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“How? How will we get by with this?”

Walking to my bed, he leaned over as I sat up on my knees, looking up to him. Cupping my chin, he traced his thumb across my jaw, causing butterflies to flutter in my belly at the contact.

“July twenty-seventh is tomorrow. Your birthday, my angel.” He smiled softly, but his eyes were glassed over as if he was in some far away thought. “Tomorrow, you begin a new year and a new you.”

For a moment, I wondered how he knew tomorrow was my birthday. For a moment, I wondered how much he knew of my past. If he hadn’t been there that night, he shouldn’t know about my parents and our secrets.

As he traced my jawline, I leaned my head to the side, resting into his simple embrace. Smiling up at him, I saw how he watched me, looked at
me
and, for once, he was not in some place inside his mind. His approval danced in his eyes. My stranger was happy. His angel, I would be.

~~~~~

One week later, our new routine began. The stranger entered in the evening with my dinner tray. While I ate, he reviewed the homeschool books he brought me. We were somehow going to fit in two years’ worth of school work into one. By Christmas, I would finish sixth grade, and next year, I would complete seventh. When August rolled around again, if I stayed on track, I could enter private school as Angelina Diamante, the eighth grader she would have been.

My life as Fallyn no longer existed on paper, so I had to know the concepts of two years within one to catch up to my new persona. Panic filled me because I didn’t know if I could do this.

When I thought of her, when I thought of becoming her, I couldn’t help wondering what she was really like. More so, I couldn’t help wanting to know what had happened to her. I wanted to ask my stranger questions, but he didn’t share much. Maybe in time. I didn’t want to push. Things weren’t terrible here. Sure, being stuck in a room all the time wasn’t ideal, but somehow I felt safe with him.

It was funny to watch him as he paced back and forth, looking over my books. He studied hard, like he had to re-teach himself before he could go over the lessons with me.

Having anyone take a look at my schoolwork was a new thing for me. Mama hadn’t taken the time nor had my father. They had always been too busy. The first few days were awkward since I had to remember he was now my teacher. This was all so new, so overwhelming.

He didn’t feel like I was ready to go out of the house. I didn’t know what I was ready for. I had to complete two grades of school in one year. I had to assume another identity. I had to let go of a past I wasn’t so attached to, but at the end of the day, it had been mine.

“Stop daydreaming, angel,” he stated, bringing me out of my thoughts. “We have work to do.”

I quickly finished my dinner so I didn’t waste his time. I didn’t know why it concerned me, but I had the desire to please him. The last thing I wanted to do was disappoint him. Where would that leave me? Questions danced around in my mind, back to what really happened to my parents. I still didn’t know. I wondered if I ever would. If my stranger hadn’t killed them, who had? Did it matter?

“Angel,” he chastised, sensing my mind wasn’t on task.

Focusing, I took my mind back to school, and we got started.

“Easily multiplying and dividing fractions,” Giano stated as he arched an eyebrow, continuing to read the lesson out loud while he paced. He closed the book and ran his hand through his hair in frustration. Walking to me, he leaned over my shoulder to look at the paper on my desk then picked up my pencil, working a problem to give me an example. “Forget the book tonight, angel. Watch closely. In the end, getting the right answer is what gets you by in life, not the eighteen hundred steps that book wants you to do.”

We both laughed and got back to work.

This was how it was with us. Night after night, we followed the same pattern. Giano was a man of few words; he said what needed to be said, and we moved on together. I learned to do as much work as I could during the day, and then my stranger reviewed each lesson with me after dinner. Time passed with this routine that somehow managed to work. Although challenging, having only myself and my studies to worry about, I did complete sixth grade by December.

We didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving as my stranger clearly stated he didn’t have anything to be thankful for. Once again, he alluded to losing it all when he lost his daughter. It made me sad.

For me, I didn’t know whether I was permitted to be thankful. I was no longer in the house of secrets with my parents, but rather a new house of deception. When I allowed myself to think on it too much, I couldn’t help feeling like my entire existence was one big lie.

