by Karina Halle
You know they’re going to find out eventually. You should at least prepare for that moment now. It’s going to get bleak.
I sigh, the thoughts dwelling on me heavily, my anger coursing through me. I know I shouldn’t be this upset over it and that I’m overreacting, but I can’t help it.
When we get back to the house, Claudio and his parents go out onto the balcony to have some more drinks, but all I want to do is either yell at him (and there’s no good place to do that), or just go to bed angry.
And as unhealthy and moody as it is, I decide on the latter.
Nineteen
Claudio
She won’t even look at me.
I started this morning trying to pull that same shit with her. You know, you are mad at me, so I will be mad at you. I can usually play that game very well, my temper getting the best of me.
But it was impossible. How can I not look at her? She is my muse, my everything. My eyes are drawn to her everywhere she goes, as if they have a will of their own, wanting to drink in her beauty, like a man dying of thirst.
Even when I’m mad at her, I’m utterly captivated.
But the thing is, I’m not mad at her anymore. I’m just hurt. Hurt that she decided to clam up and ignore me. I know I shouldn’t have said anything about us being together, I know it’s opened up a proverbial can of worms. I know this is my fault.
And I know her fears.
I just wish she could choose me over her fears.
Right now her fear is winning, even when it’s been explained to her, even when she knows why she is acting the way she is.
I get it, though. I really do. I have the same fears, the fear that Vanni may make me choose between her and him. Fears that once we move past the physical fling and start opening up to each other, there will be no turning back.
The fear that I could lose her.
But we’re already at that point. I have chosen her over the fear.
I’m not sure she will do the same.
“You know, you can’t ignore me forever,” I tell her as we sit in the ferry lineup, waiting for the ship to pull in. It’s been a long, quiet drive here. “I am right here in this car and soon we will be back at Villa Rosa, and I will be right there too.”
She presses her lips together, but her eyes look wet, no longer angry. Just sad.
“I know this is an uncomfortable conversation, Grace,” I say gently. “I know that you would rather run away from it and give me the silent treatment. But we need to talk about it. Together. We are both adults and we both care about each other very much. So, let’s prove that, okay?”
She exhales loudly and looks down at her hands. “I’m sorry,” she says.
“Okay. I am sorry too. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Her head snaps up, a hint of anger in her eyes again. “No, you really shouldn’t have.”
I hold up my hands in peace. “I know it wasn’t my place to say anything when you specifically told me not to. I just … I had to defend myself. I had to defend you. What we have.”
“But I don’t know what we have,” she cries out. “What we are.”
I twist in my seat to look at her, trying to find the patience. “What do you want? How about we start with you? What do you want from me? From us?”
She looks away, and I reach out, pressing my fingers under her chin until she turns her head to face me. I dip my head, searching her eyes. “Hey? What do you want? Do you just want us to fuck for the rest of the time you’re here? That’s it? Just the sex? Then fine. If that’s what you want, I can do that. I don’t want to, but I will do it for you. I respect you too much to go against your wishes.”
She blinks. “What do you want?”
“No, no,” I say, dropping my hand and placing my palm on her forearm, giving it a light squeeze. “This is about you right now.”
“But you are part of it,” she says. “Don’t you see? I don’t … I can’t trust how you feel about me.”
I pull back, my heart squeezing. It feels like I’ve been slapped. “You can’t trust me? How can you say that?”
“Because!” she cries out. “I’m your muse. I’m the model for your statue. You need me to inspire you, and when you’re done creating art, then what? Then you’ll tire of me. You won’t want me anymore.”
“Grace,” I say roughly. “That is not true—”
“And you treat me as if I’m a problem to fix. Like a wounded bird that crashed into a window. Nursing my broken wing.”
“But you’re my bird.”
“So you see, it’s true!”
I breathe in sharply through my nose, trying to calm my thoughts. “I am not trying to fix you. We’ve talked about this. I am trying to help you. That’s all. And I don’t even need to help you anymore, or maybe I never did. You’re coming out of your shell now, your wing is fixed. It was all in you this whole time. You just had to … find yourself. And maybe you found yourself in me, or maybe you found it in yourself, or in this country, or at the bottom of a wine glass, but you’ve come so far. Can’t you feel it? Can’t you see that you don’t have any broken wings?”
A long breath escapes her and she leans back against the seat, staring at the ceiling. I watch as her chest rises and falls.
Moments pass.
“Musa,” I say softly. “I know this isn’t easy for you. All I’m asking is to put the fear aside for now and take a chance on me. You say you’re worried about Vanni and Jana, and I know you are. But I think … I think if you take a moment you’ll see that it goes deeper than that. Can you imagine, please, just for a moment, if Jana and Vanni weren’t an issue? If they were happy for us? Can you then imagine you would let yourself be happy?”
Her jaw twitches, as if something I just said stoked a fire inside her.
I press on. “So you fear I will grow tired of you when you are no longer my muse, but that’s not how this is. I will never grow tired of you. I will never stop wanting you and wanting to be around you. You have to let yourself believe that. You have to let yourself believe in your own happiness. You’re so afraid of it. That’s what you’re scared of. All these scapegoats, and really you’re just afraid to be happy. What is it that makes you push it away and say, no, that’s not for me?”
