family's confusion and chagrin, I visited Nero a few times each week he was in the hospital.

I held his hand, helped him choke down water from a small plastic cup. I was with him, and it hurt. But it would've hurt more not being there.

Just over a month later, he's doing well. They're discharging him tomorrow.

Sitting in front of Dr. Maneck, it feels like I've known her for a long time now. It feels like she knows me sometimes even better than I know myself.

Like today, for example.

"How are you feeling about Nero's discharge?"

She gazes at me from her armchair across the coffee table, those startling green eyes bright and intelligent and all-knowing behind her half-moon glasses.

I answer honestly. A part of this process involves me being, completely, one hundred percent, always honest. I haven't told a single lie since I started this, to Dr. M or to my parents or to Daniel or Shauna or even to myself, at least not without correcting it right then and there. It's refreshing but so exceedingly difficult.

I realize that hiding things made me such a damn liar. Telling the truth is so much harder than I remember.

"I'm grateful he's okay and that he's recovering."

She watches and listens and waits.

"And I'm grateful that he's not in trouble with the law. That he gets to move on with his life."

She waits some more.

My eyes shift around the room before settling back on her aged, wisdom-filled face. "But I'm not sure I'm ready for a relationship again. For intimacy or for sex or any of it."

I still wake up, every so often, in a hot puddle of sweat, the feel of Marco's body pinning mine to the mattress, hearing the indescribably vile horrors he whispered into my ear as his hands groped viciously at my feverish skin.

"And I know I haven't recovered from... the assault yet. I need more time to process and to make sense of it for myself."

She nods. She's an exceptionally good listener.

These first few weeks of therapy she's been talking me through recognizing my self-worth, talking me through self-care and being kind to myself and forgiving myself, and it's so fucking hard because I feel selfish, like I've been so disgustingly selfish these past couple years, like I don't want to be selfish anymore.

But she's convinced me that this, this process of self-reflection and valuing my recovery, is important.

"And would you feel comfortable sharing these thoughts with him?"

I pause, imagine Nero, the way he was before, the way he is now. He's still a bit battered and bruised and every time I look at him I remember what happened to us.

"Yes. It wouldn't be fair for me not to talk to him about it. I think he would understand that I need time." I think about it for a moment. "I trust him to understand that I need to do what's best for me."

Another sage, nondescript nod. "And what do you envision your relationship with him will look like during this recovery process? Do you think he should be involved, or do you think you would benefit from going through this journey without him?"

Each option is presented neutrally, unbiased. But I know that this time, there's a right answer.

It just takes me a long time to say it aloud.

"I think he needs to sort a lot of things out for himself, and that I need to sort a lot of things out for myself. And then maybe one day, we can be in each other's lives again."

Even in spite of it all, the thought of letting Nero go forever is impossible. I will never be the same, will never be able to escape the way I feel about him, even if there are too many other things in the way right now. He is mine and I am his and I know it, he knows it, the world fucking knows it. But we're both still too broken to be together.

And damn, she actually smiles. "I'm proud of the progress you've made, Rosalyn. I'm glad you're willing to make decisions that feel right for you, even if they seem difficult."

Oh yeah, the other part of therapy. Making good decisions for myself.

Another skill that I threw down the toilet for the sake of love. Another thing I have to keep practicing, even though it's so ridiculously hard.

•§•

, I dial Nero's number. My heart thuds painfully in my chest as it rings.

He picks up, and for a few moments we stay silent, just listening to the sounds of each others' breathing through the phone.

"Dolcezza. How are you?" Something about the soft roughness in his voice reminds me of the way we used to fit together tirelessly beneath his sheets.

"I'm good." I even sound good. "How are you?"

"I'm okay. Just about to leave the hospital."

Silence.

"Where are you staying now?" I know there's absolutely no way he's going back to his old apartment, just like there's no way I'm going back to mine.

"I bought a new place. Downtown." More silence. "I can send you the address." If you want is the catchline he doesn't say aloud.

This conversation has become painful and awkward and it breaks my broken heart that we don't know what to say to each other anymore.

