“That is just wrong in so many ways,” I said as he sat next to me at the dinner table, the catsup bottle making farting sounds as he squeezed the last of it onto his hot dog.

He looked up at me and a smile curved half his mouth. “Don’t knock it till you try it.”

I scrunched my face at him. “I am never trying that. Catsup on hot dogs is gross.”

“You’re gross,” a whiny female voice said from across the table.

I looked up, and the white girl, Trisha or Hannah, was glaring at me. She was pressed into Lorenzo’s side, and I couldn’t see what her hand was doing, but it was moving in his lap. Lorenzo smirked and tore a hunk off his hot dog with his teeth, then chucked the rest at Alessandro. “You want my leftovers, bro, take them.”

Shame nearly choked me.

But then, so subtly that no one else noticed, Alessandro wove his fingers into mine under the table and made everything okay.

“Hilary?” he says, pulling me back to the present. He’s moved away from the counter toward a bench. “Would you like to sit?”

I nod and move with him, sinking into the seat before my knees give out. “Thanks . . . for the hot dog.”

He nods slowly. “Are you okay?”

I shake off the memory and try to pretend I haven’t lost my appetite. “Yeah. This is fun.”

His eyes scan the market. “It is. We’ll have to put this on our list for re-dos.”

“Re-dos?”

His gaze finds mine and he smiles. “For when we’ve seen everything else.”

“Re-dos,” I say with a nod. “Sounds like a plan.”

His eyes slip to the open collar of my sweater. “Tell me about your tattoos.”

I take a bite of my hot dog. “What about them?”

“I couldn’t help noticing the other night that there are a lot of them. Do they have some significance?”

At the memory of him slipping on my jacket on opening night, I shudder. “They just remind me to stay free . . . to follow my own path.”

He fixes me in his intense gaze. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my path over the last year. It’s not always as clear as you hope it’s going to be. I feel like I’ve spent my whole life adrift.”

I nod, ’cause not too many people know that better than me.

He stares at his hot dog for a minute. “When our grandparents brought us to Corsica, Lorenzo was all I had left. We were supposed to look out for each other . . . have each other’s backs.” He rakes a hand through his hair and his gaze drifts out over the vendors. “I let him down. When he needed me, I wasn’t there for him.”

“You can’t blame yourself that he got himself killed, Alessandro.”

His tormented eyes find mine. “I can. I do. I could have stopped him. If I’d stuck by his side . . . if I’d had his back . . .”

“You’d be dead too,” I finish for him. “You weren’t going to change him. Lorenzo did what he wanted to whoever he wanted and didn’t give two shits about anyone else.”

His hard expression cracks and he drops his forehead into his hand. “But I’m just like him. I thought the Church could save me. Surrendering my life to the priesthood . . . it was my sacrifice . . . my way of atoning for past sins. But then I met Lexie, and she turned everything on its head. She brought out all my impulsiveness—my lack of self-control. No matter how hard I tried to pretend that everything was fine and I belonged in the priesthood, when I saw how easily I was drawn off course, I couldn’t deny the truth. I was there for the wrong reasons. I thought if I wrapped the beast in God’s clothing, maybe that would tame it. I was wrong. It’s still here, deep inside me. Nothing has changed.”

“You’re not a beast, Alessandro.” I know this for a fact. He might not have always lived on the straight and narrow, but he was kind and tender, and he cared about other people. He cared about me in a way no one ever had before. “Have you at least forgiven yourself for me?”

His gaze burns through me. “No.”

I lower my lashes. “Why not?”

I hear him take a deep breath. “No matter what I convinced myself I felt, there is no excuse for what my brother and I did to you. You were a child.”

I lift my eyes back to him and see him supporting his head in one hand, elbow on his knee. “So were you, Alessandro. And are you hearing yourself? What Lorenzo did or didn’t do is not yours to feel responsible for. You can’t carry his guilt on your shoulders too. That’s too much for one person.”

His head snaps out of his hand. “But it is my guilt. All of it. I never once stood up to him, or told him what he was doing was wrong. I never once tried to stop him from doing any of it.”

“Because he would have beaten the shit out of you if you tried. Lorenzo wasn’t a good person. You are. I get that he’s dead, and I’m sorry, but just because he isn’t here to make amends, don’t put it all on yourself. Don’t make his burden yours. Because, unless he changed way more than you did, I can tell you, if he was still here, he wouldn’t be losing sleep over any of it.”

