The room became still, so still, that I forced myself to hear beyond my own breath to search for his. Instead of his breath, I found that wonderful hum dancing in my blood, connecting my life to his, and goosebumps rose on my arms from the strength of it.
He cleared his throat. “You were changing too fast for me. I couldn’t seem to catch up. The picture—” he gritted his teeth “—came after and planted the seed. It’s all I could see. I was blinded by it. I’m man enough to admit when I’m wrong, but not about the lies. You should have told me. You’remywife. Youtell mefucking everything. The thing is—the new woman I came home to threw me. Now the thing is—I’ve fallen in love.”
My entire body went slack.He wasn’t really working. He was…falling in love…thinking that I…
“I’ve fallen—”
He had…fallen in love with…
“—deeper—in love with you.”
I’ve. Fallen. Deeper. In. Love. With…you.
I blinked at the darkness, like a woman who had died and was suddenly brought back from the light. Then I lunged at him, like I had never lunged at him before. I hit him so hard that we tumbled to the floor, me ending up in his arms, my fists beating against his solid chest. There was no doubt that he brought us down, but down we went.
“How could you!” I hit him even harder. “How could you scare me like that! You…you…”
“Bastard,” he said, letting me hit him.
“You scared me.Oh God.Oh.” I started to sob. “I’ll…I’ll leave you if you ever do that to me again! I swear it!”
“Enough,” he whispered against my hair, pulling me closer. “Enough. Put your weapons down.”
I hit him again for good measure and then fought to move away.
He wrapped himself around me, trapping me against him with an intensity that made it hard for me to breathe.
“Oh fuck,” he said, his hands coming under my hair, pulling my head toward his. “I’ve died a thousand deaths in the span of a month. Thinking that you…were with him…what I saw…what I imagined. Loving you is killing me. It's killing me, Scarlett. I’m so proud of you. Just the way you are. So proud. How could you even think—I warned you. If you married me…I would be…you make me insane. Do you hear me? Loving you is killing me. I love you so fucking much it hurts.”
He had become unhitched. I had slipped behind his impenetrable barrier and moved in, right under his nose, making him vulnerable for the first time in his life. From the faint light, shadows crossed his face, and his eyes glistened. No tears, but what I found was far worse. Bone deep fear.
A line from the Dylan Thomas poem seemed to extend a hand to his state of mind:Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.
His constant flow of words became fists against my heart. To swallow his pain, his poison, I put my mouth to his, trying to love the fear away, to steal it from him. My hands fluttered over his shoulders, moving lower. I wanted to give myself to him again, so he could bury the burden and at the same time find whatever he had given to me to hold for safekeeping.
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
I went to pull away, to look at him, but he brought me even closer, causing me to gasp. He wanted me to hold him, just hold him, but he didn't know how to ask, couldn't.
I stroked his hair. “It’s you and me,” I reminded him.
My words became nothing but wisps of air in the darkness as I shared with him all that I hoped we could do in the villa, what I imagined him and I doing together, and then I told him how much I missed him, how I felt every time he walked out the door and every time he walked back in.
I shared with him all that I’d been keeping.
When I knew he was close to sleep, I placed my lips to his temple, kissing him tenderly. “Only God knows,” I whispered, “how much I love you, Brando Piero Fausti. Only Godcanknow. Not even you.”
* * *
The most awful aspect of a curious nature is that, even when your body is near blackout, your mind keeps sending off little sparks in the dark.
After Brando had fallen asleep in my lap, I drifted off, hunched over his back. When I woke up again, I was naked in our bed with him beside me. The glass shards from the night before had been removed from the floor. The pictures were propped up where they were, without their frames. He could never stand a mess.
I tried to move silently, but he grabbed my hand before I could get out of bed.
“How far,” he muttered sleepily.
“Not far.” I grinned. “I didn’t trust the bathroom in my dreams, so I decided to play it safe.”
