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Chapter TAL
Chapter 141
her home Teli wing
The villa, which had been warn and loud just days ago for Mateo’s birthday, now felt hollow Every sound echoed. Every footstep felt too loud against the marble floors.
Alexia walked beside me slowly, supported more by my arm than her own strength. She was pale, and fragile, smaller
Her parents followed behind us in silence.
No one spoke during the drive home, not even small talk.
The only sound had been the low hum of the engine and the kind of silence that follows something irreversible.
When we reached the house, Maria opened the door quietly and stepped aside. Even she seemed to sense the shift in atmosphere.
Alessia didn’t look at anyone.
She didn’t look at the house.
She didn’t look at the stairs where she had fallen.
Her gaze stayed fixed on nothing, like she was already somewhere else.
I helped her upstairs carefully.
She sat on the edge of her bed and just stayed there unmoving, hands folded in her lap, eyes unfocused.
Her mother knelt in front of her.
“Alessia,” she whispered gently. “Do you want some soup?”
No response.
Her father stood by the window, jaw tight, eyes watching everything.
“I’m not hungry,” Alessia finally said.
Her voice was flat, emotionless, hollow.
Her mother tried again. “You need to eat something.”
“What’s the point?” Alessia murmured.
The words hit me harder than I expected.
“What do you mean?” I asked carefully.
She looked up at me then, and the emptiness in her gaze made something inside me twist.
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Chapter 144
There’s outing, she said sofily. It’s gone.
Her hand drifted to her stomach unconsciously.
“My body failed,” she whispered “I failed”
“You didn’t fail,” I said immediately,
But she didn’t seem to hear me.
She just stared ahead again.
Her parents exchanged a worried look.
This wasn’t just grief.
This was something darker.
Later that evening, when dinner was brought upstairs, she refused again.
“I don’t want it.”
“Alessia,” her mother insisted gently.
“No.” Her voice sharpened slightly.
I dismissed everyone else quietly.
“Leave it,” I said. “I’ll handle it.”
When the room emptied, I sat beside her with the bowl.
“Just a little,” I said.
Silence.
I scooped a spoonful and held it near her lips.
For a moment, I thought she wouldn’t open her mouth at all.
Then, slowly, mechanically, she did.
She swallowed without tasting.
I fed her another spoonful, and another.
She stopped after four bites.
“I’m tired.”
She lay down and turned away from me.
I stared at the back of her head for a long moment.
She looked so breakable, barely a shell of the woman she once was.
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Downstairs, her parents were speaking in low tones.
“She cannot stay like this,” her mother said, voice strained. “She won’t survive it
“We should take her home.” her father added. “Where she is comfortable”
“She’s too weak to travel right now,” I said.
“And she refused,” her mother whispered. “She said she doesn’t want to leave”
They both looked torn.
“We’ll wait a few days,” her father decided. “But this is not healthy.”
I nodded.
It wasn’t.
The entire house felt like it was holding its breath.
Isabella moved carefully through the evening.
She helped Caterina to bed, checked on Mateo, and spoke softly to Maria, giving her appropriate instructions.
She tried to bring tea upstairs once.
Alessia’s mother stopped her at the door.
“She doesn’t need you,” she said coldly.
Isabella didn’t argue. She simply nodded and stepped back.
I saw it happen. I saw the restraint in her posture, the way she swallowed whatever she wanted to say. And when I moved towards them, she caught my arm lightly.
“Don’t,” she murmured.
“They have no right-”
“It’s grief,” she said quietly. “Let them.”
It infuriated me anyway.
Later that night, when the house had grown quiet, I found Isabella in the living room.
She was sitting on the couch, staring at nothing. I sat down beside her.
“I don’t like how they’re treating you,” I said bluntly.
She shrugged faintly. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine.”
“It’s understandable.”
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Chapter
“Okay
in Ard you
at me for a long texund. Then the newitert
The simplicity of it softened something in me
We sat there in silence for a moment
“I’m worried about her.” I admitted.
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