[Alfio's Pov]
It's been a month.
Thirty days of waking up to the same ceiling, the same muted colors, and the same air that never seemed to change.
Bianca and Aria stopped asking me to talk. They didn't push, didn't pry. I wasn't sure if that was kindness or if they had simply given up. Salvo left early for work most mornings, his footsteps fading down the hallway before the sun even cut through the curtains. I went to college. Came back. Ate. Slept. Repeated.
Riccardo didn't come back after that day.
At night… Salvo's arms would always wrap around me. Always. Even when I faced the other way, even when I didn't say a word. He held me like he was afraid I'd slip through his fingers in the dark. And maybe I liked it—his warmth, the steady beat of his heart—it almost made me believe everything was okay.
Almost.
Because under that warm blanket of "normal," something was still rotting inside me.
