Chapter 8: Separate Rooms

Valeria's POV

"It's a sleeping drug," Luca said. "A strong one. It was in my blood at two o'clock that afternoon."

I read the line again.

The date at the top was the day after I lost the baby.

"You don't drink," I said.

"Half a glass of wine and I'm done. You know that."

I did know that.

I had laughed at him in a chair at our wedding party, with his tie loose and his chin on his chest, and my mother had put a blanket over his knees.

I sat down on the edge of the bed with the paper in my lap.

"Somebody gave it to you," I said.

"That's what the doctor said."

"Bianca said you never woke up."

"I didn't."

"Then you lay there." My voice shook. "That's why you lay there. You weren't ignoring me. You couldn't hear me."

He stood in the doorway with his hands at his sides.

"I don't know, Valeria. I don't remember any of it. I only know what I woke up to."

I put my hand over my mouth.

For three years I had hated one man for one night. If this paper was real, I had hated the wrong one.

I had not asked him a single question. He had said so on the first day, and I had thought it was an excuse.

"Go to bed," he said, very quietly. "You don't have to decide anything tonight."

"Where are you going to sleep?"

"The couch."

"It's too short for you."

"It's the terms."

He closed the door softly.

I lay on the mattress in the dark with the printout on my chest, and the paper rose and fell with every breath.

At midnight I got up.

The living room was lit by the streetlight. Luca lay on the couch with his feet hanging over the arm and his eyes open.

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