Chapter 26

Ti Auguro

At the end of a long week, Ben and I find ourselves with a free afternoon for the first time since…ever. But that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s peace.

After two months of nonstop planning, the Rose Festival is tomorrow.

My living sculpture gowns are finished. The fountain at the Wishing Rose is running. The grounds look even prettier now than when we were kids. Vero Roseto has been successfully rebuilt, but I can’t shake this horrible sinking feeling that an unexpectedly beautiful chapter in my life is about to close.

Like a rose, this summer bloomed bright, but after tomorrow, everything will start to decay.

Today is the last bittersweet day to enjoy what Ben and I have grown together.

In the basement, on the “good kid” side without all the scary doors, Ben and I sit cross-legged and sift through boxes of memories. At least ten cardboard cartons sit stacked on top of one another in the cupboards next to the children’s books and board games. I run my fingers over an inscription on one of the boxes, written in green Sharpie in childish cursive: Halloween.

The O is colored like a jack-o’-lantern.

“I wrote this!” I say, admiring my fine illustration. Ben pops open the lid, and just as we remembered, it’s filled with children’s costumes. The ratty, gray Rapunzel wig. A wizard’s cloak stitched with patterns of silvery stars. A Jason hockey mask with fake blood smears. A headband that makes it look as if you have a machete going through your skull. We paw through the contents like it’s a time capsule—Ben and I never got to spend Halloweens here, but my grandma kept this box of costumes for us to play with year-round.

“Speaking of costumes…” Ben says coyly, leaping up. “I finally got my outfit for the Rose Festival sorted. Wanna see?”

“Immediately!” I pop up, accidentally kicking the Halloween box as I go.

“Eyes closed.” Ben reaches for my cheek and gently shuts my eyes for me. As Ben spends the next minute loudly rummaging through the games closet, my heart won’t settle. I’m actually nervous he’s going to look too handsome, and it’ll make leaving him even more excruciating.

But when he tells me I can open my eyes, my worries are soothed.

He looks awful!

Ben McKittrick, the handsomest man for miles, wears the most hideous outfit that’s ever existed: a brown velvet tuxedo the exact shade of a UPS truck. The undershirt is ruffled and frilly. The lapels are 1970s wide. And a matching brown ribbon tie, extra fluffy.

It’s Grandpa Angelo’s wedding suit! We thought we lost it.

“STOP,” I say, covering my mouth. “Where did you find it?”

“He gave it to me,” he says proudly. “Before he died. Told me to keep it somewhere safe so it wouldn’t go into the coffin with him. He wanted it still bothering everyone after he was gone.”

“Why’d he give it to you? When…?”

Ben’s smile freezes. “You mean how did I end up with the suit Angelo was wearing the day you banished me from Vero Roseto for a thousand years?” Struck silent, I have to nod. Ben shrugs. “Guess he felt bad for me. I hid it in the Halloween box. Figured nobody would go looking there, since everyone but us was grown up, and you and me were history.”

My jaw hangs open, speechless.

“So, as punishment for convicting me without a trial,” he says, patting those truly awful lapels, “I’m going to wear this and mortify you at your festival.” Giggling, he spins in place. “This was so big on me when we were little, but it actually fits now.”

The fit is impeccable. The brown jacket is so bunchy, and Ben’s chest is so prominent, it looks like he’s wearing an IKEA dresser.

“You and Grandpa were the same size! I don’t believe it!” I say, unable to remove my hands from my mouth as I stare helplessly at the train wreck.

Ben twirls again. “Angelo and me were both tiddied out!”

“Nope! We’re not gonna talk about my grandpa’s tiddies, thank you.” Ignoring me, Ben seductively smooshes his pecs together. “Okay, that’s it! You’re going down!” I leap up and pry the jacket off him as he smacks me away. Before I can pull his arms from the sleeves, Ben twists backward to kiss me.

I kiss back, but each time I do, I hear the toll of grim funeral bells.

Gong.

Soon, Grant. This will all fall apart so soon.

“And your sibs are coming, too,” Ben says. “They’re gonna freak!”

“Totally.” My thoughts still miles away, I laugh hollowly.

Ben sighs wistfully. Good—he didn’t notice my sudden darkening.

I reject your negativity, I tell myself. I hate you, Grant. You’ve stolen every nice moment from me.

