He feared them, his father especially. The Marchetti name carried power that didn't forgive weakness. Everytime they called he lied.... Said he was with friends, studying, football practice, doing business, but never with me.
And when they did show up at a party or at an event he'd make sure I looked like I belonged. Designer dresses, jewelry, perfect hair.
He'd whisper " just tonight baby" and I played the part...… his perfect little secret.
Our relationship stayed private tucked away from the world, and for a while it was perfect, untill he suddenly had to leave for France.
There was no time to process it as I was hit by a brick.
"Four years"
It felt like a lifetime. How do one hold on to someone for four years without seeing their face? Hearing their voice in person? I knew I had to let go eventually but when that moment came I couldn't.
The night before he left, something in me twisted, I didn't want to remember him only in memories.
I wanted to feel him close one last time. I was a virgin and he's always been respectful and he's never for one day asked me to do anything, never pushed, never made me feel cornered always said he wanted me to come to him when I was ready. And that night I was...….
I don't regret it, not one second of it. And if I could go back in time I'll still choose him, I'll still choose that night.
After he left we kept in touch,calls, texts, letters. For a while it was enough. We didn't use protection that night but I took the morning after pill like I'd been taught by an online sex coach. And I didn't think anything could go wrong.
When I fell sick, I told myself it was just the stress, distance, missing him too much. I didn't want to think of any other reason.
Even when I began adding up some pounds I thought it was withdrawal.... Like my body was mourning him too. And then the calls came less often. The messages slowed.
He was studying, building his future, his legacy, and I understood but deep down I was falling apart.
I realized I had made my entire life about him. Everything I was, everything I did, revolved around Alessandro.
When he left I didn't know who I was without him. The emptiness came quietly first, then all at once....loneliness, grief, fear.... Like I was losing him piece by piece. I pulled away from people, didn't want to answer questions,I couldn't stand the thought of hearing his name or seeing the pity on their face of what I've become. The whispers, the rumors, that I'd been used and dumped by a Matchetti "The scholarship girl finally learned her place" they said venomously.
I stopped studying couldn't concentrate , panic attacks, anxiety. I felt like I was grieving someone who was alive. My studies eventually got shaken i couldn't take it anymore and then I ran back home to my mom.
The moment she saw me she knew something was wrong. When the private nurse she called confirmed my condition the shock,disappointment, fear all flashed across her face in a second.
When I told her who the father was she went silent. The nurse seeing it's a vulnerable moment excused herself, leaving us to the pain and shock and anxiety we both felt.
I couldn't even look at her, I couldn't even think straight cos how….. how am I pregnant….. I haven't even gone to college.
I was lost in thoughts till I felt her hands wrapped around mine and then she started broken down in tears as she talked.
"She and Alessandro's mother (Isabella) used to be best friends. Similar story with me, just with his father. They had a beautiful relationship till she got pregnant, his fathers family found out and they tore them apart.
The Marchetti grandparents were ruthless, cold, heartless people who didn't care who got hurt. Alessandro's father didn't even fight for her. He let them take the baby and remarried four months later to some heiress but Isabella never gave up, she went back, pleaded with his parents and then they agreed on one condition.
She could live in the estate but as his nanny and caregiver, no one should ever know who she was, not the staff, not the family, not even Alessandro himself. She had to give up her dreams, her name, her entire identity, just to be allowed to exist in the same house as her own child."
I knew Anty Isabella, but I never imagined she went through any of this. She always has the bright smile whenever she visited. I thought she just moved abroad after working so long with the family, but listening to her story I realized she had lived her whole life in slavery, hidden and unseen. Then the fear struck me.
"Alessandro will never choose me. Not against them, not against his name. The odds weren't even counting and anyone in his position will do same"
"But I wouldn't do what Isabella did. I couldn't live like that, and I couldn't give my baby away. I did the only thing I could... I ran....."
I texted him that night, a long messy message about how I was done, how I didn't love him anymore, how he shouldn't find me or waste his time.
With the help of a distant, wealthy relative, mom and I started out in a quiet town where no one knew us. And that's how I met Camila who had been my best friend and safe space all this years.
I gave birth there,raised my son there, built a life that was small but safe.
I never heard from Alessandro again, just his name on the news,photos of him besides powerful men, luxury cars, business deals, the empire he was born to rule.
And now here I am, standing in a club full of men like him, wealthy, Confident, dangerous.
But no matter how much I pretended, no matter how many smiles I fake.
"I still couldn't let go of the boy who ruined me and loved me at the same time."