With the tips of her fingers she ran her hand over the bleeding heart, swallowing hard as she admired the piece. A sense of pride filled me, seeing her so overawed by something my brother created. But at the same time, I was dreading telling her what everything was about. She was so worried about speaking because she felt she would be judged harshly. I worried that what I’d done in my past would paint me to be someone I wasn’t. And for a minute, I wondered if I should tell her any of it. She might yet be the one to cut and run.

Needing to just go through with it, I walked to the statue that cut me in two. I could hear the padding of Elsie’s feet behind me. I dragged the sheet from the marble and immediately turned away. I heard nothing from Elsie for several minutes. I didn’t turn until I felt gentle fingers on my shoulder. Gentle fingers which were guiding me to face my past.

I did as she wanted, and immediately met her watery gaze. My heart fired waiting for censure, for disgust or something worse; instead, Elsie stood on her tiptoes and pressed her hand against my cheek.

“That was you, as a child?” she asked, searching my face, her blue eyes filled with sympathy.

“Yeah,” I croaked.

Elsie walked back to the sculpture. It was of me, as a kid, holding a gun, with Axel stood behind. Elsie’s hand ran over the boy’s face, tears cascading down her cheek.

Something in me cracked.

Broke.

Shattered.

Because here she was, seeing the real me. She was crying for me. She was breaking her heart for me.

My breathing paused as I watched her staring at my young marble face. Then she pressed her hand to the boy’s cheeks and stroked her thumb along the tear of blood below his eye. “You were so scared,” she said, reading the image correctly, and withdrew her hand to clutch at her chest. Her already soft voice broke and she whispered, “Levi, what have you been through?”

I felt that question rip through to my soul, and I hushed a well-practiced response, “Hell.”

Elsie froze, my head dropped in shame. A crash of thunder clapped above us. I squeezed my eyes shut. It’s just the Roman Gods letting the world know they’re still here, I reminded myself, chasing the shattering memories that peel of thunder evoked. But my sins were being laid bare in this room full of marble, to the only girl I’ve ever been able to speak to, the only one who maybe, just maybe, might be able to understand.

I heard her breathing in front of me first, then I felt her fingers threading through mine. But I didn’t open my eyes. I couldn’t. Something about her standing there, hand on heart, saddened by that sculpture, had undone me. It had broken me to pieces.

Hell, I heard the echo of my voice repeat in my head, that’s what I’d been through.

I felt Elsie’s mouth at my ear. “I have seen Hell too.”

This time my eyes flew open, and Elsie wrapped her arms around my neck. She didn’t ask anything more. She didn’t ask who I’d shot. She didn’t ask who the older guy was, the one pushing me to shoot.

She just… held me, no questions, no conditions.

A flash of lightning lit up the room, followed by the loudest of thunder claps. But I held Elsie tightly, refusing to let her go. I held her, and for the first time, I felt something within me begin to stitch together. Felt the weight of my past lessen some. Felt the nightmare of being in that gang, of living in that time, lift a little—because of this girl in my arms.

I breathed in the coconut scent of Elsie’s hair; in and out, in and out, until she gently pulled back, her soft hands running down my chest. I could see she had no idea what to say to me.

But I had one last thing to say to her, or show her. Taking hold of her wrists, I gently pushed her back and guided her to the final sculpture, the one I brought her here to see.

Elsie was silent, of course she was. But I knew this time it was because she could feel the sheer weight of my pain.  She felt what showing her this sculpture meant to me.

Releasing my grip on one of her wrists, I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out the rosary that Elsie had taken by mistake, but brought me back. I ran the wooden beads through my hands and immediately felt the coldness of our old trailer, yet also the warm loving hands of Mamma singing to me in her perfect soprano pitch, stroking my hair and rocking me to sleep.

“Levi?” Elsie’s hoarse sweet little voice pulled me round, and I realized I had been standing still, rooted to the spot. I realized my hands were shaking. I realized my eyes had blurred with tears.

I glanced down at Elsie and saw the compassion on her face. Lifting my hand, I ran it down her soft cheek, and said, “I asked you what you thought was the most beautiful thing in your world.” My hand dropped to the locket around her neck and I ran the tip of my finger over the delicate object. Elsie swallowed and inhaled a low pained breath. “It was your mamma,” I said. Elsie’s eyes squeezed together and she nodded her head.

“I don’t know how you lost her, Elsie, but I know what it feels like to lose the one person that’s your world too young.” I nodded my head. “I know what it’s like to feel a piece of your soul break away… I know what it’s like for a hole to form in your heart, and never seal itself shut because you had no time with them. Cheated from getting to know them as an adult.”

Elsie’s tears fell down her cheeks; I backed away. To nature’s pyrotechnic show of light, and its soundtrack of thunder, I pulled back the sheet, hearing Elsie gasp behind me.

I didn’t look up. I wasn’t sure I could right now.

Elsie walked past me. I saw her in my peripheral vision. She stared up at the angel, at all I had left of my mamma.

I breathed in and out, waiting for the strength to lift my eyes. But I wasn’t sure I could do it. I wasn’t sure I could ever find the courage. The rosary beads dug into my skin with the strength that I held them. Suddenly, Elsie was in front of me. The expression on her face was one I’d never seen before. Elsie’s hand fell to mine and she hooked a single finger around mine.

I stared down at those fingers, and she whispered, “You’re mom was beautiful.”

Pain sliced through me, and I fought to see her healthy in my head. But the memories didn’t come. The only memories that filtered into my mind were of her lying paralyzed in bed, with her sad, dark eyes watching helplessly as our lives fell apart. All I remembered was the day I came home with the Stidda on my left cheek—the Heighter mark confirming I’d taken my first shot at a rival King—and the pain that echoed on her broken stare. This was the stare that replayed in my head each night. That and—

“What happened, Levi?” Elsie asked quietly.

My breathing labored, as Elsie let me go. She walked to the side of the angel sculpture that saw my mamma broken and lost, her body dying, face wracked in pain. But what broke me most was Elsie dropping to her knees before my mamma’s cupped hands, black ash in her palms, drawn by death’s insistent pull.

The sight of the girl I was losing my heart to, kneeling before the woman with the already shattered heart, began to overpower me. Elsie reached out her trembling hand and cupped my mamma’s frail cheek. Elsie’s bottom lip quivered, then her gaze fell to me.

“ALS,” I rasped, now overcome with emotion by the unfolding scene. “She died slowly and painfully. She died before our very eyes, day by day, minute by minute, but—”