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She needed to think about anything but the hollow spot in her heart She lifted her head and her gaze cae of her grandparents, her parents’ wedding and herself and her two siblings They’d all looked so happy—

“Bianca, they loved you” And then her brother exited the roo the door softly

It was like her brother to cut through everything to get to the heart of the probles? She had her doubts

Bianca paused next to her htstand It was there that she noticed heracross it as a child and herher away She’d asked her mother what she wrote in her journal and hermemorable Her mother didn’t write in it often Her mother had said she liked to reflect upon where she’d co

As a teenager, Bianca had tried keeping a journal of her own, but with two nosey siblings close to her own age, it didn’t go well And when her little sister announced one evening at dinner that Alfio Costa had kissed Bianca after school, she had burned her journal and vowed never to write in one again

She so desperately longed to hear the gentle lilt of her mother’s voice but she couldn’t recall it It was like her mind had erased theher ot what she looked like and their ether?

She knew that she was being overly dramatic, but her emotions at the moment felt amplified She didn’t kno to calers traced over the buttery soft binding Inside were her mother’s final words

Her fingertip traced down over the gold gilded pages Part of her wanted to open the cover and let her mother’s voice speak to her And another part of her said not to do it Whatever ritten within those pages was none of her business The struggle raged within her

At last, she convinced herself a fair coh to hear her e That was all And then she’d put it away

She let the book fall open to a rando Bianca would recognize it anywhere

Her gaze hungrily took in every word Once more, she could hear the lilt of her h she were there in the roo anniversary There wasbetween Bianca’s parents and how her ether again

Bianca read the last lines of the page

Has the past coiven me? Or does he blame me and my child

Blame her? And one of her children? For what?

Not even pausing to consider the right and the wrong of it, Bianca flipped the page

for the affair

Bianca’s breath lodged in her throat Her mother had had an affair? How could that be? Her parents always seemed so much in love How could this have happened?

Bianca dropped onto the edge of the bed, her legs no longer able to hold her up Her rappled to understand the ramifications of this

Knock Knock

The door opened and her younger sister stepped inside “Hey, Enzo said you were up here Everyone is waiting for you The attorney is looking a bit impatientokay, a lot impatient”

Bianca didn’t care about the attorney This news altered everything she thought she knew about her parents—everything she believed about the up to their expectations

“Bianca, what is it?” Her sisterin front of her “I know this is hard for you It’s hard on all of us—”

“It’s not that” She didn’t know if she should say so to her sister about the affair Maybe it was best she just left it alone Was that even possible? This was a bombshell And it would blow apart her family—