The day started soft, like it didn't know what was coming.
The sun had risen higher, scattering light across the balcony where I sat with my notebook, the sound of waves folding gently against the shore below. Marco had gone into town to get breakfast, leaving me with the kind of silence that usually soothed me. But today, it felt different — too still, like the world was holding its breath.
I was flipping through my notebook when something slipped out from between the pages — a folded envelope, yellowed at the edges. I frowned. It wasn't mine. The handwriting across the front was neat but old, written in ink that had started to fade:
"To Matteo Rossi."
Marco's father.
My pulse skipped. I shouldn't have opened it — I knew that — but something inside me whispered you have to.
The paper was brittle, fragile with time. The first line hit like a fist to the chest.
Matteo, if you're reading this, it means I couldn't come back. You were right — they found out about her.
Her.
I read it again, slower this time, my eyes tracing every shaky word.
You told me to run, to take my family and disappear before they got to her. I never wanted to leave Isabella, but you said it was the only way. You said it was the only way to keep her safe.
My breath caught.
Isabella.
The room seemed to tilt, the sea blurring beyond the balcony rail. My father's name was scrawled at the bottom.
I felt my throat close. For a moment I just sat there, the letter trembling in my hand, every memory of my childhood flashing through me — my father's goodbye, the silence that followed, my mother's pain, the years of hating him for leaving us.
And now this.
He hadn't left because he didn't care.
He'd left because of them.
Because of Marco's father.
The door opened behind me. I didn't turn right away. Marco's footsteps were light, careful, like he could already sense the shift in the air.
"Hey," he said softly. "They were out of croissants, so I got—"
He stopped when he saw my face. "Issa?"
I looked down at the letter, then back up at him. "Why did you never tell me your father knew mine?"
His brows furrowed, confusion flickering into unease. "What are you talking about?"
I handed him the letter. His eyes scanned it, color draining from his face.
"I found it in your things," I said quietly. "He wrote to your father. My dad. He left because of yourfamily, Marco."
He shook his head slowly, reading again, like maybe the words would rearrange into something less painful. "Issa… I didn't know. I swear I didn't."
"You didn't know your father was involved with mine?" I asked, voice trembling. "You didn't know that he's the reason my dad left? That I grew up thinking he didn't want me—?"
"Stop." His voice cracked, low but raw. "I didn't know, Issa. My father—he never talked about the past. He hid things from me too."
I stood, the sea roaring louder now though the waves hadn't changed. "You told me everything was behind us. That we were free of it."
"I thought we were."
"Then why does it feel like it's still haunting us?"
He reached for me, but I stepped back. The letter crumpled in my fist, my heartbeat pounding in my ears.
"All this time," I whispered. "All this time I hated him for leaving… and it turns out he was protecting me from something your father started."
Marco looked like the ground had disappeared beneath him. "Issa, please—let me find out what happened before you decide what it means."
But I couldn't hear him anymore. The words, the years, the hurt — they all collided inside me until there was nothing left but the ache of betrayal and the faint, awful truth that maybe love wasn't enough to keep ghosts buried.
I turned toward the sea, eyes stinging. The waves kept moving, steady, endless — like they didn't care what secrets we unearthed.
For the first time in a long time, I didn't know where we stood.
Or who we were without the lies.