"Nero," I breathe, and he knows what's coming next. "We should talk."

"I know, cuore mio. Do you have time to meet me for coffee or something?"

Coffee sounds safe.

"That works for me."

We work out some more details, and it's strange and difficult and not smooth or easy like it used to be, to be with him.

If I had know that the week or so we had together, where we slept in each other's arms and laughed and talked and fell so irrevocably, irresponsibly, inevitably in love, gave our bodies and minds and souls and hearts to each other and walked on the brink of paradise... if I had known it would be so fleeting, I would have held on tighter with every last piece of me.

•§•

secluded café, perfect because neither of us looks our best. He's in his jeans and a grey, long-sleeved t-shirt, same messy head of thick dark hair.

For a second, I imagine us in another life, two normal people in a normal relationship sitting down for a normal cup of coffee.

The feeling is so abstract and bizarre. There's a part of me that yearns for normal, a different part of me that recognizes that normal people don't get to experience the same kind of devastating, consuming, incomprehensible emotion I've experienced, with the man in front of me.

But I look at him, and the skin around his eyes is still faintly bruised, his left arm in a cast, fingers pressed against his chest in a white sling.

There was a deep scrape running across the right side of his face, now it's scabbed over and bandaged.

He lost weight in the hospital. Once virile and muscular and toned to perfection, his clothes hang off his frame in a way that seems unhealthy.

It's hard to see him like this. It makes me remember. Not the good, but the bad.

I try to look past it, into the brilliant, caring mind I know lies behind his weak form. I search those warm, dark brown eyes. The flecks of gold around the edges of his pupils are the same, but we are not the same.

"How are you feeling?" The guilt in his expression is palpable.

I give him a small smile. "I'm doing okay. Just trying to get past this as best as I can."

He nods, and his eyes take in every inch of my face, I see the emotion, the tenderness and pain in his gaze. His voice is a quiet, rough rumble. "I'm really fucking sorry, dolcezza."

I reach for his hand across the table, gripping it tightly. After a month or more of reflection, the anger has drained away, replaced with a self-awareness, a kind of understanding. "It wasn't your fault, Nero."

He squeezes my right hand in his, because the other half of each of us is splinted and bandaged. "It feels like my fault."

I try for a small smile. "You asked me to leave the city, remember? I was the one who was too stubborn to listen."

As I learn to take responsibility for my own actions, I find that much of the blame for what happened to me belongs to fate and luck and to myself.

We watch each other for a while, studying the changes in each other's appearances, the damage that this world has done to us.

He reaches out, gently tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. The light feeling of his fingers floating across my skin is affectionate and familiar and my eyelids flutter shut.

"I need time, Nero."

After a few moments, he responds softly, "I know, carina."

Our fingers move to sit tangled together on the wooden table in front of us. "I don't know how long it's gonna take, Nero. But I have to get my life together."

The softness in his eyes as they gaze at me makes my heart beat painfully in my chest. "So do I, Rosalina."

And oh, hearing that same old nickname in that same old voice is what does it for me.

My throat is raw and my eyes swell with tears because saying good-bye like this feels necessary but impossible, because I remember I remember how good we were together, before we crashed and burned. The story of us plays over and over in my head, and I don't want to let him go. But I have to.

I feel a crooked finger brush a tear away from beneath my eye. "I'll miss you, amore mio."

I sniffle, gripping his fingers tight. "I'll miss you too, Nero."

And then when we get up to go, he tugs me against him, his broken arm stuck between us, and I press my face into his chest and his fingers run softly through my hair and he takes one last breath of me, I inhale the scent of him for the last time in God knows how long. And I feel the small kiss he plants onto the top of my head, and he whispers gruffly, "Take care of yourself, Rosalyn."

"I love you, Nero. I will always love you." The words tumble out of my mouth onto the warm skin of his neck.

"I love you more, cuore mio."

And when we pull ourselves apart and the tips of our fingers reach out instinctively after each other, the memory of his touch imprinted on my skin as we walk away, I know that a piece of my heart has just walked away with him.

I can feel the hole in my chest, where it used to be.

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