I don’t expect her to say anything, so it surprises me when she clears her throat and says, “Because it can be taken away.”
I nod, wanting to reach for her again but trying to give her as much space in this cramped car as I can. “Because it makes you vulnerable. It makes me vulnerable too. Don’t you know I find your vulnerability beautiful? It shows me who you really are. It lets me climb inside your soul and look around and be … I am just so overwhelmed by you, Grace. By your deepest, darkest, purest parts. You have no idea how far your outer beauty bleeds inward.” I exhale, my breath shaky. “I could drown in it. I am drowning in it. Drowning in you.”
All this time I am gazing into her eyes, because even though I’ve never been this vulnerable with her before, I need her to see it. I need her to believe it.
I need it like the air I breathe.
Her beautiful blue eyes begin to swim with tears and she squeezes her eyes shut so they spill down her cheeks.
She’s her purest, rawest self.
Something I’ll never be able to capture in art.
Nothing can transcend her.
“I … I…” she begins and then she starts to bawl. She throws her arms around me, and I put mine around her, holding her tight as she cries into my chest. Her sobs are loud and heaving, and I know this has been a long time coming. Sometimes I’ll catch her looking weepy-eyed back home, holding back tears, trying to negotiate the loss of her friend. But nothing like this.
All this grief has had nowhere to go.
So I let her cry. I keep holding her, my hand at the back of her head, cradling her, and I murmur to her, telling her it’s going to be okay, telling her I’m here for her, telling her that I always will be.
Whether s
he wants that or not.
Whether she believes it or not.
She cries for a long time until the cadence of her breath is more even and she’s relaxing in my arms.
Eventually she lifts her head, wiping her nose with her hand. “Ugh, I’m so sorry.”
“Shh, shh,” I say softly, kissing her forehead. “No apologies. I am so glad that you cried.”
“I’m not,” she says glumly, pulling away and sitting back in her seat. I move closer so that my arm slips around her shoulders. I need to be touching her.
She raises her chin to meet my eyes. The whites of hers are red, her mascara in black streaks below, yet she’s still so beautiful that she knocks the air from me.
“I guess I needed to do that,” she says after a beat. She clears her throat. “And I guess I don’t need to tell you that. You’re so … you know me, somehow, and so well.”
“You have a lot of grief you’ve been carrying with you. Tell me, when was the last time you cried like that over Robyn?”
She gnaws on her lip and sniffs. “It was a long time. Back when it happened.”
“Grief doesn’t have a schedule. It doesn’t follow patterns. It happens when it happens and the only thing you can do is let it flow through you. Fighting it does no good. It will only build and come out later, in a more destructive way.” I pause, tucking a strand of silky hair behind her ear. “You miss Robyn and you always will. And you will move on with your life because you cannot sit in grief either. You feel guilty for writing on your own, for having your own career, maybe even for finding me, but you have to remind yourself, this is what Robyn wants for you. She wants you to continue writing. She wants you to stand on your own two feet. And maybe, just maybe, she wants you to meet a nice man with a magic cock who will set your heart on fire.” I swallow. “Maybe that man could be me.”
A delicate smile curves her lips, and she squints at me thoughtfully. “I would like that to be you,” she whispers.
I want so badly to give my heart away to her. All of it. Saving none of it for later, unsure of what she’ll do with it. No, I want her to have it all.
I don’t know what stops me. Maybe that fear I said I would ignore.
Maybe I just don’t want to ruin the moment. I feel like we just broke through something, something that we’ve both been battling for and battling against.
“It is me,” I tell her, leaning in to kiss her on the lips. I whisper against her mouth. “But please, do me a favor.”
“What?”
I bring my mouth to her neck, kissing her sweetly before I press my lips against her ear. “Please. If you find yourself falling in love with me, don’t stop it. Don’t hold back. Don’t deny yourself that. Let yourself love me.”
I pull back and pin her with my gaze, hoping she takes me seriously.
She’s blinking at me, seeming like she wants to say yes.
Then there’s a frantic tapping at the window, and I look up with a start.
A ferry worker is angrily motioning for us to go. During all of this, we completely missed the fact that we are supposed to be boarding.
“Spiacente!” I apologize to the worker and then quickly start the car, the engine roaring as we follow the line onto the lower deck of the ferry.
By the time we’re able to park the car and then go to the upper decks, the subject of love has been dropped.
But I haven’t forgotten.
I am in my studio, busying myself by rearranging things before I can get back to work on my sculpture, when I hear a car honk from outside.
I grin.
My boy is home.
I drop what I’m doing and stride out of the front doors to see Paolo’s mother waving goodbye to me as she drives off and Vanni running straight to me.
“Papà!” he yells, throwing himself around my waist and hugging me.
