For a moment, the world froze. Time stopped. And in that silence, two people who had destroyed each other clung together in the remnants of desire and history.
"You're another one of mommy's friends?"
That one sentence echoed in Domenico's mind amidst their deep, wild kiss—not because of its meaning, but because of the way the boy had said it. Flat. Full of curiosity. Without fear.
It was a voice he couldn't ignore, even as his hands and breath were still submerged in the body of the woman he had once loved, and perhaps still possessed.
Domenico opened his eyes.
Still pressed against Roxanne's lips, but his mind had already moved—back to the small arm gripped too tightly, to the clear eyes that stared at him without flinching.
Roxanne leaned against the kitchen table, her lips still half-wet from a kiss too deep, too deep to be called mere nostalgia.
Domenico stood before her, his breath heavy but his eyes cold.
He didn't move, just stared at her.
Outside, the sound of Joey crumpling his cheese ball wrapper in the afternoon light. Faint. The real world was still turning, but time in that kitchen was frozen.
Domenico didn't want to go home empty-handed.
He had traveled across continents, crossing oceans and years he no longer counted. Yet Roxanne's face remained in his memory—with the laughter he had once loved, and the betrayal he had never truly let go.
Now, he stood in that woman's kitchen, in a cramped house on the edge of California. It wasn't the small room that pierced his heart. Not the lingering smell of last night's alcohol, or the fatigue hanging in the air. What hit him was the sound of the boy on the porch, calling him, "another one of mommy's friends."
Joey.
"That child..." Domenico's voice was low, almost like a murmur leaking from a crack in memory.
Roxanne still had her back to him, washing cups with movements trying to appear ordinary. But the warm water from the tap couldn't disguise the tremor in her fingers.
"I know he's not my son," Domenico continued, nearly whispering, "but his eyes... they belong to someone I know."
Roxanne closed her eyes. Silent. Then replied, her voice almost gone, "He's Edmund's child."
Domenico didn't move. But his gaze hardened.
"I left him before I knew I was pregnant," Roxanne's voice was now firmer. "I ran away without saying goodbye, without a letter. Just like I left you."
"He looked for you?" Domenico's voice was deep, resonating with unhealed pain.
Roxanne turned slowly, finally looking at him. "Yes. Just like you."
Silence hung between them. A heavy silence, as if two tidal waves were approaching each other in the stillness of the sea before a storm.
"He found me first."
Domenico narrowed his eyes. His face tightened, not from jealousy, but something deeper—an inability to accept that he had come too late.
"What happened?"
"We met. Once. In Sacramento, two years after Joey was born."
Roxanne's breath trembled. "He wanted to stay, get married, start a family."
"But you refused him," Domenico murmured.
"I couldn't let my son grow up in the shadow of you both."
Roxanne's tone now hardened. The voice of a mother holding more fear than she could admit. She was no longer the woman who ran, not the broken ex-lover—she stood as a fragile fortress for her own son.
"I know who he is. And I know who you are."
Her steps brought their bodies only a breath apart.
"Joey doesn't need to know more than one reality; that he's free from your world."
Domenico didn't answer. Not because he didn't know what to say. Because for the first time, he felt small before the woman who once begged to be saved, and now stood before him unafraid, without tears, only naked truth.
The man turned to the window. Joey was still sitting on the porch, eating cheese balls, staring at the sky with the calm of a child who knew nothing yet. But Domenico knew—the blood in that boy carried a history that couldn't be cleansed.
Edmund Lockwood—his former best friend. Their former friend. And the past now appeared, not as a memory, but in tangible form—a small child with eyes full of questions.
"Does he know who his father is?" Domenico asked, softly.
Roxanne shook her head.
"He never came back again?"
"Because I asked him not to come."
Domenico stood closer. There was no threat in his posture, only exhaustion wrapped in silence. The distance between them was only a few steps. No embrace. No weapons. Just two people who had once loved each other in painful ways, now trapped among their own ruins.
"You never really disappeared from me."
"I was never yours," Roxanne answered softly, coldly.
Domenico raised an eyebrow slightly, almost sneering. "But you made me look for you. For years."
"You looked for me because you couldn't stand losing control. Not because of love."
Domenico nodded slightly. "I never said it was love."
"Good. Because what I did to you wasn't love either."
Silence came again, quieter than before. Only their breaths hanging between walls that felt increasingly narrow.
"Edmund too?" Domenico asked, vaguely.
"Not everyone can be you, Nico."
Domenico suppressed a bitter smile. He didn't know if that was an insult or a compliment, but he accepted both. He was used to it.
"You're different, but still the same. Both wanting me to belong."
Annoyance crept across Domenico's face. "If you don't want to belong, why do you always make us want to?"
Roxanne stared at him, flatly. "That's your inner wound. Not my responsibility to heal it."
