The Life: Sacrifice (The Life 3)

But if I keep her with me, it’ll only cause me to doubt myself, to want things I know I can’t and shouldn’t have. But since I’m not planning to go to Sicily until the third day, which will be one day after her coming out, I’ve decided to give her these last few days. I’ll dedicate all my time to her, making sure she has the time of her life so that the blow of my breaking things off won’t be as hard. At least, I’m hoping.

For some reason, one of the hardest things I face is telling my sisters about my plans to break things off with Gianna. They’ve come to love her, I know, and are very protective. And though I know they’d never choose anyone over me, I feel like I’ll be putting them in an awkward position without being able to tell them why I’m doing this.

The twins have no idea about what happened to Ma, and I hope to heaven they never do; it’ll crush them. I don’t even know if they remember that Pop is not my biological father; they never mention it, no one in the family ever does. Come to think of it; I don’t think Gianna even knows. I won’t tell her, or anyone else, because Pop doesn’t like that. He gets very putout if it’s ever mentioned, which no one has since I was about five, I think.

But getting back to Gianna and her relationship with the twins, a relationship I fostered before I made the mistake of taking things too far with her. I can only think of the long run when it comes to that, as selfish as it may seem. By that, I mean that one of the things I’ve decided is that she can’t stay in my life for however long or short this process will be.

Not only because I want to cause her as little pain as possible but because I have no idea what kind of blowback may come my way once I go after these people. I’m not worried about the rest of my family. I don’t plan on getting them involved in any way. But it would be almost impossible to carry on a relationship while simultaneously keeping her hidden on the off chance that Ricci or any of his cohorts decide to come after me.

You see, I already know what I plan to do once I start this, and none of it’s going to be pretty. She’s had enough to deal with in her young life. And though she may not see it now, in the long run, she’d realize that this was the best for all involved. Even though I tell myself that, I still feel like a jerk for the simple fact that I should never have touched her in the first place.

I don’t regret her coming into my life or any of the things I’ve done and am still doing to make her future more secure. But I would be lying if I said I don’t regret letting things go too far between us. There’s no excuse, no way for me to gloss over this shit; I fucked up. So, for the next few days, I’m going to do my best to make it up to her without letting things go any further. In other words, I’m going to try to put distance between us in the nicest way possible in a way that would do the less harm.

“You’re doing it again.”

“What?” We were now pulling into the gates of home after picking up her nighttime ice cream after leaving her dad’s.

“Lately, it seems like you keep going away in your head.”

“Why do you say that?” I honestly wanted to know because I’m sure there’s nothing I do to give myself away. I have too much training for that.

“I can’t really explain it. It’s not anything you do per se, just a feeling I get in the pit of my stomach. Does that make sense?” How the hell should I answer that? I’m not about to lie to her about her feelings, not when they’re true. I just wish I knew how the hell she out of everyone I know, the person I’ve known the least out of those I’ve allowed to get close would know me that well.

“You’re right. I do have something on my mind, but we’ll talk about it later.” Please don’t ask me anything more about it. Just let me show you a good time for the next few days, so I don’t feel like a complete monster when I leave you. Is there any wonder I hate myself sometimes? I have no idea what the hell lives inside of me, other than the fact that I’m half monster.

What other fucked up shit will I do in life if I carried on? It’s one of the things that have plagued me my entire existence, not knowing what all lives inside of me. I could train myself to be a million things. Read all the books in the world, but nothing will ever change my DNA. And my DNA is fucked.