I could hear people talking, and I wanted to focus on the conversation, but I couldn’t. All I could focus on was the pain in my foot again. Stretching out, I was in the spare bedroom, my foot propped up with several pillows. But only one of them was off this bed, the other one was under my head. The rest, they had to have been from Caio. 

I lifted my arm to check the time, but realized my watch screen was shattered and refused to turn on when I tapped the screen. Sitting up, I moved to set my feet on the ground. Standing up on both feet was an immediate mistake. 

“Fuck!” I hissed, yanking my foot off the ground. The pain was making my head spin. I managed to find a way to make walking work. If I used the heel of the boot and some caution, I could move with minimal pain. The sound of the boot on the hard wood of the floor was aggravating though. 

Opening the bedroom door, Caio was at the table, Andrei with him. Caio was the first one to see me, and he got up.

“Sit. I got it.” I said, rougher than I intended it to be. 

Caio didn’t sit back down, though. He walked over and reached out for me. 

“Excuse my touch for a minute or so.” He said, as he wrapped his arm around my back, and my arm around his shoulders. He helped me to the table and then stopped touching me. He put me in the chair where he was sitting and set the pill bottle on the table. 

“I left these in my pocket after we got back here from the medical wing and I forgot all about them. But saw you managed to find something for the pain this morning. You left the bottle on the counter, and lid off.”

“I was in pain.” I muttered. 

“Are you in pain now?” Andrei asked, concern on his face. 

“Yes, but I’m figuring that to be much worse, I jam this grey boot with my foot in it, so far up the rear side of your son.” I hissed, my toes throbbing again. 

“I’m afraid you will have to wait until later for that. Alessio is speaking with Dr Martin at the medical building. Lev asked him to see Dr Martin this morning. He wouldn’t share with me why, but I figure his actions from the day before have caught up with him and he is feeling guilty.” Andrei said. 

“Caio?” I said. 

“Yes, Matteo?”

“Two sugar and one cream?” I said, pointing to his coffee, as I grabbed the pill bottle and opened the lid. 

“Yes.”

“Still the same.” I muttered. Popping two pills in my mouth and using his coffee to wash down to pills. 

“I could have got you a cup of coffee, Matteo.” Caio said, before he looked at the table. “But then, unless you’ve changed, you don’t drink coffee.”

“I do, but rarely.” I said, looking at Andrei. “Lukas is to blame for that, though. When I missed everyone, I would buy an iced coffee with a vanilla shot, and it reminded me of here.” I muttered. Remembering the first time that Lukas bought it for me, even though Andrei told him I was too young for caffeine. 

“Matteo. You could have called, or texted, more than the few times you did.” Andrei said, reaching out and setting his hand on mine. 

“I couldn’t have. I would have just come back, and by the time I realized I made a mistake, I was already working, in college and up to my neck in Alessio’s work for Emilio in Italy. Every time I wanted to call, I wanted to come back, and I wasn’t finished with what I needed to get done there. No contact was the easiest thing for me to do. Then there was the fact that Alessio would have forced me to come back, and I wasn’t ready too.”

“What changed?” Caio asked. 

“I woke up. The escape I built around me wasn’t enough to keep me from missing here, missing my family. I knew Alessio was going to be mad, but threatening me, and then actually hitting me, I didn’t see that coming.”

“You hit him back.” Andrei said flatly. 

“Of course I did! He fucking deserved it.” 

“How did that make out for you?” Caio said, reaching across the table to take back the rest of his coffee. 

“Gee, I don’t know fucking know. He broke my fucking foot!” I yelled, starting to feel heated. Taking a deep breath to calm down, I spoke again. “He didn’t have to break my foot. And further invalidate my feelings, among other things.”

“And you didn’t have to leave, Matteo.” Caio said, a hint of sharpness in his tone.

“Would you rather I have stayed when my mother told me I was childish and my feelings didn’t matter, that I was making a mistake that I would regret? Or maybe when she told me my love for you was disgusting? Should I have stayed through that, Caio?” I hissed. Standing up and heading back to the bedroom. 

