Pieces (19 page)

Naomi saved the message and lowered the phone to her lap. It had been ten days since she had last talked to her mother. That didn’t seem like too long to go without talking to her. She had gone much longer before, but her father did have a point about her not following up with them after the holiday. They were paranoid because of her past. She sighed and opened up her text-messaging program. Jesse’s voice echoed in her mind.
When we’re more settled, you can tell your parents you’ve decided to move here.

He was right. Telling her parents where she was would not go over well, but she could at least let them know she was alive. She typed to her mother,
I’m fine. Just super-busy right now, so I’ll call you back when I’ve got some time. Love you!

Not a complete lie, at least. She hit send and quickly turned off the phone.

XVII

T
HE NEXT DAY, AFTER READING BOOKS
until she thought she would go mad, she walked to the door again. She heard no arguing this time, but when she reached for the handle she broke into a sweat and turned around.

Not today.

This was what had stopped her from trying to escape the house—a deep-seated fear of the unknown, of wondering what might happen if things didn’t go right, a precarious feeling her universe might implode if she couldn’t plan everything down to the last detail and know how it would end. So, instead of trying, she held back. It was what had kept her from leaving Brad before her kidnapping. More than Jesse’s plea, it was what kept her from calling her mother.

She curled into a ball on the bed and cried herself to sleep until Jesse came home and woke her up. He started rubbing her back.

“This is how it’s going to be,” he explained, leaning down to her ear. “I’m sorry, but I have to work if we want to live here. Your money won’t last very long and we’ve spent most of mine now.”

“You want to work,” she said, burying her face in the pillows. “I know you love the job you have. It’s everything you ever wanted.”

“Everything I ever wanted is right here.” He scooped her into his arms and held her close. “You’re scared, I know, but you’ll get used to everything. It’ll get easier. This is a new start, remember?”

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said, feeling like an idiot. “Why can’t I be strong?”

Turning her to look up at him, he lifted a hand and traced her lips with his fingers. “You’re stronger than you think, just not in ways most people expect.”

“What do you mean?”

He continued tracing her lips as a warm smile lit up his face. “Do you think you’d be alive right now if you weren’t strong? Eric would have killed you in the first three weeks if you hadn’t kept your cool like you did.”

“I was too scared to try anything,” she whispered. “I wasn’t being strong.”

He lifted his fingers from her lips as his smile melted into a straight line. “Strength doesn’t always mean fighting back. Sometimes it means enduring to the end—quietly. Not everybody could have handled your situation the way you did. Most would’ve tried to get away because they would’ve been too impatient to evaluate the kinds of people they were dealing with. They would have pissed Eric off so much he would have shot them in the head the first chance he had. You saw past that. I don’t care if you call it cowardice or fear. To me, it was smart and brave.”

Naomi didn’t know how to respond. She hadn’t thought of herself as handling her captivity very well, but maybe Jesse had a point. He watched her for a moment, admiration sparkling in his eyes. It made her want to hug him and never let go.

He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “How about we get some dinner and then read for a while?”

She nodded, embracing him before he sat up. “That sounds good. Maybe that little soup shop we keep passing by when we’re out?”

He laughed. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

The soup they decided to get was white and creamy, thick with dark red kidney beans and wilted spinach. Naomi ate so much her stomach felt like it might burst, then Jesse read to her from
The Great Gatsby—the
one book he had brought with him from home. He sat crosslegged on the bed, resting on the pillows as Naomi lay in his lap, her arms folded over her full belly as she scanned the words on the yellowed pages in front of her. Jesse’s voice spread through her like a comforting mist. Hours later, when her stomach felt normal again and she was starting to get sleepy, Jesse paused on the last passage of the book, his words faltering until they caught and held strong.

“‘So we beat on,” he read, his knuckles turning white as he squeezed the edges of the book, “boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’”

He closed the book and let out a sigh so loud it was like longing and awe and heartache all wrapped into a single vibration. It made Naomi wonder what he thought of that last sentence—if he meant something by reading it with such passion. The past, it seemed, was something he wanted to escape forever, but perhaps he believed it was impossible. Maybe it was.

I
N THE
morning, she woke with her head full of Jesse’s voice. He was already gone to work, so she wandered into the kitchen, her stomach rumbling. So far, she and Jesse had eaten out for every meal except breakfast, which was always bread and fruit Jesse picked up the night before. She was tired of the same things over and over. She wanted to cook. Her fingers were itching to do something productive. If she sat around long enough, she would start to feel like she was back in the house again. Kidnapped.

Forcing herself to bathe and dress, she grabbed some money and stuffed it into her back pocket, then stared at her purse and wondered if she should take her phone. Perhaps it was silly to freak out over going to the market, but having her phone would make her feel a little bit safer. She snatched it out of the purse and turned it on. No new texts or phone calls. Yet. Once it was in her pocket with the money, she made it as far as the stairwell before stopping to second-guess herself. She held tightly to the handrail.

“No,” she hissed to herself. “You can do this.”

One step down the stairs. Then another and another. Jesse had taught her how to count euros and read prices. She knew her way to the market. There was nothing stopping her.

Fifteen minutes later, she was wandering aisles made up of vegetable stands overflowing with onions, turnips, and tomatoes. She picked some of each, and then stopped in front of a stand stuffed with artichokes.

“Very good to try,” the market owner said in English.

Naomi looked up and smiled. The woman was middle-aged but pretty, with skin so smooth it looked polished. It reminded her of Finn’s skin—that sweet caramel color.

