Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 98321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
His eyes closed briefly, his shoulders drooping.
Moving past him, I went to the door and pulled it open. “And before I lose all self-respect and do something stupid like sleep with you anyway because I even miss the damn smolder, I need you to go.”
He didn’t move for a moment, just stood there in the kitchen with his back to me, still and silent. For a moment, I wondered if there was still hope for us.
Say it, I begged silently. Tell me you love me too. Tell me I’m enough.
But he turned around and headed straight out the door without stopping—without a word, without a nod, without so much as a backward glance.
I closed the door and rested my forehead against it, crying softly and wondering why love had to hurt so much.
Nineteen
Enzo
I didn’t sleep at all on Saturday night.
I lay on my back, hands behind my head, staring into the darkness and wondering if I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life by walking out on Bianca, or if she was right and we were never meant to be.
I’d never felt more messed up. She said she loved me.
But then she threw me out, like in her very next breath!
Talk about whiplash. I’d been so stunned, I hadn’t been able to think straight.
Had she meant what she said? Did she really love me? Did I love her too? Did that explain the incessant ache in my chest since she’d gone? Or the way I sometimes couldn’t catch my breath around her? The way I hated the thought of those blue eyes looking at someone else the way they’d looked at me? The way my heart felt as if it was tucked inside her fist, like she owned it? I’d never felt anything like it before she came barreling into my life and plunked herself down at my table and offered to marry me.
I scowled at the ceiling. This was all her fault! The whole thing had been her idea! She said we could just pretend to be in love, and then not only had she gone and fallen in love with me—when she’d sworn she wouldn’t—but she’d made me fall in love with her too!
Witchcraft.
I’d said it right from the start.
But now that I was under her spell, what the hell was I going to do about it?
On Sunday morning, I got out of bed early and went to Mass. My family was in a pew up front, but I sat alone in the back. I didn’t really feel like looking my dad in the eye or suffering my mother’s scorn or answering anyone’s questions.
In all honesty, I was hoping to get some kind of message from beyond about what to do next. Let her go? Try again? Be a gentleman and respect her wishes? Go full-on caveman and demand another chance? Play it safe and cut my losses? Take the risk that she’d reject me yet again?
I listened carefully to every prayer, every reading, every hymn, every word of Father Mike’s homily, hoping to discover some hidden meaning that would make the answer clear.
But I didn’t.
Maybe it was because I was distracted by this family of six that came in late—the dad carrying a crying baby in his arms, the mom clutching a toddler to her hip with a massive bag slung over one shoulder, each of them holding the hand of another small child. The parents looked harried and exhausted—the guy’s shirt was wrinkled, the woman’s hair looked like it had been in the same ponytail for a few days—as they herded their brood into a pew across the aisle from me a couple rows up. They took turns holding and soothing the fussy infant, and at one point the dad fed her a bottle—at least, I was guessing it was a her by the giant pink bow on her bald head. The mom handed out snacks—Goldfish crackers by the looks of what was dropped onto the floor and sometimes thrown at a sibling. Both parents also dug through the bag countless times, hunting for the object that would quiet and distract their kids while Father Mike droned on . . . books and toys and sippy cups and pacifiers.
I felt a tug of sympathy for the poor parents, trying to keep four kids silent and still for a solid hour, but also for the kids—I remembered very well being in their position, knocking around in a pew with my siblings trying to avoid my father’s be quiet or else stare or my mother’s pinch.
But I was envious too. Of the unspoken language between the husband and wife. Of their closeness. Their connection. They clearly knew each other so well they were able to communicate with just a look, a smile, a nod, a headshake and silent, rueful laugh that said, What is this life? Whose idea were all the kids? Remember when it was just the two of us?