TW: Graphic animal death/injury (mercy killing), blood.
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[Lorenzo Castelli]
The metallic scent filled his nostrils, and his fingers trembled around the knife, but he didn’t cry.
He wasn’t sure if crying would help the dog, and he’d already learned that showing emotions people didn’t understand only made things worse.
A maid searching for him to call him for dinner eventually found him.
Her scream startled the birds from the branches overhead.
Lorenzo turned to her, still kneeling by the dog, the bloody knife in his hand, watching her recoil as though he were some sort of monster instead of a scared boy who had made a terrible but merciful choice.
"What have you done?!" she shouted.
"Don’t yell." he replied, standing slowly. "It...it was going to die anyway."
She stared at him in horror.
He tried to explain he’d wanted to free the animal, that he hadn’t meant to hurt it, but every word seemed to frighten her more.
She took him back to the mansion without saying a word, and by the time they reached home, his actions had already morphed into a story far removed from reality.
The quiet boy had killed a dog!
He did it without shedding a tear!
He stood by the body, holding a knife.
"I always knew there was something strange about that boy! Not a shred of remorse!"
By dinner, one servant somehow concluded that Lorenzo had a disturbing fondness for death and torture, while another wondered aloud if his father ought to get him checked out.
Someone else suggested maybe he’d inherited a cruel streak from the heartless men in the family.
Lorenzo overheard enough whispers to figure out that no one wanted to hear his side of things.
They had already decided what kind of child he was.
One that would grow to enjoy inflicting pain on others.
One to grow and kill mercilessly for pleasure.
A psychopath.
That night, he sat on his bed in his pajamas, hands neatly folded in his lap, wondering if there was a right way to feel guilty.
Sure, he was sad about the dog and wished he had found another way, but he also remembered its suffering and knew he hadn’t acted out of anger or enjoyment.
He couldn’t understand why others found it hard to believe or see things from his own perspective.
He had only wanted to help...
A gentle knock brought him back to the moment, and his mother walked in.
Isotta Castelli had dark hair and striking green eyes, the same unique shade the little boy saw in the mirror each morning, though hers were warmer and fuller of emotion.
She wore a soft robe over her nightgown, and noticing him sitting stiffly on the bed, her concern deepened.
Closing the door behind her, she sat next to him.
"Enzo, sweetheart...can you tell me what happened today?"
Lorenzo looked at his hands. He’d washed them several times, but the blood still lingered in his memory, and he wondered if his mother could somehow see it under his skin.
"I found a dog caught in a trap," he explained, choosing his words with care. "Its leg was really hurt, and I tried to free it, but I couldn’t. It was suffering and in pain, Mama, and I thought it would be cruel to just leave it there."
Isotta listened quietly, her hand gently resting against his back.
"I thought...I thought I was helping, I wanted it to stop hurting." he continued, voice dropping. "But everyone thinks I’m a monster."
His mother pulled him closer, and he fought the urge to lean into her. He was nine and had just learned that showing affection could make people view him as strange.
But his mother had never respected his attempts to seem unaffected.
She kissed the top of his head. "Look at me, mio angelo."
He obeyed, meeting her warm green gaze.
"What happened today was sad, and I wish you hadn’t faced such a hard decision all on your own," she told him softly. "You should’ve gone to find someone to help guide you. But just because you made a choice that scared others doesn’t mean you’re a monster, Enzo."
Lorenzo swallowed, staring at her as if she had finally opened a door he had struggled to understand for years.
"Then why does everyone think I am?"
"Because sometimes people see what they don’t get, and instead of asking questions, they jump to conclusions," she said, brushing his hair back. "You need to understand that their fear doesn’t always mean you did something wrong, just as their praise doesn’t always mean you did something right."
He took a moment to think about this because his mother rarely spoke unless she meant what she said.
"But I killed it."
"Yes," she agreed, without sugarcoating it. "And that’s something you might remember with sadness for a long time. You don’t need to pretend it wasn’t terrible, sweetheart, and you don’t have to convince yourself it didn’t matter. The dog mattered. Its suffering mattered. What matters now is that you grasp what happened and that you never take another living creature’s pain lightly."
Lorenzo’s eyes stung, and he looked away, not wanting her to see him cry.
Isotta gently turned his face back to hers.
"You’re allowed to feel sad, Enzo. You can be scared, and you can wish you had known what else to do. None of that makes you weak or a monster."
His lip quivered despite his best efforts to stay composed.
"Mama," he whispered, "do...do you think I’m strange?"
For a moment, she was silent, and that old fear settled in, the dread that even his mother might someday find something unlovable about him.
Then she cupped his face in her hands.
"I think you are my son," she said with a certainty he couldn’t dispute. "You’re thoughtful, a bit stubborn, serious, and sometimes so intent on understanding everything that you forget it’s okay to be a child. I know you feel deeply, even when you can’t explain it, and I wish the people around you would see that more often."
A tear slipped down his cheek.
Isotta wiped it away with her thumb and smiled.
"There’s my angel," she said softly, kissing his forehead. "I love you so much, Enzo. Nothing that happened today will change that."
Finally, Lorenzo leaned into her, letting her hold him as the facade he had been maintaining crumbled.
He quietly cried into her shoulder, embarrassed by the sound of it but unable to stop, and she held him without demanding he be brave or asking him to explain himself.
For that one evening, he didn’t have to prove he was good.
He just had to be her son.
???•?•???
When Lorenzo came back to reality, he found Alex watching him, and his chest ached in a different way.
Alex’s hand never left the scar, his thumb continuing to stroke Lorenzo’s skin, grounding him in the warmth of their bed and keeping the memory at bay.
Lorenzo closed his eyes and carried on with his story.
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"Mio Angelo" = My Angel