If he thought my answer was strange, he didn’t say anything as I continued down the stairs, putting distance between us. The living room was full of people. Everyone from the party was still there and they called out to me when I slipped into the room. I plastered on a fake smile and skirted behind the couch to snatch my shoes. They were still stashed by the door in the kitchen, muddy and soggy, but that didn’t matter. I’d clean them at home.
Katerina tried to catch hold of my arm as I ran for the door.
“Hey, what’s wrong? You sleep late then don’t stay for breakfast?”
“She has work to do,” Gianluca answered for me with a cold tone.
I nodded and forced one more massive grin. It felt more genuine than any of the others had that morning and I figured it was because I was so close to freedom, so close to fresh air.
Katerina promised to bring round a bottle of wine later. I offered up a sort of noncommittal nod then pulled the front door open and made a run for it. In the end, I wasn’t even very angry with Gianluca. No. Witnessing his love for Allie was a good thing because it made me realize what I wanted: for someone to love me the way he still loved her.
ALLIE HAD BEEN right and I didn’t think it was possible. A few days before she died, we were lying in bed and I was reading aloud to her from a book of short stories by David Sedaris. I was just getting to the good part when she moved her hand to block the words from my view and turned her face to me.
“Promise me you’ll get married again one day.”
She said it just like that, totally out of the blue, and it felt like a punch to the chest.
“Allie, I don’t want to talk about—”
“Swear to me,” she insisted, her voice never wavering.
I brushed her hand from the page and tried to continue reading.
“I’m scared to die, Gianluca, but even more than that, I’m scared that this cancer is going to kill both of us. From the moment we met, you’ve loved me so fiercely that I worry you’ll never recover.”
“I won’t.”
“You have to! I’m making it my final wish. You have to live and grow and fall in love again.”
I shook my head and stared at the words starting to blur on the page. “No.”
Her small hand clutched mine, so weak by that point. “I promise that by the time you’re twenty-eight, you’ll be happy again. You’ll have moved on and I’ll be nothing but a distant memory.”
I disagreed. That was only three years. Even if I lived for another lifetime, I’d never get over her.
“Twenty-nine then,” she countered.
“Never.”
“Fine. Thirty. By the time you’re thirty, you’ll be happy again and madly in love. I promise. I’ll work some kind of cosmic magic to make it happen, just you wait and see.”
At the time, I’d insisted she was crazy, but now, a few weeks before my thirtieth birthday, I wasn’t so sure anymore.
I followed Georgie down the hill that morning. She’d acted so strangely, running off as soon as she woke up. I’d given up trying to decipher the meanings of most of Georgie’s words and actions, but she’d run out of there like a bat out of hell and I wanted to know why. The door to the bed and breakfast was locked by the time I arrived. I pulled out my keys, unlocked it, and flipped the light switch in the common room.
Georgie was in her bedroom with the door closed. I could see a small shaft of light spilling out from the beneath the door. I leaned forward and knocked gently.
“Georgie?”
“Oh bloody hell,” she cursed under her breath.
“Are you okay?”
“No! Feeling a bit ill actually, better stay away so you don’t get it.”
“Stop being ridiculous and let me in.”
I heard footsteps moving toward the door and then she spoke again, louder this time. “Now isn’t a good time, Gianluca! I think I’ve come down with that cold you were talking about earlier.”
I rolled my eyes and turned the door handle. At first she tried to hold it closed, but she eventually gave in and stepped back. The door flung open and Georgie stood on the other side with a red nose and puffy eyes and a sad frown tugging at my heartstrings.
I wanted to step forward and comfort her, but she took a step back, keeping a healthy distance between us.
“What’s the matter? Why did you run off like that?”
“Please could we talk about this another time? I’m really tired and I just want to sleep for a little bit.”
“I just want to know what’s going on. Is this about last night?”
