Tiny shorts. Rolled t-shirts. Loisa’s perfume wrapped in a sock. Ziplocked snacks labeled with love.
Then I went to my room. Quietly. Closed the door.
I sat there on my bed, hands trembling, and my mind drifted back. Back to when I was just eighteen.
When Edmund wasn’t a man who kicked me in the knee or forgot my name on a cruise ticket.
Back when he said things that sounded like promises…
***
I was fresh out of school, a girl still unsure of her own shadow.
Edmund looked at me, eyes soft and serious, like I was the only thing that made sense.
“Doris,” he said, holding my hand like it was the only thing steady in his wild world, “I swear, I’ll take care of you. Always. No matter what happens, you’ll never have to worry about a thing.”
I smiled, my heart so full it felt like it might burst.
“Even if the whole world turns its back?” I asked, barely breathing.
He nodded. “Especially then.”
Then another flashbacks...
A summer evening under the stars. We lay on the grass, tangled limbs and whispered dreams.
“I don’t care about money, or power, or the damn legacy,” Edmund said, voice low and fierce. “You’re the only future I want. You and me, we’ll build something real. Something no one can take.”
I laughed, feeling invincible.
“You make me believe in forever.”
He kissed me like he meant it. Like forever was ours already.
But then came my father.
The man with a crown no one dared challenge.
When I told him I loved Edmund — his blood wasn’t the right kind, his family not the right name — my father’s face twisted with something colder than winter.
“Doris,” he said, voice like steel, “you’re dead to me. You don’t get to drag our name into this dirt.”
I stood my ground, tears burning but voice steady.
“I’m not your possession.”
He laughed, cruel and hollow. "You are my daughter, yes. But you’re no Rossini anymore,” he spat. “Marry that boy if you want, but don’t expect me to recognize you. You are dead to me. If you come back, I’ll kill you myself. And you know I don’t bluff.”
I swallowed hard. “I love Edmund.”
“You love a shadow. You’ll die in that darkness.”
---
And now—thirty years later—Edmund’s true colors bled through all those pretty words. That boy who promised to care for me, who whispered forever, was gone.
Replaced by a man who could kick me down and never look back. A man who packs his bags for a cruise with another woman and leaves me packing silence.