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She pushed out of bed, padding over to the window and looking down over the street. It was blanketed in white, save for two fresh tyre tracks that would quickly be covered by the falling snow.
She turned away again, moving downstairs into the kitchen that overlooked the back garden. The woman who cared for the house when Sophia and Bella were away had stocked the fridge the day before – Bella pulled out a blueberry muffin and heated it up a little, then sat down at the table.
Her phone buzzed.
I’d love to feel that.
Her stomach squeezed tight. Pain, love, hurt, grief. They all slashed at her nerves, leaving her an emotional mess. She stared outside, a frown on her face, and then typed,
Believe it or not, I’d love you to as well.
She sent it, her pulse going faster, harder, her body not seeming to understand that a text message wasn’t an invitation to anything more. He was on the other side of the world, anyway. And she thought of his house on the island in Greece, and she was filled with the most intense longing to be back there. But she couldn’t go back, she reminded herself. Everything she’d thought that house represented had been based on a lie.
How are you?
His response was simple - a question. All she had to do was type ‘fine’, and leave it at that. But she wasn’t fine, and she didn’t want to lie to him. She took a bite of the muffin and stood up, pacing towards the kitchen.
She placed a pod into the coffee machine and waited for it to filter through, staring out at the garden.
Before she could type a response, her phone began to ring.
It was him.
She stared at the screen, his name staring back at her, and she balked at the very idea of answering. She let it go to message bank. Her stomach kicked. They’d made some kind of Olympian!
Her phone began to ring again and this time, she swiped it to answer. “Vitalo,” his name spilled from her mouth breathlessly.
There was sil
ence for several, long seconds and then, “Agape.” Darling. The word tripped her heart, making it bounce against her ribs. “How are you?”
It wasn’t just a polite inquiry. He asked as though everything he was depended on her answer. He asked as though not knowing would kill him.
“I’m…” what? “I’m okay.” She figured that covered a multitude of feelings.
“Are you?”
She swept her eyes shut, darkness moving around her. His voice was so familiar, she felt like she could almost magic him up into her kitchen. Only he was too far away, and his sins were too many to forgive.
“What do you want?” A soft, whispered question.
“I want to talk.” She heard something outside, the closing of a door. “I need to explain…”
“You’ve explained,” she said, leaning against the bench, needing it for support.
“You were upset that night and I couldn’t say anything that would fix that.”
“And you can now?”
He was silent for a moment, and then, “I was with your mother, like Lorenzo said. But I went to her to explain that whatever fantasy she was harbouring, she had to stop. I went to tell her that I love you, that I never loved her. That it was a stupid game and nothing else. I went to her to say that regardless of how I felt about your father, I would never have been with your mother.”
But it was too hard to hear – it was too hard to process. “She’s my mom,” Bella whispered, dropping her head forward.
“Yes, and she deserves our compassion, but she cannot be brought into this marriage. If it doesn’t work, it is not her fault.”
“No, it’s your fault,” she said, and then wished she hadn’t, because the words had come from a place of hurt rather than truth. “I’m sorry.” Tears clogged her throat. “I don’t mean that.”
“It is my fault,” he said. “But it is your fault too.”
