In the years since those cops dragged Bruno away from me and threw him in prison, I have turned into a major workaholic. Sure, for the first few weeks after he was sentenced, it was all I could do to pull my ass out of bed. I shut down completely, refusing to speak to anyone for a while. Rafaela, Nico, and my mom all did their best to accommodate my wallowing in self-pity, at least for a week or so. They brought me meals in bed: chicken soup, poppy seed bagels with my favorite veggie cream cheese, tubs of low-fat ice cream. Rafaela sat in bed with me and watched soap operas, both of us silent except for the crunch of popcorn or sips of wine. But I don’t think any of them expected me to be that heartbroken for so long. My life was on hold, and it felt wrong for me to try and keep living as though nothing had changed.

Because everything had changed.

How was I supposed to focus on work when the love of my life was wasting away behind bars, probably getting beat to hell by other inmates and probably even the prison guards. God knows the cops have an axe to grind against him, and I’m sure they took every opportunity to knock him down a peg, legally or illegally. So for those first few weeks, I was useless. I stopped living. I had to be coerced into the shower, encouraged to eat, persuaded to change out of my bathrobe. If a psychiatrist had come to see me, she would have definitely ticked off all the boxes under “depression” and probably given me some pill meant to perk me up and give me a false sense of purpose again. In fact, at one point late in my wallowing period, I overheard my mother in the hallway talking on the phone with someone in a hushed tone.

The tone of her voice made me curious enough to creep out of bed and press my ear against the bedroom door to listen. It sounded something like this:

“Yes. Oh, no, I’m not the patient. I’m calling on behalf of my daughter. No, she’s not a minor. She’s twenty-three. Yes, I am aware that she’s an adult, but this is very serious and I know she isn’t going to help herself. She’s... she’s too far gone, you see. I-I’m very worried about her. She’s not herself anymore and I don’t know what else to do. Yes. Thank you. Okay. I understand. I’ll hold for the psychiatrist.”

There was a long pause, and I could feel my heart sinking down to the floor. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what was going on. My mom was trying to get me help the only way she knew how. And it may not seem like a big deal to most people, but my mother has always been staunchly anti-psychiatry. She’s old-fashioned and stubborn and she thinks it’s all a bunch of witch doctor stuff. I, of course, disagree. I think someone’s mind can be sick just as much as someone’s stomach can be sick. It’s all the same. But for my mother to overcome her ridiculous prejudice and actually call a mental health clinic on my behalf… well, that was more than enough to convince me that I was truly frightening everyone around me. I had allowed myself to slip so deeply into my own darkness that I forgot about all the people around me who still cared, who had to keep on going even though they were worried about me.

Besides, I knew deep down it wasn’t my mind that was sick, it was my heart.

So that day, I slipped out of my room and walked up to my mom with an apologetic look on my face. She looked shocked to see me out of bed by my own choice, and I mouthed at her, “You don’t have to do that,” pointing at the phone. She nodded and hung up before the psychiatrist could even get there and take her off hold.

“Serena, we’re worried about you,” my mother said softly. I could see tears shining in her eyes, which was a rare sight. My mom may have grown up a spoiled mafia princess, but when my father died she became even colder and tougher than anyone could have predicted. So when she cried, it was really serious. I gave her a hug.

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m going to try and be better from now on, okay?” I assured her.

“You don’t have to go through this alone,” she told me. I nodded and forced a smile.

“Yeah. I know,” I replied quietly. Then I perked up, which took great effort, and added, “Okay, well, I’m sure I smell terrible. I’m going to take a shower and grab some lunch, then head down to the shop to do some damage control.”

I arrived at Bathing Beauty to find my accounts in disarray, the floor and shelves needing to be cleaned, expired products needing to be moved out and replaced with fresher ones. I set to work immediately, throwing all the energy I’d been spending on sorrow into a new project: cleaning up my life. And I’ve been working nonstop ever since. In fact, I have to admit that focusing all my frustration into work has kind of become my new addiction, but at least it’s a productive one. At least I’m no longer lying in bed, drowning in despair. It could be worse.

So I spend as much time as possible at Bathing Beauty during the weekdays, clocking in at dawn and staying overtime whenever possible. The shop is so clean it sparkles, and I’ve reorganized the books and logs a million times. With my newly-attuned attention to detail and superhuman work ethic, the shop is flourishing. I think my customers have all told everyone they know about my shop or something, because things are going great. The bestsellers are flying off the shelves as always, but now even the less-popular products are in high demand. I’ve even hired a second worker to help me out, a high school student named Naomi who works at the shop after school. By all accounts, I should be proud of myself. I’ve taken a failing business and turned it into a success.

People are buzzing about Bathing Beauty, and I’m finally doing way more than just breaking even.

But I can’t be happy. Not really. Bathing Beauty is just the receptacle for my pent-up energy, where I go to dump all my sadness and frustration and loneliness. I spend hours in the back kitchen testing out new scents, new textures and colors. I’m bouncy and charismatic in the shop front, chatting with customers, making connections. But it’s all a show. It keeps me from losing my mind during the week, but we’re not quite at the point where we can handle being open all week long, so I still have Sunday and Monday every week left open to mope and fixate on the dire darkness of my situation. Of Bruno’s situation.

