Sweetest Sorrow

  Because at the end of the day, he believed in her a hell of a lot more than he believed in anybody else, even himself.

  But it had been his job to keep her safe.

  “Dante?’ Primo’s voice was hesitant as he stepped into the small room. “You don’t even know how much it means to me to see you again, to see you… awake."

  The man looked like he hadn’t slept since the last time they saw each other. Dark bags lined his bloodshot eyes, fresh wrinkles marring his face. Primo always seemed ten-feet-tall and bulletproof to Dante. His father, made of the toughest material known to man, was untouchable, impenetrable, and infallible. Despite all he’d suffered, the man had never shown a single crack. But standing in front of Dante at that moment was somebody else.

  Standing in front of Dante was a broken man.

  Turning his head, Dante eyed the nurse, raising his hand and waving his red crayon. When he caught her attention, she grabbed the yellow pad and flipped the page to a fresh one, holding it up in front of Dante.

  He pressed the tip of the crayon to the paper and hesitated.

  He hesitated, almost like he forgot how to write.

  Like he wasn’t sure how to spell.

  He knew, of course. He knew exactly what he needed to write. But something stalled him, something that felt a hell of a lot like dread. The only time he ever felt fear anymore was when it came to his sister. When it came to her, he feared a lot, but mostly that someday, the time would come when he would let her down, when he’d fail at his most important job, when he wouldn’t be there to pay her back.

  After a moment, he spelled out her name, the letters wobbly, the red crayon faintly marking the paper, leaving gaps between the lines. The nurse raised the pad up when he finished, reading what he’d written out loud. “Genna?"

  The name hit Primo like a ton of bricks. Usually calm, collected Primo Galante flinched. It was a brief reaction before he pulled himself back together, a second where he’d let his guard down, not expecting to be hit with it all so quick. He cleared his throat, straightening his expression, as he stepped closer to the bed. “She’s not here."

  That was all he said.

  She’s not here.

  No explanation.

  Not that one was needed.

  Because Dante knew.

  He knew it as soon as the man flinched. That was confirmation. Her not being there was just a cyanide cherry on top of an already poisonous sundae. Nothing would’ve kept Genna away from there… nothing short of her being nowhere.

  Devastation rocked Dante. His stomach lurched, his chest burning, as bile tried to force itself up his blocked throat. He squeezed the red crayon so hard it snapped in half. He tried to remain calm, to hold it in, as his fingertips tingled. No. No. No. He chanted the word in his mind, willing himself to listen, but it was pointless.

  The ache was just too strong.

  His father spoke again, oblivious to Dante's reaction, rambling on and on about how elated he was, but it went in one ear and out the other, lost somewhere in the haze of hurt consuming Dante.

  Thirty seconds passed before the first alarm went off. The ventilator detected he was struggling and put out an alert that his breathing was wrong. Nurse Russo, halfway to the door, swung back around. Concerned eyes glossed over him as she darted for the machine. By the time she made it there, the heart rate monitor followed suit, acting erratic.

  Blinking rapidly, Dante felt the building tears. He tried to suck it up. He didn't want to cry. He wouldn't let himself do it. He'd survived torture without cracking. He couldn't have this be what broke him. He was stronger than that.

  Anger surged through his veins to the point that fighting was impossible. His body shook as the machines screamed, his chest on fire when he started hyperventilating.

  It was like sucking through a straw with a hole in it, getting nothing.

  "Dante?" Primo called out. "What's happening?"

  "You need to leave, Mr. Galante!" the nurse shouted at him.

  "Dante?" he said, ignoring her. "It's going to be okay, son."

  "Get out!" she barked as the glass door slid open, others rushing into the room. They surrounded Dante, and he wasn't sure if his father listened to the woman's order, because all at once, the world blurred.

  The haze swaddled him, numbing him, dulling the burn and sweeping him away.

  "They're sedating you," Nurse Russo whispered, gazing down at him. "Just until you stop fighting the ventilator."

  The trip went much smoother once Matty and Genna had a car with air conditioning. Music from the radio filled the silence as Genna relaxed in the passenger seat, watching the world fly by outside the tinted window.

  South Carolina

  Georgia

  Alabama

  Mississippi

  They traveled through the south, driving for hours before stopping to get a motel for the night. Bright and early the next morning, they would hit the road again, never looking back, never staying more than a few hours in one location. It was steady, even a bit tedious, the constant traveling with no destination, with nowhere to be, making the days all blur together.

  "Are we heading west?" Genna asked, glancing up from the map in her lap to the road before them, spotting the sign declaring they were going west. "Never mind."

  Matty chuckled, looking at her. Sunshine streamed through the car windows, making him squint. He had bought himself a pair of sunglasses back in North Carolina, but they'd disappeared somewhere between Mississippi and Louisiana, along with Genna's flip-flops and all of her hair ties.

  It was hard to keep up with things when they were constantly on the move.

  Genna scanned the map, locating the highway right outside of Paris, Texas. They'd been driving for about two hours, crossing over from Arkansas, but she was already growing tired of being in the car. Queasiness stirred in the pit of her stomach that she tried to ignore, but her morning sickness was starting to really kick in.

