CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Forgive Me, Love14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHoQ0r9fD1x
(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.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdjlDHdSSdz
Dusty roads.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlkwiOUDiZC
Nothing but guilt in the air.
And the weight of one last name—
Luciana.
His first patient.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6pQUguQv30
His first mistake.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5AMekw6nXb
His first... sin.
She was still alive.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGtnRuzRipt
In a quiet care home.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGeYel9LjzS
Diagnosed with long-term trauma.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDs138JDVSZ
No family.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAm6Afh0lHd
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.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu6vivJbHGU
Wrinkled.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoJeRTSBNJi
One of them flinched when she heard his footsteps.
But he knelt beside her.
Slow.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs6FVsFUQbY
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.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpEgSjr54CC
It shook in his palm.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH7LXARBqCb
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.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEOC1jinQ6A
But her fingers tightened.
Just once.
And Matteo broke.
He sat with her in silence for an hour.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5P1WCK35SO
Left flowers on her table.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAkxnNvkxnM
And walked away lighter.
For the first time in years—14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvrcyPgdQyJ
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.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡygxeBcOhwJ
A letter for Arielle.
ns216.73.216.239da2“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—14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiloswznBMb
‘You made me a man worthy of being remembered.’”
