The Return of My First Love novel Chapter 80

Emily

I relaxed my body in the hot bath Alessio had prepared for me. He sat beside the tub, running a brush gently through my hair after washing it. It was a sweet gesture, one no one had ever done for me before.

He even brought me a plate of snacks and let me rest without disturbing my peace. All his actions were completely different from the ‘heartless man' who was out to avenge his uncle.

As I rested there, my mind wandered back to the conversation we had about Jason. He was going to kill him, and I was not allowed to interfere. There was nothing about that, that had to be difficult—yet it was.

I was going insane thinking about the reasons why he hadn't shared his plans with me, and this time I had come to another conclusion. Maybe it was because I hadn't given him any reaction when he had promised to kill him.

At that time, I was too shocked to respond. Especially since those words had left his mouth so easily.

Was my silence causing him doubt not to share anything with me?

Did he see me as someone who couldn't handle the idea of revenge or the harsher realities of his world?

"Ales?" I called out softly, asking for his attention.

"Yes, babe?" he responded with a hum.

I sighed, jumping right into the subject we had both been avoiding. "I want you to know that I stand behind you, and whatever Jason got coming for him—he deserves it."

It was a step toward trying to get him to talk about the revenge, and when I repeated it in my head I really meant it, but now that I had said it out loud—it was hard to believe in the statEmilyent I had just made.

Was I really condoning him killing Jason?

"Thanks? What made you say that all of a sudden?" Alessio asked, curious.

I shrugged, though he couldn't see it with my back to him. "I just thought you had to know that," I replied, trying to sound more convincing than I felt.

I looked back for a split second, seeing him nod. He had taken in my words, but speaking about the revenge was still a no-go. That's why I decided to let it go for now.

"Also, I want to thank you for not making it weird when Naty called you Daddy. That was sweet of you."

He let out a low chuckle and kissed my wet hair. No words were needed in that moment for him to explain and for me to understand how he felt.

If he wanted to, he could've told me to have a talk with her to put things straight in case she would call him Daddy again, but he didn't.

He had fully accepted Naty, even while knowing that her birth father was a monster who had killed his uncle, hurt his brother, and nearly killed his dad.

As I thought about all these things, I felt like it was the right moment to tell him about one more fucked-up aspect of my life. At this point in our relationship, there was nothing that could scare him away anymore.

"My mom's name is Daisy-Mae," I finally opened up about the part of my past I had been trying to avoid before Jason. "She drank a lot, and if it wasn't alcohol, it was drugs." The words were heavy, but I didn't beat around the bush.

"Daisy-Mae, you could've fooled me. I would've never thought," Alessio laughed a little. He grabbed my chin for a second, most likely to see if I had the features of someone with a Mom called Daisy-Mae. He then let go of me.

"Does this mean you're ready to talk about your family?"

"Yeah," I murmured, my thoughts still with my mother. "She came from a poor family, grew up in a small town in a trailer park. That's where I grew up until we had to move down the street because she got pregnant with baby number six," I spat out everything all at once, unaware of how good it would feel. "Then baby seven, then baby eight, then nine…with not even a single dollar to take care of any of thEmily."

I might've sounded a bit too aggravated at the last part, but I couldn't help myself. The more I thought about it, the more I realized just how unfair everything had been from the moment Mom decided to give birth to me.

I waited for Alessio to react, but he rEmilyained silent, completely unfazed as he kept brushing through my hair. His silence felt comforting, and gave me the space to continue at my own pace. He let me express my frustrations without calling me crazy or a nagging cunt.

"I got four younger siblings sharing the same dad, and four older siblings sharing the same dad," I told him. "I don't know much about Mom's first husband, but the second one was horrible and somehow turned all my siblings against me."

I took no time to breathe. "But it turned out he was a scammer, so after he left, we were really, really broke. Oh—did I already mention that the four oldest left as soon as they became adults, and I had to collect leftovers from the neighbors so my ungrateful younger siblings could eat while my mom was snorting coke?"

"Shit, that's fucked up!" Alessio reacted for the first time. I could hear the anger in his voice. "And where was your dad in all of this? I rEmilyEmilyber you saying something about him not being there?"

If there was one person in this universe I hated more than Jason…

"He left when I was two. Mom said he packed his bag, turned away and never looked back," I quoted the same words I had heard all my life. Nowadays it didn't sting as much as it used to.