Chapter 18
667 Words
Damiano pov:
He didn’t go far.
Just the hallway.
Just enough to breathe without hearing the sound of her voice echo in his head.
He stood there for a while, one shoulder against the wall, arms crossed, jaw tight.
Not thinking. Not really.
Just… existing. One breath at a time.
Like maybe if he stood still long enough, the parts of him that felt like they were unraveling would settle back into place.
They didn’t.
---
He should’ve left the room last night and kept walking.
But he didn’t.
He sat in that chair like it mattered.
Like he mattered.
Like staying there—being quiet, being still, being seen—was some kind of offering he didn’t know how to make properly.
And she didn’t ask him to leave.
That was the worst part.
She didn’t scream.
Didn’t throw anything.
Didn’t even look at him like he deserved to die.
She just… let him stay.
And that broke something open in him he wasn’t ready for.
---
His fingers twitched at his side, itching for a cigarette, or a drink, or something to keep his hands busy.
But he didn’t want to numb it.
Not this.
Not the way her voice still lingered in his head.
“I still hate you.”
That should’ve been enough.
That should’ve been a finish line. A full stop.
But she’d said it like it hurt her to admit it.
Like part of her wasn’t sure anymore.
And that?
That messed him up more than anything.
---
He looked back at the door.
He knew she was awake.
Could feel it somehow, like her presence was stitched into the walls now. A pulse under the paint.
He’d left the sketchbook behind.
Couldn’t bring himself to take it.
And now, it was sitting there. Close to her.
Too close.
He hated how vulnerable that felt.
Like she could flip through those pages and see every version of him he didn’t want to explain.
The scared one.
The lonely one.
The one who hadn’t touched a pencil in years because everything else in his life felt too loud.
And now she had it.
She had him, in a way no one else ever had.
---
He dragged a hand down his face.
His palms were rough. Callused. The kind of hands made for breaking things, not holding them.
Especially not someone like her.
But she hadn’t pulled away last night. Not when he sat down. Not even when he looked at her like she was the only steady thing in the whole damn house.
That silence between them?
It hadn’t been cold.
It felt like... a truce.
Fragile. Temporary. Real.
---
He walked.
Nowhere in particular.
Just down the hall, past the doors that used to mean something. His mother’s old sitting room. His father’s office. The piano no one touched anymore.
He passed them all like ghosts. Like they weren’t really part of this world anymore.
Maybe he wasn’t either.
---
When he reached the end of the hall, he stopped.
Leaned his head back against the wall. Closed his eyes.
What the hell was he doing?
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
He’d brought her here to keep her quiet. To control the chaos. To hold power over the one person who could unravel everything.
But now she was unraveling him.
And she didn’t even know it.
---
He could still feel the weight of last night in his chest. The quiet. The way she’d curled up on the bed and said nothing, but let him stay anyway.
It wasn’t forgiveness.
But it wasn’t hate either.
And that scared him more than if she’d screamed.
Because he knew how to survive hate. He’d built an empire on it.
But this?
This quiet, uncertain almost-thing between them?
He didn’t know how to survive that.....
His voice came out low. Barely more than a breath.
“What the f**k are you doing to me, Rivera…”
And the worst part?
He already knew.....
- Writer
