I don't think I ever did anything wrong to you."
Those words floated through the freezing air like a ghost, drowned out only by the incessant wail of the sirens. The ambulance's blue and red lights cut through the darkness of the street, painting the puddles on the wet asphalt with violet reflections.
Cristiano was only eleven years old. He stood at the edge of the sidewalk, his hands buried deep inside the pockets of an oversized hoodie that hung loosely from his thin shoulders. His short, messy blond hair fell over his forehead, almost completely covering his eyes.
A police officer broke away from the group of paramedics and approached him with heavy steps, stopping only a few inches away from him. His expression was shattered by the weight of the horrific scene unfolding before them.
"They got him. I'm very sorry," the officer said, shaking his head in resignation, his voice trembling slightly. "But I don't know how we can save him."
Cristiano remained motionless.
His face didn't twitch.
There was no scream, no reckless movement. He simply turned himself into a rigid, cold, almost inhuman armor.
"Serves him right," he whispered, his voice flat and venomous, sharp as a shard of broken glass.
Then he slowly turned toward the stretcher the paramedics were struggling to push toward the ambulance's rear doors.
He looked at Cristian's figure lying beneath the stained sheet, his head tilted to one side, his face pale.
And in that moment, behind the mask of contempt Cristiano had forced onto his face so he wouldn't collapse into a thousand pieces, an invisible crack appeared.
A pain so devastating, a disappointment so indescribable that it suffocated him.
His "hatred" was nothing more than the most desperate and purest form of his betrayed love—the shield of a child who had just watched the only hero he had ever had be destroyed.
Cristiano looked straight into the officer's eyes, maintaining the icy distance he needed just to remain standing.
"I'd like to tell you more," the eleven-year-old boy said, clenching his teeth so hard they almost hurt, "but I hate him."
Time slipped away like water through his fingers, leaving nothing behind but ashes.
The metallic click of a lighter broke the silence of a dark alley.
Thick, gray smoke from a cigarette slowly rose into the air, curling around Cri's fingers. Sitting on the cold concrete step outside a closed bar, Cri watched the filter slowly burn between his fingers.
Beside him sat Giulio.
His curly hair fell messily across his forehead, while his large green eyes watched Cri's profile with patience and the gentle concern of a brother.
"Well... he's your brother," Giulio said quietly, breaking the suffocating silence with a cautious tone, almost afraid of touching an open wound.
Cri brought the cigarette to his lips, took a deep, bitter drag, and then exhaled a cloud of white smoke into the night.
"So?" Cri spat, his voice dry, distant, rigid.
But the barrier lasted only for a moment.
A second later, the tension holding his shoulders together suddenly collapsed. Cri bent forward, dropped the cigarette butt onto the ground, and covered his face with both hands, burying his head in them as if he could hide from the entire world.
"After Maia lost... after she became depressed and left, he fell apart," Cri murmured from behind his fingers, his voice broken, trembling with anger and uncontrollable sadness. "He went back to drugs. Again. Worse than before. He stopped being that genuine boy... he threw away every single promise he made to me under that streetlight. He destroyed himself, Giulio. He chose to destroy himself."
Cri clenched his right hand into a fist with brutal force, digging his fingernails into his palm until his knuckles turned white.
A suffocating knot rose from his chest and lodged itself in his throat.
"A father..." he hissed through his teeth, remembering Cristian's words, his gaze, his hand running through his hair. "He said he wanted to be a father to me..."
Tears broke through his eyelashes, sliding hot and silently down his cheeks and onto his fingers.
Cri finally began to cry.
It was a quiet, visceral, ancient kind of crying, carrying with it abandonment, longing, and the weight of a grief he had never been able to process.
"Why..." Cri sobbed, shaking his head at nothing, his voice breaking between coughs. "Why?"
He frantically wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve before looking up at Giulio.
There was no hatred left in his blue eyes.
There was only the desperation of a boy who felt as though the weight of the entire world had been placed upon his thin shoulders.
"Even if I didn't save anyone," Cri said, raising his voice into a pleading, heartbreaking surrender that tore at his lungs, "I still feel like I'm supposed to! Giacomo... Ema... and him!"
Giulio watched him in silence.
There was no judgment in his large green eyes. No shallow pity.
There was only the unwavering presence of someone who had chosen to stay.
Without saying a word, Giulio leaned toward him, reached out an arm, and placed a warm, steady, reassuring hand on Cri's shoulder, squeezing it firmly.
"It's okay," Giulio said softly, his voice as gentle as a blanket in the night.
"It's okay, Cri."