She groaned, flinging her eyes past me as if she was deciding the best method of escape. “Please, Gianlu—”
“Stop it. Stop pushing me away and tell me why you ran off like that.”
There were several long moments of silence, with her gaze on the doorway and her fists clenched by her sides. It was such a long pause, in fact, I assumed she would never speak up, so when she did, it hit twice as hard.
“You love her still, don’t you?”
Allie.
I didn’t even have to pause. “Of course I do. I always will.”
She nodded and turned away, trying to hide her tears.
“Is that why you’re upset? Because I love Allie?”
“You keep her up there in that house, Gianluca! You love her like she’s still alive. Her toothbrush, her pills, her clothes—it’s not healthy to hold on to her like that!”
I’d heard the same argument from Massimo and Katerina more times than I could count and my rage nearly boiled over now that Georgie was laying it on me as well. I was sick of people telling me how to mourn and when to move on. No one knew what it was like to lose Allie the way I did, what it feels like to watch, powerless, as death slowly robs you of the person you love most in the world. There was no clean break, no tragic accident, here one day and gone the next. No, I was there watching as she struggled for her last ragged breaths, crying and terrified. There was no closure. There was only the end.
No one could possibly tell me how to move on from that, not even Georgie. That’s why I had secluded myself for all these years.
“You’ll never have room for love as long as she’s there.”
“If you’re asking me to choose you over her, I won’t do it, Georgie. I can’t do it.”
She squeezed her eyes closed as if in pain. She had to know this was the case. I’d been nothing but honest with her from the start. Things were developing between us, but I couldn’t turn off my love for Allie.
“Get out of my room, please.”
Her voice was small and defeated.
“Georgie…”
“Just leave!” she bellowed, shoving past me and wrenching the door open so wide it collided with the wall behind it. She reached forward and shoved me, hard. “JUST GET OUT!”
That time, I listened.
“ARGH!”
I tossed myself back on my bed and stared up at the ceiling. I wanted to hate him. I wanted to call him a selfish cow and go on about how he’d led me on and forced me to fall for him, but the words felt hollow. He was kind and loyal, with the rare brand of devotion that didn’t just run skin deep. He was the sort of man who’d do anything for those he loves and more than anything, I wanted all of that—but for me. That’s what hurt—the fact that I’d fallen so fast for a man who’d warned me away from the start.
“Idiot,” I groaned, covering my eyes with my hands. I wasn’t being melodramatic. I’d been stupid, and now I was paying the price, holding up a solitary candle at a vigil for my dearly departed heart.
He told you not to fall in love with him.
He said he still loved his wife.
You told him you could do no strings.
I was still lying there in a puddle of soggy tissues and self-loathing when Katerina turned up with two bottles of wine and takeout from one of the sandwich shops down in the square. My stomach couldn’t handle food, but I greedily accepted the bottle of wine, uncorked it,
and sipped straight from the bottle.
“I’m sorry, G.”
I peered at her over the wine bottle. There was no mistaking the pity in her gaze.
“I take it you know Gianluca and I have been sleeping together?”
She frowned. “I guessed there was something going on a few weeks back, but I didn’t want to jinx it.”
“You didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news, you mean.”
She looked away. “I honestly wanted you to prove me wrong about him being unsalvageable. It’s not like you’d have listened anyway, right? The heart wants what it wants.”
“What exactly would you have said to me?”
“What do you mean?”
“When you found out we were sleeping together, would you have told me to go for it with him?”
She looked down and twisted her thumbs.
“Be honest,” I goaded.
“No. I would have told you to go for any other man in Vernazza. Gianluca doesn’t know how charming he is; he doesn’t realize how easily women fall for him. He probably thinks this thing between you two could stay casual and easy, but I doubt any woman on Earth would be able to casually sleep with a guy like Gianluca without developing, you know…”
“Stronger feelings.” I swallowed down my tears.
“Right. It’s why I kept my mouth shut. You wouldn’t have wanted to hear that.”
