CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Forgive Me, Love13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIrxlMja9Bf
(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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2vmRf4Bp4N
Dusty roads.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNeF6qkziiv
Nothing but guilt in the air.
And the weight of one last name—
Luciana.
His first patient.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVdv1UBPX9l
His first mistake.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKr4IZqppgr
His first... sin.
She was still alive.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0lE47szXki
In a quiet care home.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq35BSb2Uhd
Diagnosed with long-term trauma.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpLMUA6f0LU
No family.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQdeWYz3SRw
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡONisxnKMZ3
Wrinkled.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyu0KokjMcD
One of them flinched when she heard his footsteps.
But he knelt beside her.
Slow.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2lfRJlonwm
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTAHQ3QdHKd
It shook in his palm.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7FuQE3B2XI
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9VMxwL3sC2
But her fingers tightened.
Just once.
And Matteo broke.
He sat with her in silence for an hour.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEEJAbHke8L
Left flowers on her table.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpgKa7yplLz
And walked away lighter.
For the first time in years—13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb68piOYXe3
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡryHRypXfxC
A letter for Arielle.
ns216.73.216.203da2“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—13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcrmLp3gAI2
‘You made me a man worthy of being remembered.’”
