Whispers in New York - Book Two

~Bonus Chapter~

This Bonus Chapter is entirely in Adriana's POV - It is based on the previous chapter.

Chapter Song

The Prayer - Andrea Bocelli feat. Celine Dion 

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I stood silent and immobile amongst the sobbing crowd. My heels digging firmly into the freshly cut grass, this part of the cemetery was nice. It was definitely the expensive section. Giuseppa would be mortified at anything less than this location.

I tried to keep my focus on the sweet smell of red and white roses with the combination of freshly cut grass. The ground keepers had definitely mowed the lawn today. I briefly began to wonder if the family organised that, they always thought of everything.
Focusing on this was better than focusing on reality right now. Anything was better than the sight of a broken family. Even worse, the sight of a broken family without Salvatore.

He seemed stiff, rigid, uncomfortable even, while his siblings held onto each other and their mother for comfort.

There was something about him standing alone, staring up into the grey skies which forced me inhale sharply as I steadied my own emotions. I was terrified he would see me.
Why was he so distant? So cut off from the rest of them? It didn't make sense to me. Salvatore was all about family, he loved his mother yet he was making no attempt to be with her, tell her everything was going to be ok. I could have sworn I saw him take a step back from them.

I had studied him from a distance at the church, just as I was doing now.
He was slumped over almost the entire time. I studied the many creases in his jacket. This was unlike him; his suits had always been pressed to perfection. I was often jealous that he took more pride in his clothes than I did my own.

His eyes were on the ground, he had made no attempt to look up at the readers as some sobbed through the prayers for the family, others were the complete opposite. Cool. Calm. Collective.
He had made no attempt to make eye contact with their family priest, even after he acknowledged the family.

The more I watched him, the guiltier I felt. Is this what I had created? Had I taken a piece of him away that day?

I had left. No questions asked. No explanation provided. Just up and left him like the sight of him repulsed me. Like I no longer wanted him to touch me.
But he didn't repulse me, I repulsed myself and was too selfish to stay and work through my issues. It was a shame I hadn't had this revelation before running.
I hated myself for thinking of Jason, for even comparing the two.
Salvatore wasn't Jason, he wasn't even close. He was just a man who acted on my lead, I wanted him, I knew I did. It felt right for the first time in a very long time.

When he had effortlessly picked me up and carried me out of the bathroom that day, I felt the chemistry between us. An unexpected heat ignited within me, it was something I wasn't too familiar with. Something I thought I could never feel again after Jason. I'd never even felt that heat with Jason. I was never ready for Jason, but that never stopped him.

I had wasted so much of my life after him. I let him get to me; I let him pull me away from each and every potential relationship and had allowed him to control me without even knowing it.
He had taken a valuable piece of me that day. He placed it in his back pocket and walked out of my life without a care in the world, as if what he had taken was always his for the taking and I had no choice in the matter.

Now I stand before a man I had a hand in breaking. Completely emotionless, an empty washed up shell dragged thousands of miles across the ocean floor only to end up on a lonely beach wondering why.