she had, but all you've done is shut her out and torn her down. Trust me, Mrs Vitalio, she doesn't need you to blame her. I lost both my parents to that man, and I couldn't do anything. You think it doesn't kill me on the inside?" "You were just a kid," Mom sighed. "So was I," I mumbled. For what I think was the first time that night, my mother couldn't meet my eyes. I knew the words sitting at the tip of Dante's tongue, but he didn't say them, perhaps because he knew it would cross the line. That didn't mean I couldn't. "What happened to Francesca should never have happened," I said, "but it did. It wasn't my fault. You lost one daughter then, but you're the reason you lost the other one, too, Mom." Looking at my family, I never felt any love from either parent. Sure, my father cared for me, but losing Francesca put up a wall between us. In fact, I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt any love from anybody… until now. Until Dante. . . . . . Chapter 35