CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Forgive Me, Love23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ13caNXzKF
(Matteo’s POV)
He didn’t tell her where he was going.
He just left a note beside her pillow:
“I’ll be back before the sun sets. If I don’t come home—don’t wait. Raise her without me. But know I loved you both with everything I had left.”
The drive was long.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO4VebVLxQK
Dusty roads.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKk0uNgknD5
Nothing but guilt in the air.
And the weight of one last name—
Luciana.
His first patient.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKLMyabtyjG
His first mistake.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYdA2nchu4s
His first... sin.
She was still alive.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7a4fjA1amA
In a quiet care home.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ92wQfu5dh7
Diagnosed with long-term trauma.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpV6jb60NvT
No family.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWGdYOThzwO
No voice.
But her eyes still remembered him.
Even after everything he did.
He entered the room.
Luciana was sitting by the window, staring at nothing.
Her hands were pale.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLtNDfLcEZu
Wrinkled.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGJfeVeCSYk
One of them flinched when she heard his footsteps.
But he knelt beside her.
Slow.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5inWlYhI7n
Gentle.
“I came to say sorry.”
No answer.
“You trusted me. I used you. For comfort. For control. For ego.”
“And I broke you.”
Tears rolled down his cheeks.
“I didn’t know love back then. I only knew how to take.”
“But I’m about to be a father now. To a little girl.”
“And if someone ever treated her the way I treated you—”
He sobbed.
“—I would burn the whole world down.”
He took her hand.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvuQpbQob7I
It shook in his palm.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOdTAfE15Fv
But she didn’t pull away.
“If there’s any mercy left in the universe… let it be this.”
“That you find peace.”
“And that I learn how to be better… through her.”
She didn’t speak.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSiyATRncRR
But her fingers tightened.
Just once.
And Matteo broke.
He sat with her in silence for an hour.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHedRKNII7k
Left flowers on her table.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTKHGryVfuH
And walked away lighter.
For the first time in years—23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuVLs2BIsj2
He didn’t hate himself.
He could breathe.
When he came home, she was waiting outside the motel room.
Holding a small pink sock.
“She kicked hard today.”
He knelt and kissed her belly.
“I faced my past today.”
“And?”
“It didn’t kill me.”
That night, Matteo wrote in a notebook.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvd6u3jn3W9
A letter for Arielle.
ns216.73.217.11da2“One day, you’ll ask me who I was before you. And I’ll tell you the truth. But I’ll end it with this—23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCjkG5duQlP
‘You made me a man worthy of being remembered.’”
