Book excerpt: After three decades of silence, this daughter of traditional Italian-American stock tells the story of her sixteen-year love story with the crown prince of the Bruno family of Philadelphia. They lived just doors apart but this is no Romeo and Juliet story. Their families respected and loved one another; their mothers were close friends -- this is South Philadelphia, a place where Italian-Americans still live in true kinship. After years away, Rosina Rucci has come home to tell the story about the love of her life, her very best friend. Her beloved led two lives -- one was fast, hard and filled with treachery, but the other was about and for Rosina. 6000 Days Of Us is a heartbreaking tale of two young people joined in a profound, immortal love but divided by the critical and devastating choices they each had to make.