Free The Darkest Heart by Dan Smith

back, our bodies joining.
    *
    Daniella stayed for a while afterwards, lying on my arm, drifting in a sleepy haze. I stared at the ceiling and listened to her breathing, trying not to think about Antonio in the room upstairs. I concentrated on Daniella instead, feeling the way her chest rose and fell against me with each breath, the way her skin was warm against mine. I looked at her, moving my head to get her in focus, seeing her eyelashes against the top of her cheek. It was a good moment and I thought about how it would be to have this every morning, every night, and whether it would feel stale or if it would change. But I would need a place and money. I wasn’t a farmer. Like Costa said, I had other talents. I could provide if I needed to. If I wanted to. I was trying to escape that shadow, but if I let it smother me one more time, maybe it could be the last.
    Just one more life.
    Something at the back of my mind was telling me it was always the last time, though; that Costa was a trickster who used his words to twist my thoughts and play games. He was like Anhangá, but instead of provoking me with terrible visions of hell, he was taunting me with visions of what could be heaven.
    I put my hand on Daniella’s shoulder, cupping the bony part in my palm, and tried to decide what I really wanted. A long time ago, in another life, my sister Sofia and I had talked about moving away, and I had always imagined a piece of land for myself, something open and clean and wide, a million miles from the dirty cramped constraints of the favela. That was the dream that might now be in my grasp, but it would be tainted by the very thing I had to get away from if I wanted to be completely free. Blood and death.
    Costa was forcing me back into the shadow, and the person he wanted me to kill made it even harder. I knew it wasn’t right, but I couldn’t see a way out.
    I kissed Daniella’s forehead and she made a soft noise in her throat, opening her eyes and looking up at me. ‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked.
    I shook my head. ‘I was thinking about the first time I saw you. In Ernesto’s. You were with your father.’
    â€˜And it was love at first sight?’
    â€˜Not exactly.’
    â€˜Lust, then?’
    â€˜I thought you were beautiful.’
    â€˜And now?’
    â€˜You still are.’
    There were other beautiful girls, I’d been with a few of them, but there was something about Daniella that drew me to her. She had a spark, a kind of unpredictability that kept me on my toes. She could be soft or she could be fun, but she was tough, too.
    Those first weeks, she flirted with me, touched me when she talked to me, but she did that with others, and I wondered for a while if she was interested in me or not. Even now she sometimes liked to make me jealous by saying this boy was good-looking or that one had a good shape, and I still hadn’t got used to it, but it was just part of who she was.
    â€˜You ever thought about leaving Piratinga?’ I asked. ‘We could go now. Just leave town this morning and never come back.’
    â€˜Is everything OK?’ she asked.
    â€˜Sure,’ I said. ‘Everything’s good. I was just thinking that—’
    â€˜What about Raul and Carolina, wouldn’t you miss them?’
    â€˜Sure, but—’
    â€˜And what about my parents and my friends?’
    â€˜I wouldn’t miss them.’
    â€˜ I would.’ She gave me a playful slap and sat up. ‘We can’t just leave. My whole life is here. I want us to get a place here and ...’ She shrugged one shoulder and smiled. ‘You know.’
    â€˜I thought you hated your mother.’
    Daniella sighed and flopped back onto the pillow. ‘I don’t hate her, I just ... don’t like her sometimes.’
    She was right. Her life was here and I couldn’t take her away from it. If I wanted to be with Daniella, it would have to be