She Tried to Poison Me, but My Plant Died First! novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Terrace

The terrace ran along the whole back of the house, stone and cold, with the lawn falling away below it into the dark.

By eleven the dinner was over and the capos had gone home.

Mom was upstairs under a doctor's care, and Fiora had cried herself into a sedative.

My father had stood in the hall with his hand over his eyes and told us both to get out of his sight.

I went out for air, and Rocco came after me, because that was his job.

He stopped at the stone rail a few feet away with his hands in his pockets.

For a long time neither of us said anything.

"You didn't flinch tonight," he said finally.

"No."

"Not when your mother cried. Not when Fiora screamed."

"I was busy watching the room."

"You watched it like someone who has done this before."

"I think we've covered what I know."

He pushed off the rail.

"Do you know what you've done to me?"

"I haven't done anything to you."

"You've made me doubt my own eyes."

He was close now, close enough that I could smell the cold on his jacket.

"Fiora held my hand at my father's funeral," he said. "I was eighteen. She was eleven, and she walked up to me in a black dress and put a flower in my palm and said she was sorry."

"That's sweet."

"It was the only kind thing anyone said to me in that whole church."

"I'm sure she meant it."

"She did mean it," he said, and his voice cracked. "That's the problem. I knew her. I thought I knew her."

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