His face crumples and he lowers it into his hand again. “I’m not a good person, Hilary. I’m not who you thought I was. I knew what he did to you. He bragged about it to Eric and me. I saw you cry. And instead of helping you, I . . .” He lifts his tortured face and looks at me. “I’m no better than he was.”

I stand and throw my trash in the can next to the bench, then look down at him with my hands balled on my hips. “If you want to sit there feeling sorry for yourself, there’s nothing I can do about it, but I suggest you get over yourself and see things how they really were. You want perspective? I’ll give you mine. You did help me. You helped me finally feel something after years of being numb. You helped me find happiness in the middle of my own personal hell. You helped me understand what lo—” I cut off mid-rant when I realize what I was about to say. “I think if you really look back on all the wrong you believe you did, you’re going to realize it was Lorenzo who did it. And until you can let go of his, you’re never going to be able to forgive yourself for yours.”

I turn and march back toward the flea market, but Alessandro has my arm before I get five feet. “Hilary, wait.”

I spin. “For what? For you to finally decide you’re not the devil incarnate? That could take a while.”

He breathes a sigh. “I know some of what you’re saying is true. I just need to sort through some things. But thank you.”

“For what?”

“For everything you just said. Knowing how you feel helps.”

I feel all my frustration and anger run off me like melting ice. “The only thing I couldn’t forgive you for was leaving me, Alessandro. As far as I’m concerned, nothing you did while you were here needs forgiving.”

He closes his eyes and when he opens them, they’re moist. “Thank you.”

We just stand here staring at each other for a few long heartbeats, then I loop my arm through his elbow and start toward the booths. “Come on. Treasures await.”

We wind back through the market toward the subway, but just as we get toward the end, a coffee table in a booth with beat-up furniture catches my eye. It’s huge and clunky, all thick legs and a solid top, and totally ugly, with nicks in the wood and cigarette burns in the dark, chipped finish. But maybe because of all that, it has so much character that it almost seems alive, like it will just start talking any minute and tell us its life story. And just looking at it, I know there is one and it’s super interesting.

“How much for the table?” I ask the long-haired guy at the booth.

He eyes Alessandro and then me, sizing us up, no doubt. “Sixty,” he finally says.

I scrunch my face at him. “You’re joking, right? ’Cause it’s worth, like, five.”

He barks out a laugh. “This is antique. It’s worth hundreds.”

“I don’t think circa 1964 qualifies as antique,” Alessandro says from over my shoulder.

I shove him. “Butt out. I’ve got this.” I turn back to the vendor. “Ten.”

“Thirty,” he counters.

“Fifteen.”

He looks at the table and then at me. “Twenty-five, and that’s a low as I can go.”

I stick my hand in my bag and dig past my new gloves for everything I can find. I come out with a ten, eight crumpled ones, and a handful of change. “I’ve got”—I count out the change—“twenty-one sixty-three. Take it or leave it.”

He holds out his hand. “I hope you enjoy your new coffee table.”

I grin and hand him the wad of money . . . and then realize I have no way to get this sucker home. I look at Alessandro with wide, what-have-I-done eyes.

“Am I allowed to butt back in now?” he asks with an amused smile.

“What was I thinking?”

“That you needed a coffee table, obviously.”

“Yeah . . .” I say, looking back down at it. “But now I’ve got to get the freaking thing home.”

“We’ll manage it.” He casts a glance over the flea market. “Have you seen enough?”

“Considering I just spent my last twenty-one dollars, yeah.”

He spins and grabs the front end of the coffee table so it’s behind him. “You get the back.”

I loop my bag over my neck so it doesn’t slide off my shoulder and scurry around to grab the other end. I stagger like a drunken sailor as we start up the street. “Shit. This thing weighs a fucking ton.”

Alessandro glances over his shoulder at me. “It’s a quality piece of furniture. You have a good eye.”

I don’t know if he’s messing with me or what, but I’m too busy trying not to drop my end to give him a hard time. People don’t start to look at us funny until we’re half a block from the flea market, where walking down the street carrying a clunky wooden coffee table isn’t an everyday occurrence. He starts to steer us around the corner onto Eighth.