HIS BELLISSIMA

GOODBYE ,SORT OF

The streets passed in a blur as the car tore down the road, her mind traveling back to the previous night. She'd lain awake replaying it in pieces, the wall against her spine, the heat coming off him, the two words he'd said that had nearly undone her more than anything else in this entire nightmare had managed to.

Finish the sentence. I dare you.

She hated the way her body had leaned toward him instead of away, the way some small, reckless part of her had been disappointed when the knock came. This could not happen again. She told herself that plainly, without room for arguments. He had taken her from her life, threatened the people she loved, dressed his control up in silk and called it hospitality. Wanting him for thirty seconds against a wall didn't erase a single one of those facts, and she wasn't going to let it happen twice.

Her mind kept drifting back to that morning, to the sound of Melanie's voice cracking through the phone before she'd even finished saying hello.

"Where the hell have you been?" Melanie hadn't bothered with a greeting, panic bleeding through every word. "We've called you thirty times. Dave went by your place twice. We thought— God, Lonnie, we thought something happened to you."

"I'm okay." The lie had come easier than she expected, though her chest had ached delivering it. "I'm okay, I promise. I just needed to get away for a bit."

"Get away? Get away where? You didn't say anything, you didn't answer anyone, you just—"

"I know. I'm sorry." She'd pressed her palm flat against her sternum, willing her voice to hold steady.

"My mom's cousin, the one who lives out past the county line, she reached out after the funeral. Said I could come stay with her a while, get away from everything. I know we're not close, I know it's random, but I just needed to not be there anymore, you know? Surrounded by all of it."

There'd been a pause on the line, just long enough for Alondra to wonder if the story sounded as thin out loud as it did in her own head. But then Melanie had exhaled, some of the panic bleeding out of her voice. "Okay. Okay, I get that. God, I wish you'd told someone, but I get it."

She hated how easy it had been, in the end, to be believed. She hated it even more knowing exactly why. Nobody expected her to lie about family, not when the family in question was distant and half-forgotten, not when grief made people do strange, sudden things that didn't need explaining. It was the perfect cover precisely because there was nothing underneath it to catch.

"I'm leaving tomorrow," she'd said. "For a while. I don't know how long. But I need to see you guys before I go. Please."

Melanie had agreed, of course she had, and pulled Audrey and Dave into it within the hour, and now here Alondra was, in the back of an SUV heading toward the one hour she'd get with the only people left in the world who actually loved her.

The restaurant was quiet, tucked into a corner of the city she didn't recognize, and the moment she stepped through the door and saw them, all three of them crowded near the entrance like they hadn't trusted the reservation to be real, something in her chest simply broke open.

Melanie reached her first, wrapping around her so tight it nearly hurt, and Alondra let herself sob into her shoulder without any of the composure she'd been rationing for days. Audrey was there a second later, arms around them both, and Dave hovered at the edges the way he always did, waiting his turn, his eyes suspiciously bright.

"I'm fine," Alondra managed, once they'd pulled back enough to actually look at her. "I promise, I'm fine. I've just missed you guys so much."

"You look thin." Melanie's eyes swept over her, sharp in the particular way that missed nothing. "And tired. Lonnie, are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm sure." She forced a smile, wiping at her face. "It's just been a lot. You know. Everything."

They sat, and for a while it was almost normal, almost the version of her life she'd had a week ago. Dave cracked a joke about the restaurant's absurdly small portions that made her laugh for real, the first honest laugh she'd managed in days. Audrey held her hand across the table the entire time, thumb tracing slow circles over her knuckles like she could smooth the exhaustion out through touch alone. It should have felt like relief. Instead it felt like grief all over again, a preview of exactly how much she was about to lose, and she found herself cataloguing small things without meaning to: the chip in Melanie's front tooth from a bike accident in eighth grade, the way Dave still ordered the same soda he'd ordered since college, the particular scent of Audrey's perfume that had once meant safety and now felt like something she was memorizing on purpose, in case she never got close enough to smell it again.

"So this cousin," Melanie said eventually, careful in a way that made Alondra's stomach tighten. "What's she like? You never really talk about that side of your family."

"She's nice. Quiet." Alondra kept her eyes on her drink. "It's just for a while. I needed a change of scenery."

"You could've come stayed with me."

"I know." She made herself meet Melanie's eyes, made herself hold the lie steady even as guilt clawed up her throat. "I just needed to be somewhere that wasn't Philly for a bit. Somewhere without all the memories everywhere I look."

Melanie didn't argue, but she didn't fully let it go either, watching Alondra with the same careful attention she'd used since college, the look that meant she was filing something away rather than accepting it outright. Audrey, softer by nature, only squeezed her hand tighter. "Whatever you need," she said. "As long as you're okay. That's all that matters."

"I'm okay." Alondra said it like a promise, like if she repeated it enough times it might actually become true. "I'll be okay."

"Make sure you call us," Melanie warned. "You can't just shut us out like that."

"She's right," Dave chipped in, his eyes running over her in concern. "We're here for you. Always." He squeezed her hand softly. The simple gesture brought tears to her eyes.

The hour slipped by faster than she could stand, full of small, ordinary things she'd never once appreciated properly until now: the sound of Dave's laugh, the particular way Audrey stirred her coffee three times before ever drinking it, Melanie's hand finding hers under the table without either of them commenting on it. She wanted to hold onto all of it, to fold it up small enough to carry with her across an ocean, and knew even as she tried that it wouldn't work that way, that some things only existed in the room you were sitting in.

A man appeared at the edge of the table, one of Matteo's, dressed plainly enough to pass for a waiter to anyone who hadn't spent the last week learning to recognize that particular stillness in the men who worked for him.

"Time to go," he said quietly, to her, not to any of them.

Melanie's head snapped up. "Who is that?"

"He's just—" Alondra's mind scrambled for something that would sound reasonable out loud. "He's with the family friend who's driving me. It's fine, I just have to go now."

"Did you pack everything?" Audrey asked, already halfway to standing. "Do you need help? We can come with you, help you load the car, anything—"

"No." It came out sharper than she meant, and she softened it fast, forcing another smile. "No, I'm all packed already. You guys don't need to worry about me. Really."

"At least let us walk you out," Dave said.

"No." She was already pulling each of them into one last hug, quick and fierce, memorizing the shape of them the way she hadn't let herself do the first time, afraid now that this really might be the last chance she got. "Don't. I don't want a whole goodbye scene in a parking lot. Just, I love you guys. So much. I'll call when I land."

She didn't let herself look back until she was almost at the door, and when she did, the three of them were still standing exactly where she'd left them, close together, none of them smiling anymore.

Melanie's arms were crossed. Her eyes hadn't left Alondra's back the entire walk to the door, sharp and unconvinced in a way that made something cold settle low in Alondra's stomach.

She stepped out into the sunlight, and behind her, through the glass, she watched her three best friends exchange a look that had nothing warm left in it at all.