My mind says nothing back. It simply plays a little movie from the future: a movie where I’m at school in London, my hands trembling as I try to load my sewing machine. They’re trembling because I’ve just seen Ben’s Instagram of him and his ex in Scotland—and they’re no longer exes.

It’s all so possible, and in the little movie in my head, I spiral and block Ben. But then I change my mind and unblock him, but he’s already seen my block. He’s furious. He’s yelling at me about how he knew my love for him was fake. Then he blocks me.

I never see him again.

In the reality of the basement, Ben—covered in smiles and my grandfather’s ugly suit—pulls out another box. I inspect a row of Nancy Drew books on the shelves behind me, but this is a ruse to brush away a tear while Ben isn’t looking. After a cleansing, centering breath, I return to him. The box is filled with photo albums—some are ancient and frilly, detailing my great-grandmother’s marriage, my grandparents’ marriage, my aunt’s marriage, and obnoxiously, my parents’ doomed marriage; each of the albums’ covers are emblazoned with a rose and the phrase Ti Desiderio in gold filigree script.

Ti desiderio.

I desire you.

An invisible hand wrings my heart like a sponge as I try—and fail—to picture Ben and me in our own Ti Desiderio rose album. The image won’t conjure in my mind, not even for pretend. A thick brain fog prevents it from manifesting.

Ben flips through my grandparents’ album with a faint, dazed smile. “Angelo was so cool. He always made me feel like I was part of the family. I worked in his veggie garden with him once, and he told me that marrying into this family was tough. The Bianchis are hard to crack, and you’re close-knit, so it’s real easy to feel like an outsider. He said that’s why you all need a magic rose to prove you belong with someone, because you only listen to higher powers, not your own hearts.”

Okay, drag me, Grandpa.

But he was right. Actually, he was too right.

I blink, and a serene clarity spills over me. I reach for Ben’s bare knee and stroke its fine, light fuzz. “Why did Angelo tell you that?”

Ben smiles, but can’t meet my eyes. “I think he knew.”

Wave after wave of emotions smash me against the rocks in my head. “I thought…” I suck in a pained breath. “I thought he didn’t know.”

Ben chews his lower lip and keeps staring at the album. “We always think we’ve got ’em fooled, don’t we? C’mon, Grant, I was around so much. People saw. And…after I lost you, I feel like he was trying to help me stay a part of the family.”

Vero Roseto has more spirits in its walls than just Mama Bianchi guiding the fates of her descendants. Angelo has his say, too. He was a cool-headed, understanding builder and farmer, bound by love—not a rose—to care for the wild Bianchis. Like Uncle Paul. Like Ben. Like my dad, who found the responsibility too heavy.

Will Ben join Angelo and Paul? Or will he end up like my dad? Too weak to fight after too many hard years.

The next album isn’t any kinder. It’s newer, hardcover, some kind of shiny plastic vinyl made by Shutterfly. On the cover is a picture of the entire family at one of our barbecues on the deck. Everyone is there. Summer 2018, the cover says in a rainbow-colored font.

“I’ve never seen this,” I say, opening the booklet immediately.

“Me neither,” Ben says, crowding in closer.

Shoulder to shoulder, both of us young boys again, we pore through our old memories, each photo as fierce and poison-dipped as an arrow: Ben and me setting off Roman candles with my siblings; Ben and me with our faces painted after the Valle street carnival; Aunt Ro scream-laughing as Uncle Paul carries her piggyback through the parlor; Grandpa picking tomatoes from his garden; Grandma tickling my nephew, Angelo, who was just a newborn then.

Maybe this album is treating Ben nicer than me, because he can’t stop smiling.

Aunt Ro must have compiled this. She never showed anybody. Did she just make it for herself? Was it so bittersweet that even she had to stash it away with all the other dusty memories?

The next pages answer my question.

In the photos in the back half, my family poses in black suits and dresses. Grandma’s funeral. Next to these, in an oval frame, is a portrait of my grandma on her wedding day—gorgeous and dark-eyed in a white veil. Surrounding the frame, Ro has added rose stickers. This was the picture they used on her casket.

With a pulling at my heart, I remember the chaos of that day. Fighting. Tears and blame. Me against Ben. A. C. against me. Mom against A. C. Dad against Mom. Aunt Ro against Dad.

