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The second she was gone, I shut the door and never opened it again. I pretended it didn’t exist, walking past it every single day without even glancing at it. I wanted it to disappear on its own. I should throw all her stuff away, but that seemed like a waste of all her supplies. But I didn’t want to hold on to it either, not when I had no use for it. “I don’t know what to do with her shit, alright?”
“Yes, you do. You just don’t want to do it. That tells me you aren’t over it.”
“I’ll never really be over it, Max.” I stared at my glass of water, which had been untouched since I poured it. Water didn’t taste like anything. It was like drinking air. It didn’t burn my throat or make me feel good. It was pointless.
“Well, you need to start. You need to be with other women and get back to who you used to be.”
“Fucking someone isn’t going to magically fix me.”
“But it’ll start to fix you. You really want to be miserable over this woman forever?”
“No…”
He faced forward again. “We’ll toss everything in that room, get you laid, and go back to the way our lives used to be.”
The plan sounded so simple, but I still couldn’t execute it. Something was holding me back, some misguided hope in my chest. Even though I’d had plenty of time and plenty of closure, I felt like there was something missing. I needed more. “I guess I expected Vanessa to change her father’s mind.”
“That guy will never change his mind, man. He’s stubborn as hell.”
“I guess I’ve always held on to a small bit of hope that something would happen—”
“It’s not, Bones. You need to move on.”
It’d been three months but I still wasn’t ready. I wasn’t prepared to take the plunge, to really say goodbye forever. “I need more…”
“More what?”
“Closure.”
“How?” he asked. “What does that mean?”
“I want to see her. Just one more time. I want to see if she’s happy, see what her life is like. Maybe she’s moved on, and seeing her moved on will help me move on.”
“Bullshit, man. You want to see if she’s as miserable as you are.”
Was there anything wrong with that?
“Nothing good can come from this. Let it go.”
“Look—”
“No. You made it this long. Forget about her and move on. It would be more beneficial for you to hook up with a woman in a bar instead of hunting down your ex and stalking her like a weirdo. Frankly, it’s pathetic.”
I bowed my head, knowing he was right. “I hate being like this. I don’t regret loving her, but I regret loving her so much. I regret getting this deep with her. If we’d never told her parents and kept our relationship a secret, I could have enjoyed her longer.”
He patted my back. “Don’t dwell on it. Just move on. You could have any woman you want. So go out and get her.”
The only woman I wanted was the one I couldn’t have.
“You’ve worked this hard to get here. So don’t blow it doing something stupid.”
I always did stupid things. The stupidest thing I’d ever done was fall in love with a Barsetti.
And I was even stupider for telling her.
The next day, I made the five-hour drive to Florence.
I kept telling myself to turn around and forget this stupid idea. But every time I actually considered turning back, my hand tightened on the wheel and my foot pressed against the gas. I wouldn’t find anything good in Florence, nothing that would make me feel better about the relationship, but it might bring me closure.
I wanted to know how she was, how her gallery was doing. I didn’t keep tabs on her when I left, knowing watching her would only haunt me. She had the protection of the Barsetti family, so she didn’t need me anyway.
I’d been thinking about her every single day since we’d been apart, and I needed to know what her life was like now. Did she stay in the apartment above the gallery? Did she keep the gallery? Had she sold the car? Would I see her in the window of her shop, talking with a customer who’d just bought a painting? Would she wear a fake smile, hiding her inner turmoil? Or would her smile be real?
Was she over me?
Hours later, I arrived in the city. The sun was starting to go down, and couples walked on the sidewalks as they headed to dinner. I navigated through the motorcyclists and turned on a few narrow streets until I arrived on her street.
This was my first stop after I left her at the house. I wrote the note and left it on the table, my parting words to her. I didn’t tell her I loved her. It seemed redundant at that point. If I didn’t love her, I would have just kidnapped her and took her to some remote place in the world where her family would never find us. Even if she wanted to escape, I wouldn’t have allowed it. Instead, I let her go, knowing she needed her family more than she needed me.