Today is Sunday, and I’m sitting at the vintage desk in my bedroom, my pen hovering over a letter I’m writing to Bruno. I write him every day. Every single day, whether I’ve just worked a thirteen-hour shift or not, I come home and sit here to hammer out another letter to my long-lost love. I have no idea if he’s even getting any of these. I never get a response. For all I know, the guards or cops have confiscated every one of my letters to him. They could be locked away in some filing cabinet, in a manila folder marked EVIDENCE. I’ve tried to visit him, but they won’t let me see him. I have no idea what he looks like these days. Hell, in my darkest moments it occurs to me that he could be dead, and I would have no idea.

But something tells me I would know. I would feel it. Something in the air would smell different, feel different. The sun wouldn’t shine as brightly. The birds wouldn’t sing as sweetly. My heart would be even heavier than it already is.

I would know.

And so, despite the lack of a response, I keep dutifully writing letters. Sometimes it almost reminds me of how I felt years and years ago, when I first met Bruno as a teenager. When I used to send him text messages to his burner phone, hoping against hope I would get an answer that never, ever came. I wonder how much of my life will be spent waiting on Bruno, sending messages that get no response. It’s a depressing fate, I know, but something keeps me from giving up. I can’t give up. Bruno may be far away, and there may be a gigantic brick wall between us, but I know in my heart he’s still there, and as long as he’s on this planet I will never give up.

A teardrop falls from my eye and dampens the page, swelling the inky words into an unreadable blob. I groan and push the letter away, swiping at my eye angrily. I’ll have to start over.

But first I need to take a break. This is really starting to get to me. “God, I hate weekends,” I whisper to myself. I should take a walk. That might clear my mind.

I get up and walk across the room to my closet, pulling a sweater out and slipping it over my head. It’s been getting a little chilly in the afternoons lately, and I don’t have time to catch a cold. Bathing Beauty needs me. And I need the work to keep me sane. On the way down the hallway I stop by my mother’s room and knock on the door. She looks up from her iPad and gives me a smile. It’s still so weird sometimes to see her trying to be more affectionate, but I think after watching me fall into that depression two years ago, she’s realized it might be beneficial for both of us to be a little softer. After all, she has some idea what I’m feeling. She lost a husband when I lost my father.

“Going somewhere?” she asks, cocking her head to one side.

I nod. “Yeah, just out for a short walk to clear my head. What do you want for dinner tonight? We could get takeout. I’ve been craving orange chicken lately. What do you think?”

“Sounds fine to me, sweetheart,” she replies. “Be careful out there, it’s getting dark soon.”

“Okay mom.”

“Remember, text me X if you’re in trouble.”

“I will,” I answer. “Bye.”

“See you later,” she says, going back to whatever she’s doing on that iPad.

I jog down the stairs and out the front door, locking it behind me. The late afternoon air is crisp and cool, and I can feel autumn blowing in. It’s the time of year that makes me feel sentimental. Nostalgic. I think about the jitters of classes starting back up, the anticipation of holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. But these days, it’s an empty feeling. Those expectations of a warm, love-filled holiday season fall flat when I remember everything I’ve lost. My father. Bruno. It’s just my mom and me now. Sure, there’s Rafaela and Nico, too, but they’re a couple. They have their own hectic lives to deal with. And sometimes seeing them together, how happy they are, how much they love each other, it just makes me sadder.

I wish I still had all of that. Hope. Love. A future I could look forward to.

But my life is on hold for eight more long, lonely years.

I sigh and shove my hands into my pockets to stay warm as I walk down the long driveway and turn onto the street. The trees are in full bloom, all jade green and white flowers. It’s beautiful here in Riverdale, and I’m grateful that I’ve been able to save the house. My father’s legacy. Well, what’s left of it, at least. I can rest assured that my dad would be proud of me for holding it all together here, for taking care of mom. When I walk around this neighborhood, I remember how badly he wanted to move us here, give me a more comfortable, safe place to live. It’s easy to feel close to him again when I think about it.

But I have no way of feeling close to Bruno. Sure, I met him for the first time in what is now my backyard, but our relationship has fallen apart and come back together so many times that it feels fractured now. And besides, it’s too painful to relive our memories together even now. It’s been two years since they took him away, and it still breaks my heart every day. He shouldn’t be in there. It isn’t right.

Just then, I hear the squeal of tires and smell burning rubber. I swivel around in surprise. This is such a quiet neighborhood that anything out of the ordinary sticks out like a sore thumb. I scarcely have a chance to react before a big black car jerks to a stop right next to me. My stomach flip-flops as I realize I’m in danger. I turn to run, but two broad-bodied people grab me by the arms and wrangle me into the car, slipping some kind of bag over my head.

I start to struggle, trying to scream, but no sound will come out. I can hear the engine roaring back to life as the car takes off from my abduction spot, moving quickly away from my home and safety. I finally manage to squeak out, “What is this? Who are you? Let me go!”

