You wish the earth would open.
He says nothing for a moment, and somehow that hurts more than if he had gasped. His face changes again, this time not with pity exactly, but with heartbreak so naked that you have to look away.
“Why are you…” His voice breaks. He starts over. “What happened?”
You do not answer there, not in the middle of the street, not with neighbors watching from windows and doorways and shop fronts. In small neighborhoods, pain is public property. People feed on it like birds on grain. So you lower your gaze, swallow the ache in your throat, and say the only thing that feels safe enough to say.
“Come with me.”
You lead him to the old tree near the field, the one with roots thick as sleeping animals and bark worn smooth in places by years of climbing. The field itself looks smaller now. Childhood always does that to places, shrinks them after the body has grown. But the tree remains, stubborn and familiar, the last witness to the games you once believed would go on forever.
You sit on one of the roots. Matteo sits beside you, but not too close at first, as if he senses that whatever happened to you has left tender places he must approach carefully.
Around you, the late afternoon hums with insects and distant voices and the clatter of someone dragging metal sheets across concrete. Life goes on with its usual indifference. The world rarely pauses because one heart is breaking.
“What happened?” he asks again, quieter this time.
You take a slow breath.