“And what if it’s too late? What if I’m already half in love with him?”
“Be thankful for the half that’s not. As for the half that is…I suppose I should have brought more wine.”
…
I managed to stay away from Gianluca the next day. I woke up before the sun and took the train into La Spezia. I sat facing the window, watching the sea whip in and out of view. The sun poured in and heated my legs. I leaned my forehead against the warm glass and enjoyed the sensation. I ended up missing my stop and had to double back, finally forcing myself to step out. Compared to Vernazza, La Spezia might as well have been New York City. There were proper grocers and tons of restaurants, fast food chains I hadn’t seen in months. I stopped in for breakfast and took my time, trying to fill my day with as much activity as possible so that by the time I returned to Vernazza, I’d only have time to brush my teeth and collapse into bed.
I walked through the streets, dipping into shops that seemed interesting. There was a stationery shop with old calligraphy pens and parchment paper. I snatched up a few postcards and dawdled at a café, writing to my brother and sister-in-law. I hadn’t started to miss my family until that moment. They’d have known how to comfort me…well, perhaps not, but at the very least, they would have distracted me with their own problems. I wrote to them and told them how much I loved Italy, how I’d choose never to leave if I didn’t have to. I wrote that I intended to explore other destinations soon, but for right now, Vernazza felt like home.
It was a lie. Vernazza didn’t feel like home. Gianluca felt like home. Our relationship, the ease and beauty of it was the comfort I craved. He was so lovely. I thought back to a perfect day a few weeks earlier and realized there had been nothing extraordinary about it. We’d been painting one of the upstairs bedrooms, working together. Gianluca would come up behind me and touch up the patches of wall I’d been working on, never pestering me about my sloppy technique. He swore I was a brilliant painter—the Michelangelo of Vernazzan bed and breakfasts. He never sought out conflict over inconsequential things like painting plaster walls. Instead, he encouraged me and said I could make a real job of it if I wanted to.
I didn’t want to be a painter and I told him so. He grinned and wrapped his arms around my waist, tugging me against his chest.
“That’s good, because you’re pretty shite at it.”
I laughed. “For all you know, I’ve just been making intentional errors so you feel as if you’re contributing.”
He squeezed my hips and spun me around, bending low to kiss me softly. “Fair point. So let’s do something where we both contribute.”
With a soft smirk, he dragged me down to the floor of that abandoned bedroom and stripped off my stained painting clothes. The sounds of the square—laughter and chatter and clinking glasses—filtered up through the open window and we added a chorus of our own.
…
Gianluca hadn’t come round Il Mare since our confrontation. Two excruciatingly long weeks and still no sign of him. His tools were littered around the place, but I sidestepped them, careful not to dwell on his presence in the building for too long. It wasn’t a very efficient use of time, to cry and mope around like the world was ending. I kept busy, always on the move. I went to sleep early, cutting my days short so I’d have less time to dwell on the twisted feeling in my stomach.
I’d go for afternoon swims in the sea, stopping only when my arms and legs became too exhausted to move. It was like I was trying to sweat the sadness out of me. Afterward, I’d flop onto my back and float in the waves, closing my eyes to the Italian sun and letting it warm me from above. Out there, I couldn’t tell if it was tears or the sea water running down my cheeks, and neither could anyone else.
I was heading home from one of those swims when Katerina caught up with me. She’d been lingering outside Il Mare, trying to catch me. I hadn’t eaten much and I knew I’d have to force down a decent dinner or I’d pass out from all the exertion. I tried to tell Katerina that, but she insisted she had a solution. We were going to meet up with friends at a bar and then go for a proper dinner. Have a real “fun night out”.
Italians all seemed to believe that a few drinks and a good meal would cure any ill. Fat chance.