“This is for your own good,” says a male voice to my left. He has some kind of accent, but it’s so faint I can’t recognize it.

“Yeah, fucking right,” I swear, lifting my hands to try and remove the bag from over my head. But my arms get pinned back down by powerful hands, then bound behind my back.

“Please. Calm down,” says a second deep voice, this one on my right.

“Calm down? I’m being kidnapped! I’m not going to be calm! Who are you working for? Who sent you? Where the hell are you taking me?” I shout.

The first voice speaks again: “You’re going somewhere safe. Nobody knows you’ve been taken. And it’s better that you don’t see where we’re headed.”

“I guess I don’t have any other choice, do I?” I snarl, settling back against the seat.

“No. You don’t,” says the second voice calmly.

I decide it’s better to save my energy. There’s not a damn thing I can do about this right now, and the more I struggle, the more likely my captors will do something worse to me. I’ve been under duress enough times by now to know the importance of picking my battles wisely. Besides, there isn’t much fight left in me these days anyway. Without Bruno, nothing seems to matter all that much.

We ride in silence for a long time, possibly hours. With the bag over my head, I can’t even tell if it’s light or dark, but I assume it’s dark. Finally, the car rolls to a stop and my heart starts to race. I can smell something… water. Salty, briny water. The doors open and someone grabs me, dragging me out of the car and forcing me to walk beside them. I can hear water sloshing, the distant cry of seabirds. Where the fuck are we? Is this some kind of sick execution?

Am I about to be pushed into the water to drown? Is this some sleeping with the fishes cliché?

I start to turn and try and run away, but the arms holding me are strong, and I can’t go anywhere. I cry out as loud as I can, but the bag muffles my voice, and something tells me there is nobody around to hear me scream anyway. We walk for a while, the cold, humid air sending shivers down my body. Then, someone scoops me up in their arms out of nowhere, and lowers me down into what feels like… a boat. A small boat of some kind.

“What the hell is this?” I murmur. There’s no answer. “Tell me what is going on!” I scream.

Quickly, someone wraps an arm around my head, covering my mouth. Someone holds me still while another person jabs an arm up inside the bag, stuffing a wadded-up cloth into my mouth. I cough and gag, flailing as much as I can, but it doesn’t change anything. These guys are stronger than me, and I don’t know how many there are, but I am definitely outnumbered.

“Sorry about the gag. It’s for your own good,” the first voice says.

My shoulders sag as I just give up. I can’t move. I can’t scream. I might as well just wait for whatever cruel fate these guys have in store for me. There is the distinct sensation of the boat being pushed into deeper water, then the sound of oars chopping the waves. Are we rowing out to sea? What the hell is going on?

I sit there, freezing and stiff in the boat for god knows how long. The rocking of the boat makes me feel a little nauseous, and I focus all my energy on not throwing up, because I have a gag in my mouth. I don’t know if that would kill me, but if so, it seems like a horrible way to die. So I just force myself to think about other things. Accounts at work. Whether or not to hire a third worker. New products I would like to try out in the test kitchen.

And I think about this for… a long time. Until finally there is the nudge of the boat breaching the sand of another shore. Or at least I assume it’s a different shore. For all I know, we could have been rowing in circles for hours, only to return to where we started. The men force me to get up, then they carefully lift me out of the boat and onto dry land. They walk me several steps forward, away from the water, and then to my immense shock they pull the bag off my head and take out the gag. I blink in the darkness, my eyes slowly adjusting. A dense forest begins to materialize in front of me and I stare into it in confusion. Then I look around to see the men who brought me here. Tall, broad-shouldered guys. They all look fairly young, around my age, and they have slightly apologetic looks on their faces.

“We’ve got a bit of a walk,” one of them tells me, and I recognize his voice as the second one who spoke in the car. “Let’s get started.”

Wordlessly, I follow them through the woods, carefully climbing through scratchy underbrush and hoping I don’t run into any spider webs in the dark. Finally, after several minutes of trekking, we come to a building— what seems to be an old, slightly dilapidated house. It looks abandoned, with nature beginning to reclaim it as vines grow over it.

“Come on,” says another man, the owner of the first voice who spoke to me earlier. We walk around back to a cellar door in the ground. He flings it open to reveal a rickety staircase. I swallow hard. This looks very much like I’m walking into a horror movie or something. I have no idea what awaits me down there, but I have a strong feeling it isn’t anything good.

The men prod me forward and I reluctantly sigh and start to climb down the stairs, deep down into this basement in the middle of nowhere. To my surprise, when I reach the bottom, I’m standing in a big room full of expensive-looking vintage furnishings, all lit by a bright standing floor lamp across the room. “What the hell…” I murmur, trying to take it all in.

Then I see him. A tall, dark figure walking out of the shadows to stand in the center of the basement. He looks a little haggard and rugged, with his muscles even bigger than before, his hair longer and scraggly. But it’s him. I would know his face anywhere.

“Bruno,” I breathe, my heart pounding a million miles an hour.

“Mia passerotta,” he replies, a slow smile warming his face.