Every step inside echoed too loudly against the cold floors. My hands were shaking by the time I reached my room—the only place in that house that still held anything of him.
I lit a small candle beside his photo. The blue urn sat underneath it. His dinosaur plush leaned against the wall, slightly tilted, like it was waiting for tiny hands that would never come back.
Gabriel had once begged me to take him sailing. He’d seen it in a cartoon and talked about it for days—how he would wear his little pirate socks and “fly with the wind.”
I remembered how his eyes lit up when he said it.
Vincenzo only laughed at the time. Said it was reckless. Said Gabriel was too fragile for something like that. Said he would get hurt.
Now Noel was the one going parasailing.
And Gabriel… had no birthday to celebrate.
I stayed near the doorway, barely breathing, until the gates outside beeped.
The front doors opened.
Footsteps followed.
The staff welcomed them like royalty returning home.
Vincenzo’s parents.
I stepped back slightly, pressing myself against the wall.
They didn’t look pleased to see me.
His mother’s eyes landed on me briefly—then sharpened with open disgust.