  Just breathing nauseated her.

  What she wouldn't give for a nice bubble bath and a nap long enough to put her in the Guiness Book of World Records. The motel they'd stayed in the night before had been a run down piece of shit, the bathroom grungy and the bed uncomfortable.

  "Why?" Matty asked. "You want to go a different direction?"

  "No, I was just…" She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, warding off a flare of sickness. "I was just wondering."

  Genna reopened her eyes, seeing the scenery fly by the side window. Big mistake. Dizziness blurred her vision, bile burning her throat. She barely had enough time to smack Matty's arm in warning, making the car swerve, before she reached for the door handle. "Gonna be—"

  Sick.

  Matty slammed the brakes, the car screeching to a stop along the side of the highway as she flung the passenger door open and leaned out, purging everything from her stomach. He put the car in park, turning on the hazard lights, the tick-tick-ticking grating Genna's frazzled nerves.

  Matty rubbed her back as he whispered, "It's going to be okay."

  Laughing dryly, she relaxed back in the seat once the sickness passed. "Talk about déjà vu."

  They'd done that before, her hanging out of a car and puking her guts out while he tried to pacify her. Hadn't worked before, and it wasn't working then.

  Could we be more cliché?

  Matty slipped his arm around her and pulled her to him, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. Her eyes closed as she took a moment to savor his embrace, knowing just a moment was all they had to spare, but it was a moment interrupted way too fast when Matty tensed. "Shit."

  Genna opened her eyes, catching a reflection in the side mirror, red and blue lights flashing behind them. Adrenaline spiked her system, her stomach churning again. She tried to fight it, to take deep breaths and stay calm, but it was pointless. She was leaning back out of the car, heaving, before anyone said another word.

  "Oh God," she gasped as she struggled to pull herself together. "I'm Jackson
now. I'm worse than Jackson."

  Matty shot her a look of confusion. "Who?"

  "My car thieving ex-boyfriend. We stole a Honda and he puked on himself." Tears stung her eyes, breaking free and running down her cheeks as her emotions went from zero to sixty. "He got away with it and I didn't, and oh God, I'm screwed! We're screwed! I'm going to go to prison, real prison... ass-pounding prison! I'm going to have a fucking baby in prison!"

  Matty grabbed her, his hands cradling her face. His expression remained calm as he stared into her eyes.

  "Pull yourself together. You Galantes are stubborn, and resilient, and unrelenting, real pains in the ass, but you're not this. You don't fall apart when you see the police." His eyes flickered to the rearview mirror as a cop got out of the car behind them. "Maybe you Galantes don't trust us Barsantis, but you need to trust me, Genna. Please."

  "I do," she whispered.

  "Then calm down and let me handle it," he said, a slight smile touching his lips. "I got this."

  Genna didn't believe he had it for a second, but she didn't object as he pulled away and pushed the driver's side door open to step out.

  "Y'all all right?" the officer asked, approaching Matty, his accent so thick Genna struggled to understand the words. "Car ain't leave you stranded, has it? Need me to call you some help?"

  "No, sir," Matty said, mimicking the officer's voice, a fake southern accent framing the words. "My wife's just got a bit of morning sickness, that's all. We were about to be on our way again."

  "Ah, okay, just checking on y'all." The officer peeked into the car at Genna, tipping his hat. "Ma'am."

  "Officer."

  Matty exchanged some more pleasantries with the man before the officer walked away, heading back to his police cruiser. Matty climbed back in the car, his expression serious as he motioned her way. "Let's get out of here."

  She barely got the door closed and her seatbelt on before Matty pulled back out onto the highway, leaving the cop along the side of the road. Genna watched in the side mirror, heart beating rapidly, not calming down until the officer took off in the opposite direction.

  "So your wife's pregnant, huh? Tough break."

  "Would you have preferred baby mama?"

  "Probably would've made more sense with the Larry the Cable Guy accent you were rocking."

  "The who?"

  "Larry the Cable Guy," she repeated. "You know, the 'get 'er done' dude?"

  "The what?"

  Genna waved him off. "The point is, you sounded ridiculous."

  "Yeah, well, considering the North Carolina license plate on the car, I figured it best to try to blend in. You know, so not to raise any suspicion and give the man a reason to run the tag."

  Genna gazed at him, surprised by how much thought he put into that, although she shouldn't have been. He'd always seemed in control of situations, even way back in the defunct elevator that first day. Maybe he did have it handled, after all.

  Sighing, Genna snatched up the map again, smoothing the crinkles out of it. "Paris, Texas. You think it's anything like the real Paris?"

  "Maybe," Matty said. "I wouldn't put any money on it, though."

  "Shame," she said. "I've always wanted to see Paris."

  "You've never gone?"

  She cut her eyes at him. "This is furthest away from home I've ever been."

  That seemed to surprise Matty. "Your whole life you've had the world at your fingertips, but you've never seen any of it?"

  "I wouldn't exactly say I had the world at my fingertips, you know, since my father had me under his thumb. I was only supposed to go where he had eyes, where he could watch me, just in case, and even when I went there, he sent Dante."