A faint smile appeared on Domenico's lips. Cold, without laughter. "You destroy what you can't build. Just like your mother."
Roxanne closed her eyes. Her breath caught.
"You're still bitter."
"You're still a coward."
"And you still believe everything can be redeemed with power."
"All this time, that's what made you come back to me."
Roxanne looked down. She turned the tap, shutting off the water that had been running, then leaned her hands on the edge of the sink. Her breath was short. Her shoulders slowly dropped. Time seemed to stop.
"I don't love you, Domenico."
Domenico turned. No anger. No sadness. Just a pair of eyes that no longer hoped.
"I can't return anything I ever took from you. The money, the trust, or the feeling... if it ever existed."
Domenico remained silent. He didn't argue. Didn't pursue.
"What's left of me," Roxanne continued, her voice starting to waver, "is only my son."
Domenico's jaw tightened. He knew where this conversation was heading. And he didn't like it.
Roxanne looked straight at him—a gaze so clear, almost blinding.
"I can't love you, but maybe he can."
Joey. That nine-year-old boy. Innocent. Knowing nothing about this world, about the man now standing in his mother's kitchen, about the history flowing in his blood.
"Don't tell me you..." Domenico's voice was hoarse, mixed with anger and disbelief.
"You can't have me," Roxanne whispered, "but you can have my son."
A long silence. Sharp like broken glass on the floor.
Domenico finally spoke, his voice deep and heavy. "I don't like children."
Of course. Roxanne knew that.
"They only know how to whine and cry. They're weak. Annoying. And too honest."
Roxanne looked down briefly, then looked at him again, this time calmer. More certain. "You'll like Joey."
Domenico sneered, cynical. "You're crazy."
But Roxanne didn't laugh. She wasn't offended. She just stayed where she was, standing on the threshold of despair and last hope. Her eyes didn't waver.
"I'm not a good mother, Nico. And you know that."
Domenico stared at her for a long time. No denial. No comfort.
Now Roxanne's voice cracked. Not because she wanted pity, but because she had reached the end of the road. "If he stays with me, he'll grow up like me. Or worse. And I can't hold on much longer."
Domenico still stood frozen at the kitchen doorway, hands in his pants pockets. His silence wasn't confusion. Not doubt, more like... emptiness. As if Roxanne's words were something he had already heard in his quietest nightmares.
"If I take him," his voice was soft, heavy, "it's not because I want to be a father."
Roxanne nodded slightly. "I know."
"And if he comes with me," he continued, "his life will never be the same."
"I know that too."
Silence again. Only the sound of the wall clock's ticks, feeling like sledgehammers in the middle of their chests.
"Why now?"
Roxanne took a deep breath. Her hands gripped the edge of the sink, as if the world would collapse if she didn't hold on.
"Because I can't fall any lower than this."
Domenico squinted. "That's not a reason to give up your child."
"This isn't giving up," Roxanne's voice rose slightly—cracked, but steady. "This is... saving."
The word hung in the air. For a moment, Domenico wanted to scoff. But his lips remained closed. He knew, too many wounds couldn't be explained with mere cynicism.
"I don't know how to love him without destroying him," Roxanne said more softly. "But I'm sure, you can destroy him in a different way."
Domenico looked up slowly. His eyes were sharp.
"And you think that's better?"
"No," Roxanne answered honestly. "But it's more honest."
Domenico let out a long sigh. He walked to the window, looking outside.
Joey was still sitting under the tree, his fingers playing with the snack remains in his lap. The boy looked towards the house, then at the sky. Calm. Alone. As if used to waiting.
"Will he ask questions?" Domenico asked, almost to himself.
"That child doesn't ask many questions," Roxanne replied. "He just remembers."
Those words made something inside Domenico's chest harden.
Domenico stared at Roxanne for a long time. The woman's face now looked older than her years, yet still, there was a faint strength there—like the last embers refusing to die, even as her body was nearly ash.
"When was the last time he was happy?"
Roxanne didn't answer immediately. She was silent, looking down, then shook her head slowly.
"I don't know. Maybe when he thought his birthday yesterday would be celebrated. But I forgot to buy a cake."
Domenico closed his eyes for a moment. Not from sadness. Not from anger either. But something far more foreign in his life—a feeling of pity. And perhaps, in the shadows he had built himself, that was the beginning of love.
"Tomorrow morning," Domenico finally said. "I'll come pick him up."
Roxanne didn't interrupt. Didn't agree. Didn't refuse either. She just stood still. Then nodded slightly, as if that was the only thing left in her control—giving permission, not because she wanted to, but because she had to.
Domenico walked towards the door, but his steps stopped at the threshold.
"Does he know how to cook?" he asked suddenly, a question that oddly sounded sincere.
Roxanne smiled slightly, bitterly. "He knows how to fry an egg. Sometimes too salty, sometimes burnt."
Domenico nodded once, then stepped outside.
[,•°]