My body was back in the clinic room, but part of me was still in his bedroom under that poster, pinned by my mother’s smile.
Sometimes I wonder if she knew. If in that frozen smile, she recognized what her daughter would walk into years later—the same charm, the same trap wearing intellect like a mask. I want to hate her for leaving me with her face, but I can’t. I only hate the way he used it.
My phone buzzed. Leaving in an hour to come get you! Finally!— from Luisa.
I typed: Clinic is providing transport. I’ll text when I’m home? The lie tasted like coins.
Oh… okay. Are you alright—came fast.
Packing should have taken ten minutes. It took an hour because I kept losing time to the mirror. Everything fit in one small bag. I was leaving with less than I’d brought—less weight, less hope, less of myself.
Every time I looked at my reflection, I tried to recognize the girl who had arrived—excited, nervous, full of ridiculous trust. She’s gone. The person staring back knows what silence costs. She knows the shape of fear when it wears someone else’s perfume.
In the hallway the day-shift greeted me with unwanted attention.
“Oh! Isabella, you changed your hair!”
“Wanted to try something new,” I said.
“It suits you. Very sophisticated.”
Compliments felt like tiny knives wrapped in ribbon.
If they knew what this color meant, they’d choke on the word ‘sophisticated.’ It isn’t style—it’s camouflage. Every strand is a disguise, dyed to match the woman who made him look twice.
At breakfast I pushed a fork through fruit I couldn’t taste. A nurse touched my arm. “You look exhausted, cara. Are you alright?”
“Just ready to go home.”
How do you tell someone you’ve aged ten years in three weeks? That every blink feels heavier because there’s a whole memory behind it you can’t unsee?
Signora Giulietta found me by the stairs. “Bella! You’re leaving! You looked so beautiful last night.”
“Thank you for your help, Signora.”
“It was my honor. Your mother would be so proud.”
The words stabbed deeper than any accusation could. Proud. If she saw what I’ve become—the stillness, the pretending, the politeness polished into armor—would she still call me her daughter? Or just another ghost in her likeness?
At ten, Ferraro orchestrated a sendoff in the main hall. Staff gathered.
“Isabella has been exceptional,” he said—“a credit to her family and her future university.”
He handed me a certificate and a sealed recommendation. Applause. A phone flashed. I stood beside him and smiled because refusing would turn the crowd into questions.
My smile felt like someone else’s mouth moving. Every clap was a nail. I could almost hear the camera’s click—the same mechanical sound that lived in my nightmares now.
He walked me to the waiting car with the choreography of a mentor—arm around my shoulders. At the door, where no one could hear, he leaned close.
“I’ll call your father next week. I look forward to visiting.” His fingers slid through my dark hair. “Perfect. Just like her.” A quick kiss to my cheek.
I folded into the back seat. The driver pulled away, the tires hummed. For ten minutes I held, then the dam failed.
I cried the kind of cry that empties the lungs. The driver checked the mirror, then let the road handle us both. I cried most of the drive—gasping until the vineyards of home stitched the horizon and my body ran out of salt.
Each tear felt like proof that I still existed. That I hadn’t dissolved completely into obedience. Maybe survival isn’t strength. Maybe it’s just continuing to breathe when everything inside begs to stop.
We turned up our drive at noon. Papa rushed from the doorway. He opened the door, saw me, and froze.
“Bella?” he said, like he wasn’t sure.
His eyes went to the hair first. He looked at Gianna. At his dead wife.
“Tesoro… your hair…” He couldn’t finish. He hugged me hard.
I stayed limp.
“Are you alright? What happened?”
“I’m tired, Papa. I need to rest.”
In the kitchen, the clock ticked too loudly. “The internship… how was it?”
“Fine.”
“Dr. Ferraro took good care of you?”
The name scraped. “Yes.”
“Bella, you’re scaring me.”
“I just need to shower. Please.”
Upstairs, I locked the bathroom door, turned the water up and scrubbed until my skin felt unfamiliar, and washed my hair again. The dye didn’t move—the mirror gave me Gianna, not Bella.
If I peel off enough layers, maybe I’ll find her—the girl who laughed easily, who trusted without flinching. But the mirror keeps giving me a stranger with my mother’s eyes, and I don’t know which of us is haunting whom.
My fingers found the scissors. I didn’t plan, just cut. Chunks fell into the sink—dark, uneven. When I looked up, my mother still stared back. Now she simply had bad hair. I slid to the tile and let the sobbing happen.
Eventually the tears thinned. I dressed and went to my room. Papa knocked. “Can I come in?”
“Not now, Papa.”
His footsteps receded.
I went to the window to breathe. Matteo was a moving shape in the garden—shoulders I know from childhood. I wanted to run to him and I wanted to hide. I closed the curtains and locked my bedroom door for the first time in my life. I nudged a chair under the handle.
On the bed my phone lit the ceiling.
Home safe, Isabella? Rest well—From Ferraro. Normal. Casual. Not like the man who had whispered my mother’s name against my skin.
I typed nothing, breathed, and counted to ten, the way Papa taught me during storms. He always said numbers could steady the mind. Uno, due, tre… I used to believe safety was something you could count to. But there’s no number high enough to erase what he took.
Tomorrow, Luisa. Tomorrow, Matteo. Tomorrow, a performance: the girl who left three weeks ago, back from a respectable month, intact and bright. Yet, that girl is gone.
What remained was a person with my mother’s face who couldn’t tell her father the truth because the truth lived inside photographs he must never see. A person who had learned how easily a man’s charisma could wear a doctor’s coat, how quickly professional language became a screen.
Papa called my name from downstairs, hopeful and careful at once. I swallowed a new cry and answered, “Coming,” to keep the house from breaking.
I opened the curtains an inch and watched the garden breathe. Matteo stopped and looked toward the window like he felt the gaze. I stepped back into the dim, pressed my palms together, and asked the ceiling—in a voice Mama used for prayers nobody heard—for one ordinary day.
I was home. But I had never escaped at all.