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Falynn
PLAYLIST: ? SOMEBODY LIKE YOU - BREE RUNWAY ?
We returnto Gio’s penthouse at the Vittoria. The place is haunted with memories of us. We fell in love within these walls. We hated each other within these walls. I grieved Gio here and he brought me home whenever I strayed.
In a way, it feels no different now. The penthouse at the Vittoria is ours. It’ll always be our first home together.
The lights flick on as we enter and set down our things. For me that entails my purse and for Gio it’s unclasping his watch and leaving it on a console table nearby. He moves straight to a bottle of wine and glasses that he must’ve had brought up for us.
“Drink?” he asks.
I nod. “Beer at a sports bar, wine in a luxury penthouse.Withmy husband I haven’t seen in seven months. Tonight is one of the weirdest nights of my life.”
“I’ll agree with you on that. I didn’t expect for us to spend time together. To think I hung up when calling because I thought I was being a dumb fuck.”
A laugh rolls out of me. “I knew it! I knew you hung up on purpose.”
“You sounded like you were half asleep.”
“I was,” I say, clutching my wine glass. “But guess who was on my mind?”
Gio sips from his glass before he places it down on his walk to me. His hands fall to my hips as he peers into my face. “If I had any clue I was on your mind, I’m not so sure I would’ve stopped at a phone call. Do you have any idea how glad I was you agreed to spend today with me?”
“Are you going to tell me?” I ask, a soft smile coming to my face.
He plucks my wine glass from my hand and sets it on the table next to us. With nothing else in the way, he draws me closer against him and plants a kiss on my lips. He’s intentionally taking his time.
I know this once he moves on to brushing his fingers in my hair. He pushes my curls back, away from my face, and then lets his thumb trace my features. The swell of my cheek. The curve of my jaw. The soft underside of my bottom lip. He takes so long I’m thinking he’s not going to bother answering my question—just how glad was he I spent today with him?
“Very,” he says after a while. “I didn’t picture us ever being around each other again. I was going to keep my word. I was going to stay away from you. What happened between us is the biggest regret of my life. There’s nothing else to say, but I hurt you and I can never take that back. It feels good to have you in my arms but it feels wrong too. Undeserved.”
“You broke my trust, Gio. When I looked at you, it was like you weren’t there. You were somebody I didn’t recognize. Even your touch was different,” I say candidly, dropping my gaze. “It’s like no matter anything anyone said, you weren’t listening. Nothing I said was going to get through to you.”
Gio inhales a grisly breath, the sound rough and familiar. I can see it on his face—the torment and deep regret.
I’ve never been more conflicted. I’m still in love with him; it’s a truth I’ve avoided thinking about for most of our time apart simply so I could survive and try to move on. But the love is still there, still buried deep in my heart.
Only now pain is there too. The heartbreak from what happened between us that I’m not sure how to move on from. I trusted Gio with every part of me and he smashed that trust to dust. He hurt me in such an intimate way, it’s brought out conflicted feelings in me. How do I still feel love in my heart for him when we’ve been through what we have? Can I ever get past it and learn to trust him with myself again? Would it even be right to?
Just thinking about it wears me out. I press my face into his shoulder. He’s broad and strong, so reliably solid I feel secure when I do. We used to embrace like this all of the time. His arms crowded around me and me burying myself into him.
How can a man who hurt me feel so safe and warm at the same time?
It makes no sense and I’m left more confused as I close my eyes and smell his familiar cologne.
“I want to trust you again,” I mutter. “But it’s going to take time. I was really messed up by the end, Gio. The reason I left—I never told you.”
“Tell me now.” He glides his hand slowly up and down my back, gentle and patient.
“I was in a really bad place. I felt lonely and useless. Exhausted all the time. Like I was outside myself. Like I couldn’t connect to anything anymore. When you sent me to the undisclosed compound, I gave up. I just wanted to stay asleep.”
“Carlotta and the staff told me you weren’t eating.”
“One morning I went to take a shower and I had this breakdown. I was thinking about us and how bleak things felt. I was never going to be able to give you what you wanted. I felt so alone. Then I knocked over this mirror and there was this piece of glass…” A coldness fills my lungs even remembering the moment. I’d stared long and hard at the glass glinting up at me in the bathroom light. “I cut my hand on the glass and I don’t know if it was by accident, Gio. I told myself it was, but when it happened, I didn’t want to put it down.”
It’s probably the darkest words I’ve ever uttered aloud. Something I didn’t plan on divulging to him—not even seconds ago when I considered if I should tell him about the afternoon I’d left.
“I think I did it on purpose. At least some part of me. Just to see what it’d feel like,” I finish. “I scared myself and Carlotta thankfully interrupted me. But if I’d stayed…I don’t know what would’ve happened.”
