MIA
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In a second, I agilely went back to the glasshouse, then to the light pink mini fridge at the side, where I picked a bottle of sparkling water for him and one of normal water for me, then I got to him. "Here, take it. Your stamina is shit, Leo."
He pouted, "I don't like to go to the gym."
"That much is obvious," I mocked, sitting down near him, feet free from the heeled slippers and legs crossed over. Opening the bottle of water, I turned it all down in one go, as crying makes me thirsty.
"You cried. You came here to cry," he frowned, drinking his water.
"Nah, don't worry about that, Leo. I'm good. Just tired," and heartbroken.
He crossed his legs and arms, "Spill. You noticed how you kept shading Misha, Emma, and Rosa the whole night. You know nothing, and you are going to tell me," he narrowed his blue eyes, identical to Misha's at me. "Tell me."
"Emma is a lesbian, she's been dating Rosalia since before papa died, in secret. I mean, maybe she's bisexual now, but she is definitely still dating Rosalia. Grigori Mikhail seems to… to actually love Emma, because of some letters he said she wrote him anonymously for years when your mama passed away, and that made him fall in love with her. Now she's using him, greedy bitch wanting both him and Rosalia, while she lies to the entire famiglia that she's straight, and is together with your brother. When she knows that will get both mama and your papa hang up on false hope, just because she's a bitch who's scared of her own sexual preference," I threw everything at him at once.
"Okay," he swallowed in shock. "Now the other part."
I frowned confused, "What other part?"
He gave me a bitch-be-for-real look, "The part where you tell me that you are so fucking bitter and jealous because the guy you love since you're 6, is Misha!"
"What?" I choked on my saliva.
"Don't you lie to me. Tell me the truth. You hid this from me for 14 years, Zoe Maud Von Barnhardt Santorini," he glared at me. "Confess. It's only the two of us here. Everyone else is down there, playing karaoke. I won't tell Luigi. Now, tell me, I'm your best friend, you have to tell me." I swallowed and avoided his eyes, feeling my face and eyes burn, "You are right," I whispered. "The boy I love is Misha."
Leo let out a loud gasp, "What? I was right?"
Sigh, "Mmhm. He's stupid, Leo. Seriously. Fuck, he fucking hates me, and I can't hold my fucking tongue when I see him with fucking Emma like that. She doesn't love him, she's using him, she's being a greedy bitch. Why can't she be satisfied with Rosa, when Rosa is clearly the one she loves?" I cried, but with no tears. "Why can't she just have Rosa and free Misha? He loves her because he thinks she wrote the letters," I hugged my own arms.
"You did," he whispered. "You wrote the letters."
A solitary tear rolled down my eyes, "We weren't close back then, but I felt agony consuming me every time I saw him, I wanted to help him out, to show him I was there and loved him, but the last thing he needed was a kid he didn't even recognize trying to butt in on the worst moment of his life. So, I just did all I could in secret and in my own way."
"Mia," he cried, forcing his chair to press on mine so he could hug me.
More tears rolled down, "I would write letters of comfort, telling stories I came up with to try taking his mind from the pain for a second, and put it in an envelope I would make for him, with a different drawing of him every time. The envelopes were always scented with a Versace fragrance of cinnamon which papa bought for me when I asked him, because Misha always had a cinnamon scent in my mind, and I would draw either a different tree or a different flower on the black envelopes with my white pen."
I swallowed.
"All to respect the time of his life and the loss of zia Sasha, who had always been no short of a second mama to me. And though I didn't understand his pain at the time, I just wanted to try comforting him the way I could. Together with the envelopes containing a drawing in black and white, and the letters, I put five dried petals of a red rose that I would steal from mama's garden, and I could do it thanks to how papa taught me how to dry them."
He gasped, "So, that's what the dried rose petals in his room come from."
He still has them?
That made me cry more.
"I also sent him a Belgium dark chocolate with hazelnut and caramel bar, which zia Sasha had told me it was his favorite once when I had gone shopping just with her. Then, I would bribe Moreno, the old steward of your villa in Milan, to leave it in his room and keep it a secret that it was from me. Every Tuesday night from when I was 8 to when I was 12, before I moved to the US, all so he would read it on Wednesday, which used to be his favorite day of the week, according to zia Sasha. Every week, without missing."
"You did that for years, Mia? Weekly?" He gasped in dismay, holding me tighter as I hugged him back.
"From the first week of November of the year I was 8 and he was 10, some time after zia's passing, to the last week of June of the year I was 12 and he was to turn 14, when I moved to the US with papa. Exactly for three years and eight months," I did my best to avoid my voice from breaking.
"176 weeks," Leo whispered.
A weak nod, "It totals 176 letters, 176 drawings, 176 designed envelopes, 176 chocolate bars, and a total of 880 dried rose petals. I also used up four different perfumes for it. But now…" my voice cracked, "he thinks it was Emma, when she's been in love with Rosalia since always, and the only similarity is that she smells of cinnamon if you come closer, though her real scent is of la-fucking-vander."
"Ah, mia principessa, I'm so sorry for this," he whispered against my hair.
"He hates me, Leo," I cried. "I swear I never expected him to give me anything back from the letters, I didn't do it for that, I did it selflessly because that was the only way I found to comfort the boy I love at that time… but… but to think that he supposedly loves Emma because he believes she wrote my letters? That broke me. It broke me. I feel like killing myself every time I see them together, that I see his arms around her, him kissing her. It hurts," I cried. "It hurts too much."
"Do you want me to try-"
"No!" I hissed. "Leave him. Let him learn on his own. He will suffer like I am suffering. I love him more than I can even express, but he's breaking my heart. He's tearing it apart every time he opens his kissable mouth to throw a scornful retort at me, and shattering it under his feet. Heartlessly. He had the audacity to tell me that I was pretty much nothing near her, that she was selfless, the best out of us, the only one who's been with him when he most needed, that she had the ability to bleed on paper for him with her love, like I never could possibly do. He..."
"He told you what?" He gasped. "Now your words earlier make sense."
"I… I got so fucking hurt that I said I hater him and wanted him to just disappear from my life, Leo. But I didn't mean it. I love him so much it hurts."