CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Forgive Me, Love22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt6Xi2fJWd9
(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.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsTVmyU4Dzi
Dusty roads.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxUwq3g997M
Nothing but guilt in the air.
And the weight of one last name—
Luciana.
His first patient.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQP8Y7bdG7U
His first mistake.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgRHSTvUKX2
His first... sin.
She was still alive.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0kpjCYDpvx
In a quiet care home.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMPiC5z0vBe
Diagnosed with long-term trauma.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2KyC1iMaZN
No family.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv20jPJTYTg
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.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo3tGpaO4y6
Wrinkled.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKHZ5KA7m0f
One of them flinched when she heard his footsteps.
But he knelt beside her.
Slow.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL9yOyxFtgl
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.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnnMBVMCeV0
It shook in his palm.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIFltnJRyY0
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.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4tSJIIKVJs
But her fingers tightened.
Just once.
And Matteo broke.
He sat with her in silence for an hour.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZRulV9g3Ol
Left flowers on her table.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd1IDKA9J5I
And walked away lighter.
For the first time in years—22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOoJywchmmZ
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.22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlW6DVi6h7R
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—22Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaZW057bPIE
‘You made me a man worthy of being remembered.’”