  Her voice cracked as she whispered his name. Dante. Man, it hurt. Would it ever not hurt? She doubted it. Even knowing he wasn't waiting for her back in Manhattan, it almost felt like a betrayal, her being on the road like this. Her pseudo-bodyguard brother… what would he think?

  "I'm sorry."

  Matty's voice was quiet, genuine, as he reached over to grab her hand, squeezing it. Genna gave him a soft smile, whispering, "Thank you."

  She appreciated his words, even though he didn't owe her an apology. He'd been just as innocent as her in all of it. She wasn't the only one who lost somebody. He'd lost a brother, too.

  "We should do something," Matty said. "Whenever we stop, we should do something for him. I know it won't be the same as having a funeral, but you deserve to be able to say goodbye to your brother."

  "What, like tip a forty for the homies or something?"

  Matty laughed. "Sure, why not?"

  "Dante would find that funny," Genna said. "Well, I mean, he would've, you know…"

  "I know."

  Paris, Texas, it turned out, wasn't like the city in France. It was a quaint little town with not too many people and pretty much nothing to do. In less than an hour, they'd seen all there was to see. Genna stood in a parking lot beside the Honda, in front of the small replica Eiffel Tower, and stared up at the massive red cowboy hat on top of it. She hadn't expected glitz and glamor, but she was less than impressed.

  She felt Matty's eyes on her. He stood just a few feet away, watching her as she stared at the tower. Slowly, her gaze shifted his direction.

  "Do you think the real one is as underwhelming?" she asked.

  He shook his head, not breaking eye contact. "I think it's impossible not to be in awe of something so magnificent. From the top, everything looks so small, like any problems you might have are trivial, because you're trivial, compared to what's around you. That's beautiful, I think... even almost a thousand feet in the air, it has a way of making you feel grounded."

  "You speak like you've seen it."

  "I've seen most of the world. It kept me out of the way, out of New York."

  Sighing, Genna once more surveyed the fake Eiffel tower.

  "I'll take you someday," he said, "if you want to see the real thing."

  She did, but she didn't want him to make promises she wasn't sure he could keep. He was trying, though. He was really trying. And that, to her, meant everything.

  "Okay, let's do this," she said, waving at Matty.

  "Here?"

  "Sure, why not?" she said. "I mean, come on… can you think of a better makeshift headstone than a tower wearing a cowboy hat? That's some Billy the Kid Regulators type shit."

  "Uh, okay."

  He grabbed her hand as they approached the tower, walking along the brick path, and stopping a few feet away.

  "Oh, Dante," Genna said, staring up at the thing. "I don't even know what to say."

  "You tell him how you feel," Matty suggested. "You tell him how much he means to you."

  "He was my best friend." She paused before laughing lightly. "He is my best friend, I mean. You are my best friend. You always will be. I don't know what happened to you… I don't know where you went after you dropped me off that day, what happened those hours before you didn't show back up. I just… I don't know. I wish I did, though. No matter what it was, no matter what happened or what you went through, I just really wish I knew."

  Tears stung her eyes, and she tried to hold them in, but they streamed down her cheeks.

  "I wish I knew. I wish I could've done something. I wish I could still do something. I wish you were here, so I could tell you how sorry I am for everything that's happened to you. You spent your whole life taking care of me, but who was taking care of you? Who made sure you were okay? Who was making you happy? Somebody should've been, because you deserved it. You deserved so much you didn't get. And I know you did bad stuff, and I know you hurt people, but you were a good person. You were the best person. You spent every minute of every day trying to make things okay, and maybe you just made it all worse, but the point is you tried to make the world better for us. So thank you, for that, because I don't know if I ever thanked you. I don't know if anyone ever thanked you, but they should've. I should’ve. Thank you."

  Matty grabbed aho
ld of her, pulling her to him as she sobbed, choking on those words. Thank you. God, how she wished she could've thanked him in person.

  "I'm not supposed to give some eulogy for my brother," she said. "This is… bullshit. This isn't supposed to happen. And I know you'd say it was stupid and tell me to suck it up, but I miss you, okay? I really, really miss you, and I have no idea where you went. I have no idea where you might be. So here I am… here's me… accepting that I'll probably never know, but telling you that wherever you are, it's okay. You can be in peace. You deserve peace. Nobody ever gave it to you, so I really want you to take it anyway."

  Genna felt stupid, standing there, doing that, but what the hell? What else could she do? It wasn't as if she could bury him.

  She leaned her head against Matty. "Your turn."

  He tensed. "My turn?"

  "Say something."

  Matty hesitated. "What can I say? You were, uh… I heard you were good at pool. Sucks we never got to play."

  "That was weak."

  "That's all I got."

  "Come on, I'm sure you can think of something else."

  "Uh, Dante Galante… your name kind of rhymes. Always thought that was neat."

  Genna laughed. "Seriously?"

  Before either could say another word, a faint ringing sound interrupted them. Genna tensed while Matty reached into his pocket and pulled out the cell phone he'd bought and shook it at her. "Sorry, gotta take this, baby."

  He walked over, strolling a few steps away as he answered the phone. Genna watched him before glancing back at the tower, scanning it in silence.