LOVER'S SPIT

your favorite cousin vinnie is here!!!! i went really overboard on this bio so if you are pressed for time skip over to the bold TLDR at the bottom <3 

i give you vincenzia....

catholic girls carry original sin on their shoulders like a burden. vinnie doesn’t say her hail marys anymore, but catholic guilt never really leaves, only hardens and cracks, splinters her flesh. she used to be a better catholic. but life got in the way.

she doesn’t go to mass as frequently as she should, but it’s fine:

her body is another synonym for mass, anyway. another altar to dig your knee into, the blood of christ and the willpower of a woman who could split the sea herself. who needs moses? not vinnie.

she is a glass of red wine shattered on a beige carpet; wound eroded by saltwater; the single file of ants into a ripe pomegranate; the fact that a girl is both a wound and a sword; the birthmarks in the shape of a cross on her arm; a tear; a scream; a fist down your esophagus. 

brooklyn born, vinnie is a costello on her dad’s side and a wei on her mom’s. her parents are highschool sweethearts and everyone can tell. she grows up seeing them kiss for too long while dancing in the kitchen; her mom learning the italian words for food; her dad calling her terms of endearment in chinese; balloons and cannolis and roses every valentine’s. she grows up a tough little girl—you had to be tough to tumble with the costello cousins— but her parents ingrain an innate sweetness into her core, a shade of rose coloring everything around her. this romantic quality, coupled with catholic guilt, creates a lot of trouble in her life, mostly in high school.

catholic school. it’s senior year. she’s just turned 18. she kisses her boyfriend, paulie, and his mouth tastes like a sandwich from the bodega down the block. she doesn’t care, because he gives her a stolen perfume bottle on valentine’s day, and tells her she’s the most beautiful girl in the world. she believes it, especially when it’s prom night and they fuck and he looks her in the face and kisses her hairline. but then it is a month after prom and she hasn’t gotten her period. and vinnie is in love. this is important, because it isn’t her parents who suggest a wedding, but her. in less than a month, the whole costello clan have rented a banquet hall, she’s borrowed a wedding dress from an aunt, and she’s married before even a slight baby bump has formed.

paulie is nice until he isn’t. or, more exactly, he’s nice until they’re married and in a sterile doctor’s office, being told that the test was a false positive and vinnie was never pregnant. after this, paulie is not the same. or maybe he was always like this, and vinnie was too naive to see. in any case, he wants to try for another kid. not now, she says.  she remembers this is the first time paulie hits her. she remembers the last time too. it is a costello family christmas dinner and they’ve gotten in a fight under the mistletoe. he pushes her against a wall but before his hand can connect with her face there is will, yanking him away and pummeling him bloody, jamie joining in not long after. this moment is a reality check. christmas is her favorite holiday, and here it was, ruined. she refuses to have her life ruined by a man any longer. catholics don’t believe in divorce, but vinnie doesn’t give a fuck anymore. her body is more holy than a wedding vow.

freshly divorced, she kisses both her parents on the cheek and decides to go to yates. marriage makes her cynical, tears off her rose colored glasses with force. now she is ruthless, won’t (can’t) trust anyone but herself. vinnie is a leader, too, because she can’t get the sense of  what’s right and wrong and just out of her head. she’s a fighter. she thinks she was born to start a holy war.

deep down, though, she still thinks of her parents dancing in the kitchen. she still thinks that one day she wants that too. 

TLDR: EVERYONES FAVE COUSIN VINNIE!!!! grew up a soft romantic naive catholic girl but had a pregnancy scare and ended up married to the baby daddy within a month (but then it turns out the test was a false positive)!!! her husband becomes abusive soon after and she eventually divorces him!! she goes to yates to start over!!! the experience made her extremely cynical and tough but deep inside she’s still just a soft catholic girl!!! she’s a leader, she’s powerful, she could lead men into war for no reason if she wanted to! morality is everything to her! she has very strong principles! very strong woman! she is a sword!