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“Fuck!” one of the men shouts, throwing down his forceps in a burst of rage.
The sound of the metal clattering against the floor startles me back to reality, and I’m frozen with fear all over again. I need this nightmare to end. I need to wake up now.
Watching Marcello lie on the floor clinging to life sends a deep sadness and regret through me. After all the time I’ve been forced to spend with him, I never told him that he’s a father to twin boys. He’ll die without that knowledge, and I’ll have to live with the fact that I reunited with my twins’ father without even telling him about their existence. Million-to-one odds, and I might have fucked it up forever.
I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time asking myself how I was going to tell my boys about their father. What would I even say? He was a man that I had sex with on a one-off vacation to Italy? I figured it was better just to lie and say I didn’t know who he was.
Maybe they’d never ask. It was too difficult to face the reality of my situation when they were first born. I felt responsible for ruining my own life for a quick moment of passion, but that passion lingered in my veins like an echo for so long that I wondered if I could really be upset with myself for it. I’d felt a rapture in my body like so few people get to experience. Shouldn’t I feel fortunate to have been gifted such a thing?
As I watch these men pour over him, I keep seeing flashes of how he looked the first night I laid eyes on him. He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen before, and the fact that I was going to blow him off out of pride is insane to me now. What would the course of my life have been if I’d refused to take risks?
Despite how selfish and pompous he’s been, I can’t help but feel an incredible sense of gratitude towards him for saving my life twice. Even though it was his fault that I was in danger, to begin with, he still put his life on the line to keep me safe. If he didn’t care about me at all, he would have been perfectly content with using me as a human shield, letting my body become riddled with bullets.
I try to think back on the time we’ve spent together, of the ways that he’s tried to show how he feels about me. Even though he’s terrible at communicating, and he can be pretty abrasive, I can see the patterns where he was trulytrying. He wanted to connect with me somehow, even if he knew he was bad at it.
Perhaps I could have been more receptive to his kindness, even if I didn’t register it as kindness when I first encountered it.
Should I have been sweeter to him? How will I forgive myself for my coldness and cruelty if hedoesdie?
It felt necessary, of course. I was simply trying to survive in an uncertain atmosphere. But now, I feel the weight of my regret growing even heavier.
Will I have to live with this regret forever?
Will it ever feel lighter?
One of the men places an IV in Marcello’s hand, running a bag of saline solution through the line and tossing it on the nearby coffee table to keep it out of the way. I’m shocked that he was able to find a vein at all, even considering how prominent Marcello’s forearm veins are.
I hate standing here without being able to help. I feel like a typical damsel in distress, and I’d give anything to be instrumental in saving his life. I’ve never felt more useless. All I can do is hope that this experience prompts me to be better equipped to handle an emergency in the future, god forbid, another gunshot.
It’s at least another hour before the men start to pull back from Marcelo. He’s still breathing, but his skin is sweaty, and the breaths are very shallow. If I look close enough, I can see his heartbeat in his throat. His body is fighting like it never has before, and there’s no telling what the true damage is unless we take him to a hospital.
There’s a high possibility that Marcello would feel betrayed by being forced to go to the hospital. A gunshot would require police involvement, and I know that the last thing he wants is any cops whatsoever investigating him.
But I’m so, so tempted to just call them.
I feel helpless just watching him lie there motionless.
“I think we need to take him to the Emergency Department,” I say, panicking at the idea of speaking over these men.
They all snap their heads towards me, their eyes unempathetic and calculating like snakes.
“Who the fuck even are you, actually?” Tommaso barks. “I’ve never seen you before in my fucking life, and you’re going to tell me that you’re his girlfriend? He’s never said one word about you.”
His comment cuts deep, but I need to show my resolve to support Marcello. “Yes, I am his girlfriend. You might not know me, but I need you to at least respect my right to be here with him.”
Unable to hide his irritation with me, Tommaso turns back to Marcello, watching his chest rise and fall as the liquid from the drip bag snakes its way into his veins.
He doesn’t have the fortitude to kick me out, so I sit down quietly in the corner as everybody begins to calm down. All we can do now is wait for Marcello to wake up, staying by his side in the hopes that he will.
I’ve never felt such an intense longing to be near someone, not even on the nights when I craved Marcello’s touch. As I slipped my hand into my panties before I slept, I’d crave him like he was the only source of true happiness on this planet.
Now, the feeling is so much deeper. My desire for him encompasses my mind, body, and soul. I’m gripped by terror at the thought of him leaving me forever, a thought that would have repulsed me only a day ago. What’s changing inside me?
Am I just now realizing that, for all of his flaws, I really do love Marcello? The fact that he’s the father of my children seems irrelevant to my feelings, and I’m growing restless as I desire to be near him. I’d give him my own blood to keep him alive at this point.
This surge of new emotions is frightening to me. Have I ever felt this way about anybody? Even when I was young and in college, I don’t think anyone took such a strong hold of my heart. I loved people before, sure, but this feels like a cosmic connection. We were meant to be together. Therefore, I have to believe that the universe will keep us together.
I can only hope.