Christmas morning arrived, and I expect to spend it much like I had every other day in the last seven months—in my room. I got up and dressed before going to the window. With the lace curtain in my hand, I allowed my mind to drift as I watched the snow fall in large flakes.

“Angelina, what would life have been like for both of us if only we hadn’t been born as … Well, who we were born as? I would like to think you would be sledding right now,” I whispered to the air around me, smiling as I pictured a girl with similar features to me, laughing and carrying on as my stranger pulled her sled up a large hill for her. Closing my eyes, I allowed that little girl to become me going sledding with my stranger.

Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t hear the door open to my room.

“Merry Christmas, angel,” my stranger greeted from the entryway.

“Merry Christmas.” I smiled softly at him.

“Would you like to come open your presents now? Santa Claus visits all the good, little girls and boys. Apparently, you were a very good girl this year.” He looked to the ground as if he was daydreaming for a moment.

I couldn’t help letting a small laugh escape me as he tried to give me what he probably found to be a “normal” Christmas.

“I know Santa isn’t real. I know there once was a Saint Nicholas who gave to the less fortunate. However, my mama made it very clear from as far back as I can remember that each and every gift I was given came from her and Father. Papa Valencia once tried to have ‘Santa Claus’,”—I used air quotes for emphasis—“visit his home for me, and Mama threw a huge fit, stating they would not allow me to believe such lies.”

My stranger shook his head before looking up at me. “They took away your Santa Claus,” he stated as if he could read my mind.

I only nodded in agreement because they had, but it had never bothered me until right then. Just like Papa Valencia had been trying to give me something innocent and sweet, so was my stranger; only, it was tainted by my past.

Would everything be this way for me forever?

Pushing my negative thoughts aside, I made my way out of my room and followed my stranger. For the first time, I got to see the true expanse of the home in which we shared.

I made my way down the hall where Christmas garlands adorned the walls. There was a smell of cinnamon in the air, and the rooms were dim enough to truly allow the Christmas lights to sparkle from the living area. The rooms around me were there, but the doors were shut, so I couldn’t see inside.

The living room filled my eyes with tears. Two stockings, filled to the brim with goodies, hung along the stone fireplace. A small train set ran in circles around the bottom of a short, fat tree. Its uneven sides were certainly something most would have shied away from, but much like me, Giano had given it a place in this home.

The multicolored lights seemed to dance as the jingles played softly in the background. The hodgepodge of ornaments adorning the awkward shrub called out to me. As I reached them, I could see they were the makings of a small child and her family. A paper wreath with macaroni noodles, painted in green and held to the branch with a yarn string, reminded me of all the ornaments I had made at school that Mama had easily discarded as waste. Everything I had ever wished to see in a Christmas tree sat before me in this very room.

Without a second thought, I turned to my stranger and wrapped my arms around his waist, holding him close. Ever so slowly, his arms wrapped around my back in the safest, most loving embrace I had ever felt in my entire life. Did he know he had made a wish come true?

Tenderly, I reached out and touched the many mismatched ornaments and thought about the love and attention that went into making each one. I felt him watching me, but I couldn’t tear myself away.

After allowing myself a moment, I glanced over my shoulder. Once again, he was off in his own world of thought. Was he, too, remembering Christmases past?

A pang punched me in the gut when I couldn’t help wondering if he was wishing it was his dear Angelina here with him and not me. Of course he was. She’d had parents who truly loved and adored her. She hadn’t merely been the next expected step in her parents’ life plans like I was for Father and Mama.

Fighting, I was successfully keeping the tears at bay when a hand suddenly gripped my shoulder. Looking up, my eyes met his dark brown ones, and the sadness I expected to see there wasn’t present. Instead, I found his eyes dancing with a quiet joy.

“Wanna open your presents?” he asked, rendering me speechless.