Naomi blinked. “I’ve never cooked with artichokes before,” she said, picking one up. It was heavier than she expected, and such a beautiful green, like a faded emerald.

“Oh, it easy!” the woman said, picking up two and placing them in Naomi’s basket. She picked up another artichoke and held it up for Naomi to see. “You slice off thick leaves, see?” She bent back one of the leathery outer leaves. “Then put whole artichoke in water with lemon.”

She turned the artichoke upside down and then spun to her left and snatched two lemons from a nearby stand. She put them in Naomi’s basket.

“When soaked, you take two out.” She lifted two artichokes and pretended she was beating them against each other. Her eyes grew big and round. “You hit together to open up!” she said with a loud laugh. Some of the other shoppers looked over, smiling. “Then salt and pepper and fry in olive oil upside down. Push down so look like flowers, see?”

She set down the artichokes and spread her fingers wide. “Like sunflowers! Put water on leaves when frying to make crunchy.” She kissed her closed fingers and grinned. “The best! You buy?”

Naomi looked down at the artichokes and lemons in her basket. “Of course,” she answered, remembering the sunflowers Evelyn had told her about when she first described Italy and how wonderful it would be to come here. “I hope I can remember what you told me.”

“You remember. I tell you again when you pay, yes?”

Nodding, Naomi grabbed two more artichokes and put them in her basket. Maybe this going out thing wouldn’t be so hard, after all. Next, she found the bakery and bought a crusty loaf of bread. She would worry about finding a butcher later. It seemed there was no large supermarket nearby, but Jesse had said they were awful, anyway.

“Thank you very much,” the man at the bakery said in thickly accented English as he dropped change into her open hand. He seemed accustomed to foreign-speaking customers. He had been able to spot Naomi as one even though she hadn’t said a word to him yet.

“Thank you,” she answered, smiling as she left the shop with her arms full. The sun was shining and the sky was the exact color of blue she had always imagined it would be. For a moment, she stopped in her tracks and stared at it. Sapphires. She had dreamed about coming here for so long. Italy had been a simple idea when her kidnappers were deciding everything for her, but now she was making her own choices and she was choosing to live in a place that scared her so much she couldn’t walk down the street without trembling. It was all so new. It smelled different. It looked different. She didn’t know the customs or traditions, no matter how many things Jesse had told her. It was all new to him, as well. She could do this. She could be strong and push beyond her ugly past as she embraced something new. Even if it was frightening at first. People didn’t know about her past here.

Taking a step forward, she continued up the road and around the corner to her and Jesse’s apartment. Her phone beeped in her back pocket as she pressed the buzzer for the door. She said her name into the intercom and the door clicked open. Lalia rushed across the room and helped her.

“You go shopping today!” she said with a big grin, holding the door open. “What you make tonight?”

“I’m not sure. What do you call artichokes shaped like sunflowers?” she asked, laughing.

“Beautiful, beautiful!” Lalia cried, clapping her hands together. “You make
carciofi alla guidia!”

Naomi loved the way she spoke, how every syllable was pronounced so succinctly. “Yes, I guess so,” she laughed, and set her bags on a little bench near the door. “Phone,” she explained to Lalia, and pulled it out of her back pocket. For a moment her heart seemed to freeze in her chest.

Incoming text from Finn Giachetti.

Crap. Not now. She pushed the button to receive the text.

Hey, did you move to Italy with Jesse? I haven’t seen you at Java. Is everything going okay? Please, please let me know if you’re okay.

She stared at the words, her heartbeat rapid. Her parents were constantly in her thoughts, but she could handle that. Finn, however, was another story. Knowing he had reached out to her was like watching a bridge form across two continents—and it wasn’t a bridge she was ready to cross. She didn’t want to remember Finn’s caramel skin and that moment on the dance floor when she had felt free and open and more herself than at any other time in her life.

“Naomi,” Lalia said, “you look hurt.”

She looked up, forcing a smile. “Oh, it’s nothing. Thanks again for your help.” Gathering her bags, she rushed up the stairs and into the apartment. Her heart was still pounding, but she was sure it was from the climb up three flights of stairs instead of Finn’s text. She wouldn’t let it get to her. That part of her life was over. She would cook an Italian meal in her Italian kitchen with her Italian produce. She would forget Finn and Stacy and the smell of the beach.

As she started slicing the leaves off the artichokes, she thought about her and Jesse’s plans for the weekend. They would go see the Colosseum and she would try her first gelato. For a moment, nothing felt real. She looked out the balcony doors to the apartment building across the street. It was unseasonably warm today. An older woman was hanging laundry on her part of the line, moving lazily. Naomi remembered the bedroom once again. There was the soft quilt on the bed, the clean smell of the sheets, and the shiny deadbolt on the door. And then Eric was undoing the lock and stepping inside. When she fell into his embrace, she breathed in the smell of him and held tightly to everything he represented. He was guilt and pain and suffering. He was loss and grief and the abuse she had never left behind.

“You’ll stay?” he asked.

She pulled away a fraction of an inch, her focus moving to the door behind him. He had closed it, but she knew what was on the other side—herself, set free, curled into a ball, helpless and alone. It was what she had always been, she realized. Even after she had escaped, she had moved from one prison to another, and it was all her own doing.

Looking into Eric’s eyes, she knew there was no escape as long as she could remember what she had done to him and the others, and what they had done to her. The cuts ran too deep.

“I’ll stay,” she said.