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“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Do you care?”
I bristled, but I took a deep breath.
“You didn’t bother to see me in hospital, to text, to call… you ignored me when I tried to reach out. What the fuck is going on, Lorenzo?”
The pain in her voice hurt me.
“Nothing’s going on,” I said. “I just don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
Celine gasped, shocked. “And you didn’t think I was worth explaining that to just after we were rescued? What about everything we’d been through?”
“Look, we’ve both been through a lot, but relationships that start in traumatic situations never last.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit,” she snapped. “We were something long before that stupid camping trip. Why the fuck did I go? Why did you invite me? Don’t talk shit to me now.”
I sighed and shook my head. Celine was furious, and she was so fucking hot when she was angry. The anger was directed at me, though, and no matter how attracted I was to her, I wasn’t going to act on it. I couldn’t have her the way I’d always had, distract her, make her mine.
“Look, we had a good time, and I really appreciate that. When I’m with you, I have the best time, and that will never change.”
“But?” Celine asked, narrowing her eyes.
“We were never meant to be long-term. We knew this would eventually end.”
“When we were kids!” Celine cried out. “Not now. Hell, you kept pushing, and when I let you in, you left. You promised you wouldn’t leave!”
“When you broke your ankle in the forest. It’s not something you can hold me to for the rest of my life.”
Celine pursed her lips together. “No, you’re right.” Her eyes had drained of the spark I loved so much about her, and her voice was cold. “My mistake for thinking there was more to you than the suave Italian guy who wanted to bed me.”
I opened my mouth to argue. That wasn’t fair! It wasn’t how I saw her. I snapped my mouth shut again without saying what I thought. It was better for her to think that I was the villain than to think that she had done something to deserve me leaving her like this. I knew I was the asshole in this story. I was being a real dick. I just didn’t know how else to be.
Once upon a time, I’d fallen head over heels for a girl, and my life had been complete. That had been when I’d been young and naïve and I’d still believed in fate and happy endings. Now, I knew better. Sometimes, shit didn’t work out. I had to choose, and I chose to turn my back on her. Why?
Because I hadn’t been able to protect her. Because I loved my family and she wasn’t Italian. Because no matter what we did, we would always be doomed to end the way we had when we were kids.
“So, this is it, then?” Celine asked. Her voice was hard. “After everything, this is how it ends.”
“It looks like it.”
She shook her head and looked out over the vineyard.
“You’re not the guy I thought you were.”
“Sometimes it takes falling off a mountain to realize that.”
Celine scoffed at that.
“You hurt me plenty without me needing to break bones on top of it. You could have told me before I went camping with you.”
I should have never started what I’d had with her. I just hadn’t been able to stay away. Celine was a flame, drawing me in like I was a moth begging for warmth. I’d thought I would get burned.
Instead, I’d nearly snuffed out that light.
“It’s better this way,” I said. “I know it doesn’t feel that way now, but you’ll see.”
“Don’t tell me what will and won’t be, Lorenzo,” Celine said, turning away from me. “You don’t get to tell me what my life will be like.” She hobbled away on her crutches, and I was left behind in the wake of my own destruction. She’d shut me out, her prickly shell was back, and I was on the outside looking in—the way I’d always been.