In the history of the world, I don’t think a family has ever gone from perfect to shattered so fast in a single moment. At least, not of their own self-inflicted wounds.

Grandma would have healed everything. She would’ve stopped us. But she was gone.

These pictures burn worse with my new information, that it was a misunderstanding based on Hutch’s childish lie and my own belief in my curse. I was so frantic at the idea of losing Ben too that I made sure I’d lose him for good. How does that make any sense? If I’d just handled it better, the confusion would’ve cleared, and he might have been back in my life so much sooner. Ben wouldn’t have had to lose my family when he needed an intact home more than anything.

In the basement, today, Ben lovingly plays with the curls on my neck. I shut my eyes on another painful throb.

I have to be strong and do this for us.

“Ben, I can’t lose you again,” I say weakly, my neck collapsing in shame.

“Hey.” Ben swirls his hand across my back. “You’re not gonna.”

I wriggle free of his touch. I can’t let his sweetness stop what I need to do. Ben clocks what I did—he flinches and scoots away, his eyes narrowed in fear. Lightheadedness sweeps over me, and I grip my chest to feel my heart—it’s beating erratically fast.

“What I did to you was awful,” I say.

“I don’t care about—” Ben starts to say desperately, but I cut him off.

“This summer has been a dream. But, like, a dream that doesn’t feel real. Like I’m gonna wake up in my bed in Chicago, and I’m gonna have dreamed the whole thing. It’s making me out of my mind…” I keep my hand on my racing heart. “The summer’s ending. The festival is gonna be over. We’re going separate places, and we need to get real about that.”

Ben laughs nervously and readjusts his cap. “So, what, are you firing me or dumping me?”

Finally, I let myself look at his eyes—eyes that are already heartbroken before I say the terrible words. “We can’t do this right now. Be together.”

Blood drains from Ben’s face as he turns as white as a corpse.

The basement turns silent. Not even a mouse dares to scurry.

“You’re serious.” Ben’s voice shatters me. Not angry, just calm and so, so tired. “After all this? That’s it?”

Ro’s pleas from last night try to reach me, but my cursed mind is stronger: Hurt him now, or I’ll hurt you both so much worse later. Sorry, Ro. I know myself, and I’m doing this to save Ben from me.

I fumble my phone out of my pocket to find my UAL email. “The school I’m applying to is in London. I have to get my career back on track—” Ben stares helplessly. “If we did long distance, and it blew up again, it would kill me.”

“It would kill you?” Quietly, Ben pulls off my grandfather’s suit and returns it to its felt hanger. “You’re worried I would blow it up, so you thought you’d blow it up first. I got that right?”

I don’t need to speak to give Ben his answer.

He stands perfectly still—terrifyingly still. “Are you in love with me?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“I’m in love with you.” Ben slips off his hat and slowly rustles his hair. Everything he’s doing is so calm, so not surprised at what’s happening. “You know that Grant Rule I have? I made a second one. Never told you about it. It was ‘Don’t fall in love with this dickbag.’ ”

I don’t mean to laugh, it just comes out. But Ben isn’t laughing, so I quickly explain: “I had a secret Ben Rule, too! Don’t fall in love with this jerkoff.”

Blessedly, he cracks a smile. But it isn’t comforting. It’s a tired smile.

“Well,” he says, shutting away the horrible suit in the game closet. “I don’t know how you could be in love with me when you’re already in love with someone else.”

“There’s nobody else!” I reach for his hands, but he takes a giant step back.

“I was referring to the lifelong romance between you and your drama.” Ben slips his cap back on. “And there’s no way I’m joining that threesome.”

Sighing, Ben drifts away toward the stairs. I reach for him again, but again, he dodges. Halfway up the stairs, he stops, and hope slips back to me.

“Grant,” he says, his back to me, “I’m not stupid. I knew this was gonna be hard. I just thought you’d trust me this time around, like I was gonna trust you. I thought we were worth trying for, for real. Sucks you don’t agree.”

There have been many insults traded between me and Ben over the years—some playful, some not—but his final insult is so true, so diabolically correct, such a sonic blast, that I’m numb.

I was afraid to lose the game, so I knocked over the board and stopped playing.

As I watch him leave, the only thoughts that come to me are ti desiderio.

I wish for you, Ben. But I don’t do wishes anymore.