My chest absolutely aches. It’s been so long since Vanni has hugged me like this, and every passing day with him I’m reminded that he is becoming less of a boy and more of a man, and that I’ll never be able to go back in time and get my boy back. Perhaps in his world, time is something you can manipulate and control, but in this world, when you have a child, it moves entirely too fast.
“Hey, Vanni,” I say to him, careful not to dote on him too much. I don’t want his own affection to embarrass him. “It’s good to see you. Did you miss me?”
He pulls back, looking awkward. “A little.”
“A little is good enough for me. Are you hungry?”
“Yes!” he exclaims, running into the house. “I want to eat everything!”
“Vanni,” I call out after him, looking down at my feet at his bag that he didn’t bother to bring into the house. “Whatever.” I shake my head and pick it up. He’s becoming more of a man, but with none of the responsibility.
I carry his bag inside and head into the kitchen to find him staring with wild eyes into the fridge.
“Go relax. I’ll make you something,” I tell him.
He leans against the counter, grabbing a pear from the fruit bowl. “Where is Grace? She didn’t leave without saying goodbye, did she?”
He looks so worried that I almost laugh.
“No. She’s upstairs having a nap.”
“Whew,” he says, exhaling. Then he manages a small smile. “Grandma and Grandpa talked her ear off, didn’t they?”
“Actually, they weren’t so bad.” Especially after we got back from dinner. Grace wasn’t talking and didn’t come out to have drinks either. My parents could tell that something was wrong, but for once they didn’t press me about it. This morning though, Grace went out of her way to help my mother with breakfast, so at least she left on a high note.
“They were upset that you weren’t there,” I add.
“Grandma is always upset. I see her all the time.”
“Not all the time.”
“Once a month. That is all the time.”
“I thought you and time had a different relationship.”
He shrugs. “It’s all relative.”
I make Vanni a sandwich, and he tells me all about his days at Paolo’s. Apparently his parents just turned vegan, which is something Vanni didn’t know about, so he was starving the whole time (nevermind the fact that we eat vegetarian many times a week). He had fun, but Paolo is a shade more introverted than he is, so by the end he was bored. Said he’d rather have stayed here and hung out with Emilio.
I toy with the idea of telling him about Grace, especially since my parents already know about us. But I know this is a decision I need to make with her. Even though he is my son, I know she would see this as a betrayal again.
And what are you to her? Did you even find out?
I guess for all our conversation in the ferry line-up, we never really hammered out what this relationship is. Boyfriend and girlfriend, yes. But with a time limit and no clear future.
And, for now, still a secret in this house.
So after Vanni is done and says he’s going to go sit by the pool and play a video game on his iPad all day (apparently Paolo also isn’t allowed video games anymore), I decide to go upstairs and check on Grace. She seemed so tired when we finally got home. I’m sure crying like she did took it all out of her.
I knock gently on her door. “Grace?” I whisper.
I open it and poke my head in.
She’s lying on top of her bed on her side, back to me. I take a moment to stare at the curve of her hips, the dip of her waist, the golden afternoon sun coming through the window.
Fuck it.
I’m in love with her.
The realization is so sharp, so swift, I feel like I’ve been stabbed in the heart with the sweetest blade.
Of course I am in love with her.
There was never any other way.
There was never another outcome.
She walked into my life, and I fell for her and that’s the way our story is written.
With me on my knees.
I take a deep
breath, trying to fight the feeling, needing for it to stay buried for a while. I might feel this way, but she doesn’t. I can’t afford to scare her again.
I’m about to close the door and leave the room when she lifts her head.
“Claudio?” she whispers.
Yes, my love?
I clear my throat. “I was just checking in on you.”
She looks over her shoulder at me and then rolls over, yawning. She raises her arms above her head and then flops them down on the bed. “I was having such a strange dream.”
I walk in the room, shutting the door behind me. “Good strange or bad strange?”
“Good strange,” she says as I sit on the edge of the bed. She hoists herself up on her elbows. “You had finished your sculpture, but instead of being the model, I was the one encased in marble.”
“That’s terrifying.”
“And then I was at the bottom of the sea, with all these fish around me.”
“Even more terrifying.”
“Except I was a mermaid. You know, also. Perhaps that can be your next project?”
“You’ll inspire me forever, la mia musa, but your dream sounds more creepy than good.”
“No, it was good. I was happy. At the end, I broke free of the marble and I swam away. With my mermaid tail.”
I give her a warm smile, picturing her as a mermaid. She would definitely be one of those sirens that lures men into the sea.
“Did Vanni come back yet?” she asks.
“He did. I made him a sandwich. Dare I say the boy missed me. Or he missed my cooking. But I like to think he missed me.”
“Of course he did,” she says.
“He was very worried when he saw you weren’t here.”
“Oh. You told him I was napping?”
“Sì. But it got me thinking … he’s grown quite attached to you. I know it doesn’t seem like it, because he has his own way, but he’s fond of you.”
“You know how I feel about him.”
“Yes,” I say, climbing onto the bed and lying down next to her, my head propped up by my elbow. “I do. So … when do you think we should tell him?”
Her eyes go round, brow furrowed in consternation. “Vanni? About us?”