I tried to talk her out of it, insisting that I was too tired to get tarted up, but she was deaf to my excuses. She dragged me inside and all but carted me into the shower. When I’d finished rinsing off with my favorite lavender-scented body wash and shampoo, she plopped me down in front of my small vanity and started to blow dry my hair. I sat in silence, content to let her do what she wanted.
When she finished, my brown hair was long, straight, and silky. Even in my sad haze, I thought it looked nice, and I told her so.
“And I’m not even finished!”
She produced a red dress from her bag and tossed it at me.
“Put that on and then I’ll do your makeup.”
The only thing harder than sitting there and allowing Katerina to make me over was the idea of fending her off. I had no energy for it. I was drained and numb. If she thought the red dress made my legs go on for days and cinched my waist to nothing, that was nice, but it seemed like mowing your lawn during the apocalypse—what did it really matter?
The group had decided on a bar in Corniglia since they were having drink specials. I hated that I’d have to catch the train to get home instead of just walking the short distance back from the bars in Vernazza.
“I know it’s a little farther, but it’ll be better. Busy and full of locals and tourists. Tons of happy people to distract you from—c’mon it’ll be fun!”
She didn’t say his name, like she was scared I would lapse into a fit of tears over the mere mention of him.
“Gianluca,” I said. “He’s not Voldemort, you can say his name. It’s not a big deal.”
She smiled ruefully, not quite believing me. “Right, okay. Well this place will be so packed, you won’t even remember him!”
She wasn’t lying. Even before we’d turned down the narrow street toward the bar, noise spilled out into the quiet night. It was tucked on the bottom floor of a three-story building, hardly the size of the common room back at Il Mare.
All the tables outside were claimed already, but Katerina insisted that the rest of the group was already inside. They’d snagged a space near the small bar and when we joined, Massimo smiled at me, putting on a real show of feigning ignorance that anything was wrong.
“Cheers!” he said, handing me an ice-cold beer.
I tried a smile on, hated the way it felt, and decided not to force my emot
ions the rest of the night. The group was big enough that no one minded if I sat quietly, observing the scene without being an active participant. Everyone appreciates a tragic loser hanging about to remind them how much better their life is, comparatively. Tonight, I would fill that role.
It was nice to be in the noisy bar with everyone. Paolo told football stories that made us all laugh and Massimo made sure I always had a drink in hand, though I didn’t choose to imbibe. I didn’t want to be sloppy drunk and start crying to everyone about how much I missed Gianluca.
God, I missed him though.
It’d been two weeks since I’d seen him, which felt like centuries after such an extended period of closeness. I felt overwhelmed by the idea that this would be the new normal.
My throat felt tight and my eyes burned with stifled tears.
Katerina nudged my side. “You all right?”
I swallowed and took a deep breath, relieved when the tightness in my throat eased a bit.
“Yes, fine. I always get a bit choked up when they play Britney. Her comeback and all.”
A new song came on over the radio and Sofia, one of the Italian girls with Paolo, squealed and stood up to dance. She was so confident, spinning in the center of our circle. She convinced a few more people to join in and then eventually, we’d all stood and pushed our chairs back. Massimo and Katerina wouldn’t allow me to mope in the corner while everyone else danced. They took turns forcing me into spins and entertaining me with truly heinous dance moves.
“You’ve got two left feet, Katerina!”
She turned back to me and I realized I had a genuine smile on my face for the first time in days.
“Hate to say it, but you’re not much better!”
I laughed and tried to shimmy my upper body, doing a few silly moves to jokingly convince her of my dancing ability. I truly was terrible. Other girls knew how to move their bodies so well. I moved around like a stiff gran, scared to slip a disc.
“Drinks!” Paolo shouted over the group, holding up his empty glass. “Who’s thirsty?”
“G and I will get this round!” Katerina said, taking my hand and dragging me through the crowd. We weren’t far from the bar, but it still took us a while to cut through everyone. It was loud and overwhelming, but I liked it. Being in the bar overwhelmed all my senses, temporarily drowning out the sensation of a broken heart.