In the bedroom, feelings I didn’t like popped up in my chest and I hated it. It was worse than the pain from watching a man I loved tell someone how much they loved them. It was a gnawing ache. 

Grabbing my phone off the nightstand, I tucked it into the pocket of the sweat pants I had on and hobbled out of the bedroom. 

“Matteo, Wait!” Caio said, as I made my way toward the front door. 

“There’s soup in the fridge if you’re hungry. Help yourself.” I muttered as I left. I knew Alessio was probably still in his meeting with Dr Martin, and that was fine. 

Andrei was quick to catch up to me, and he grabbed me. 

“Matteo, where are you going?”

“To speak to my brother.”

“Is it going to get violent? He is in a session with Dr Martin.”

“I know.”

“Matteo, I’m so sorry that your mother said such things to you.”

“What’s done is done.” I said, letting out a breath. 

Andrei surprised me when he turned me around and hugged me. 

“It’s not your fault, Matteo.”

Rough feelings buried inside of me rose, and I found it hard to hold back on tears and when he let me go, I stepped back.

“I, um. I need to speak to Alessio. I appreciate this.”

I rushed off, the fastest that I could with my stupid broken foot. 

I was regretting not putting my shoe on my barefoot, as I hobbled down the gravel driveway. Luca was coming out of the medical building when I slipped between the doors. 

“Matteo, your brother is a little busy—-”

“I know.”

Dr Martin’s office was labelled, and the door opened when I turned it. Alessio was sitting on the couch. Dr Martin was sitting in a chair. 

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have something I really need to say.” I said. 

“Matteo, I am in the middle of—--”

“I am begging you, Alessio. Just let me speak.”

“Alright.”

“What you’re missing from that night is that fact that mom told me my feelings for Caio were disgusting. I tried to tell her how bad that hurt and she wanted me to pull myself together for the party you planned. She told me I was ungrateful for ruining all the work you did. I was hurting. I regret leaving, but staying was worse. There was nothing more that I wanted in the first year than to come home. Come back to you, and Andrei, Lukas, and everyone else. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t even tell you how things were with me. If I told you where I was or about going to college or how lonely my world was. You would have made me come back here. And I wasn’t ready to face all the guilt and pain I had left to avoid. When it was all said and done, I was settled down and had enough going on that I would be ok for a while longer. But then, I woke up the other day, and it wasn’t enough anymore. I booked the first ticket I could get, and I came back. I knew you were going to be pissed. The backhand and the foot and all that bullshit aside. Alessio. I need you to know that there isn’t a day I don’t wish it was different for us.” I said breathlessly when I finished. 

“Is that everything?”

“Huh?” I said, his words confused me. 

“You said she told you your feelings were disgusting. Is that everything she told you, Matteo?”

“No, but that’s not the important thing. Alessio. I want you to know that I regret leaving and not saying anything. I know I should have told you where I was and how I was doing. But I also know how you are. I know you would have forced me to come back.”

“I would have. You’re right. But at least then you wouldn’t have been lonely in Italy, Matteo.”

“Being alone was what I needed, Alessio. I hated it, and I missed being here, but I got things done that I wanted to. I went to college, I graduated, and I—-”

“You could have invited me. I would have liked to see you graduate.”

“Emilio filmed it for me. So that you wouldn’t totally miss out. It’s not the same, but—”

“And three birthdays you spent alone.”

“I didn’t celebrate them.”

Dr Martin got up, and I wiped my hands on my pants. 

“Sorry again for interrupting. I just needed you to know.” I said, stepping back and closing the door. Walking away from his office. Caio was in front of the medical building, leaned up against the wall when I got outside. 

“You forgot this.” He said, holding up my single shoe dangling from two fingers. 

“Where were you a few minutes ago with that?” I said. 

“Walking over here with it.”

“Thanks.”

He handed it to me and I dropped it on the ground and slipped my foot into it. Tucking in my anger and distaste about the whole thing, I walked away. I stopped a few steps later, not hearing Caio behind me. I looked at him, crossing my arms.

“Well? Are you waiting for an invitation to come too? Some well paid babysitter you are.” I snorted, feeling a touch better. I turned and started walking back towards Alessio’s complex. Caio following behind me now.