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Except this time, Celine hadn’t been the one to throw me out and shut the metaphorical door in my face.
This time, it had all been me.
I turned back to the stairs that led to the cellar, where I could throw myself into work again. Eventually, this pain had to go away, right?
It felt like I was stuck on that mountain all over again, except this time, help wasn’t coming. I was lost and hurting, and I was all alone.
Three days later, I bought a ticket to go back to Italy. There was nothing here for me. Nothing but memories that hurt like hell every time, and I wasn’t ready to let what I’d done, what I’d lost, steamroll me every morning when I opened my eyes. No rest for the wicked, right? I just couldn’t take it anymore, not after we’d finalized it, called it quits for good.
She shouldn’t have come here, but I knew she’d had to do it for herself.
She’d done what I’d been too chicken shit to do—she’d made the effort to find out what was going on.
My aunt and uncle weren’t happy I was leaving, but they seemed to understand. Neither of them thought this would be forever. I didn’t know what it would be. I just knew that it was what I needed right now.
Gino wasn’t so understanding. He was downright pissed at me.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked while I packed the last of my bags before we had to leave for the airport. “I thought this was what you wanted, us together on the vineyard, running things as a team.”
“You know I’m not leaving you behind, right?” I asked.
“The fuck you’re not,” Gino snapped. “You can’t leave and make it sound like you’re not leaving. If you’re there, you’re not here. It’s basic logistics.”
“You’re being too literal about it,” I said.
“You’re being an ass.”
I couldn’t fight him on that. I’d been a lot of things the past couple of weeks I shouldn’t have been.
“I need to get away from here,” I said instead of taking the bait and giving Gino the fight he was looking for. “Since I came back, I keep getting nightmares about the forest, the storms, the accidents. I need to change the scenery.” It wasn’t even a lie—I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing Celine falling, without hearing her screams and knowing there was no way I could reach out and yank her back to safety.
“Do you think it will stop when you’re there?” he asked.
I shrugged. “It won’t hurt to try.”
“Don’t act like you’re not fucking shit up by doing this.”
I let out a heavy sigh. “One way or another, I’ll always be fucking something up.”
Gino narrowed his eyes, and I could see the questions in them. I didn’t want him to pry. If he pushed just a little further, he would realize this wasn’t just about the camping horror, the nightmare we’d been stuck in. He’d figure out this was about Celine, and I wasn’t ready to face that conversation right now.
I wouldn’t be ready to face that conversation, ever.
Gino stayed silent, sulking. My mind was made up—I was going to Italy to get away from the nightmares. The nightmares weren’t only of the forest and the storms and the accidents. They were oflosingCeline. Every time I closed my eyes, she died in another way. Every time I dreamed, I lost her.
When I opened my eyes, the pain of losing her was real. Maybe not to death, but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t in my life, and that was the same thing.
I wasn’t leaving the country because of the nightmares that the freak storms had created for me.
I was leaving to get away from the nightmares I’d created for myself. I hadn’t only broken Celine’s heart, I’d broken my own heart, too, and I had no idea how to fix something like that.
27
CELINE
“Areyouawake?”Avaasked, popping her head into the room I’d made my home. It had been a month since the camping trip, and I still hadn’t gone back to Seattle.
“Yeah,” I said. I’d been lying with my eyes closed—I had a hell of a migraine—and the curtains were drawn, but I wasn’t asleep.