I never expected to have a “normal” Christmas morning. The only gifts I had ever been given by my parents were those the socialites my mother associated with would approve of.

Looking at my stranger, I wondered what he might have gotten me. Rather than try to form words, I simply nodded my head and moved away from the stumpy tree.

One by one, I opened each carefully wrapped package, finding surprise after surprise. From the art supplies to give me something to pass the time to the violin for me to learn music to the necklace of a bird symbolizing the chance to be free from my past, each and every gift had been bought with my needs in mind. He hadn’t given me the things he had planned to give his own daughter.

Although I had to be Angelina in public, he still found ways to remind me I wasn’t the replacement for his daughter. For the first time since Papa Valencia had died, my heart filled with happiness. For the first time since the loss of my grandfather, someone cared about me, not what I represented or could provide.

Once I had opened all of the gifts, we went to the kitchen for breakfast. I took in the granite countertops and the stainless steel appliances and thought this was a kitchen much like my family had, only slightly smaller. It was all very clean, very contemporary.

My past was quickly forgotten when Giano opened the oven, revealing the cinnamon rolls I had been smelling. My stomach growled loudly in appreciation, and Giano smiled at me. Together, we spread the cream cheese frosting meticulously over each of the pastries before he served me mine then made a plate for himself.

Unsure of my place, I made a move to exit and retire to my room, but Giano surprised me.

“Stay,” he requested, and my heart raced.

I nodded and followed him to the table where we ate in silence other than my groan in delight at the deliciousness of the warm cinnamon bun. When we finished, I took both plates to the sink. I began to wash them, feeling like I needed to give back in any way I could, but Giano’s arm brushed mine as he stood beside me to rinse and dry.

He looked down at me, drawing my attention. “You are not alone, angel, even if it seems that way sometimes.”

That statement alone was the best Christmas present anyone could have ever given me.

Chapter Five

Eight Months Later

We spent each evening going over lesson after lesson, sometimes lasting late into the night. I was as prepared as I was going to be in order to attend school as an eighth grader. My stranger said I would have a tutor at my new school to help me catch up should I need it. He said I could do this, and his confidence encouraged me to press on.

The last year had passed in what felt like time speeding up and slowing down in intervals. We took field trips out to the zoo to study the animals for science. For physical education, we hiked, and Giano had gotten me a few workout videos that we did together. The man clearly wasn’t afraid to get a little sweaty—when he was home, that is.

Giano didn’t keep regular work hours. He was home more than he was not. The weekend coming up, however, he was leaving. According to the prep he had given me, his friend Alanzo would be staying with me while he was away on business. Until then, we’d had little to no interaction with other people outside of the few times we went out, and that was never with anyone who knew Giano.

Watching him pack his suitcase, anxiety spiraled through on me before I could blink.

“Breathe, angel,” he whispered. “He won’t have a key to your room. I wouldn’t do that to you. Alanzo will keep you safe and not disturb you. Should you wish to come out, you are free to roam the house as this is your home. However, he cannot and will not enter your room without your permission.”

I nodded my head yet avoided looking into his eyes. “How can you be so sure?”

“Alanzo is family,” Giano answered, as though that was supposed to solve everything. Didn’t he realize it was family who hurt me?

As if the light turned on, Giano reached out and pulled me to him. “Angel, I wouldn’t put you in that situation. I have a contract. I cannot skip this job. Alanzo would lay down his life before he let any harm come to you from himself or anyone else.”

Breathing him in, I relaxed. Really, what choice did I have except to trust this man and the decisions he made? For over a year, my life had been safe in his hands, so I had to believe it would stay that way. Rather than continue to dwell, I did what I felt any dutiful daughter would do and helped him finish packing.

Alanzo arrived on Friday morning, just after I finished a breakfast of crepes made by Giano.

“Did you save some for me?” Alanzo asked as he entered the kitchen like it was something he had done every day.

“Of course. I can’t have you hungry on the job.” Giano laughed as he looked to me to ensure I was okay.