Chapter 6: You're Free

The week before Damiano's graduation, my father called me from a hospital in the suburbs.

"Lulu," he said. "Don't come home."

His voice was thick, and slow in a way I'd never heard.

"Dad? Where are you?"

"I've got a few stitches. Taped ribs. I'm fine."

"What happened?"

"The company's gone, sweetheart. All of it. There were men in the driveway."

"What men?"

He was quiet.

"I borrowed money from Vito Lazzaro to make payroll," he said. "Serena's father. It was the wrong man to borrow from."

I sat down on the floor of my dorm room.

"Don't come home," Dad said again. "Promise me."

The bank froze my trust that Friday.

My father had pledged it to keep the company alive, and he'd never told me.

I stood in the student union with my card in my hand and watched the machine keep it.

The man behind me in line said, "Hey, you done?"

I wasn't used to hearing that.

By Monday my allowance had stopped, my meal plan had a hold on it, and my phone had stopped ringing.

Nobody on the third floor asked if I was all right.

The girl with the window desk moved back to the window desk.

Serena's door stayed shut.

I knocked on it once.

She opened it two inches.

"My father says your father's a thief," she said. "I can't be seen with you, Luce."

She smiled with half her mouth.

"You'll have to carry your own bags now."

I stood in the hallway after the door closed.

I realized I had bought every single person who had ever laughed at one of my jokes.

The checks had just stopped clearing.

The only person who still called was Damiano.

I had made his tie that spring.

It was dark blue silk from a remnant bin.

Inside the lining, at the wide end, where only he would ever see it, I had embroidered something in white thread.

I wasn't going to tell him what.

I had decided I was going to leave him.

I couldn't stay, with Vito's men in my father's driveway.

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