Chapter 53. A Huge Mess to Clean up

I stare out of the wide window in the bedroom I used to share with Mama over the Narrows. The setting sun glints off the water, and my heartbeat pounds slowly in my ears. I don’t remember coming back to Staten Island. I don’t know if someone drove me, or I drove myself, or if I walked.

I changed at some point into a soft dress. Dante’s blood remains on my hands. Other than that, all I know is this view, my heartbeat in my ears, and the uncertain sense that everything has changed.

Dante is in a hospital somewhere. I think. Or he’s dead in the back of an ambulance or the doctor’s car. That knowledge washes over me numbly. An hour ago—a day ago, it would have rocked me to my core. Torn me apart. There’s a real chance I’ll never look into Dante’s dark eyes and see love looking back at me again. I am alone in America. But in the wake of what he said, I can’t shake the feeling I was alone in America already.

Christos is dead. That does ache. As much as I th