Oh hell, I thought.This is why we’re here, isn’t it?I brought my arms forward, dropping the top on the bed, and then lifted the papers, one in each hand.
His eyes widened and then narrowed. He shook his head. “Only one—”
“Yes,” I said. “He thought I should have it.”
“And?”
“You ask me that like you’re asking me if I want rice or pasta with my fish, Brando!”
“And?”
I blew out a shaky, hot breath. “And—I can’t lie. Oh God—I am truly insane for even admitting this out loud. You make me nuts!” I shook the bloodstained paper with his handwriting on it, but then brought it to my heart. “In some torrid, not to mention morbid, Shakespearean way, I—well, it makes me feel—”
As inexperienced as I was, I didn’t know if we were insane or too sane—either way, we were connected in ways that I knew were not normal. Still, peculiar ran in my blood, and none of this felt odd, perhaps just overly passionate.
“Go on,” he pressed, when I stopped to think that over.
“It makes me feel good, more than good, in fact. It makes me feel safe and loved and—I go where you go.” It was the only way I could sum it up without rambling.
“AndI go where you go—if you—” His entire body tensed and he refused to finish the thought, but then so quickly so I wouldn’t notice, he relaxed himself. It was an attempt to shield his true feelings.
“No hiding, Fausti,” I said, licking my parched lips. “But yes, wherever one of us goes, we go together. But! On the other hand, it makes me feel anguish—so much effing anguish, Brando. To think that you would allow that animal to kill you! You would’ve come to me without a heart!”
“I refused to take my own life.” He shrugged. “I had to be with you. And a heart is of no great matter. My real heart is not with me anyway. It’s inside of you.” He opened his arms. “I won’t hide. Not again.”
In that moment, all I could see was him writing, his eyes furious and his fingers determined—I refuse to let her go without me. Here are our wishes. Be sure that she is next to me, always next to me.
Thinking of the letter, it brought back the time I missed, a void. “I—don’t know what happened.” I swallowed down nothing but air, my mouth was so dry. “Not really. Can you tell me?”
He lifted his hands, turning them to and fro, studying them in the light from above. “You bled so much that your blood will forever stain my skin.” His voice came as soft as the light.
The awfulpop!came back to me and I wondered if I’d ever forget it. When it came to mind, it was like missing a step, landing on the most sensitive part of the body, something extremely fragile that had no shield, and then feeling some internal fabric being torn in two.
He took my hand, as best as he could, and we sat on the sofa before the reef. Staring at my fingers for what seemed like a lifetime, he finally told me how he had found me and what had happened afterward.
“The old lady told you to kiss me?”
“Yeah,” he said, voice so full of emotion that his face became impassive. There was no reason to read him though. It was all there in his tone, in the heaviness coming off of him. Reliving the night was costing him a great deal. “She wanted me to kiss you goodbye while you were still—I refuse to even say it, Scarlett.”
“You don’t have to,” I whispered.
“There are parts of that night that are soft to me—shapes and blurs and shadows, hazed over by some instinct to protect me from the memories. Other memories are as sharp as broken glass. Her words—the woman herself—she cuts me deep. I still see her. Hear her in my nightmares.” He sniffed, but he wasn’t crying. “Rocco told me that after she said it, he had to stop me from going after her. The only reason I did was because I needed to get to you. I don’t remember going after her, but I remember that.”
I sighed and touched his cheek. “You saved my life,mio angelo. You refused to give up on me.”
He came forward and rested his head against my chest. His breath washed over me, soft and warm. I urged him up, beckoning him to follow. “Come,” I said, “let’s get clean.”
* * *
All of the grime scrubbed off and officially clean, I sat on a chair in the bathroom applying coconut oil to my skin. Brando stood in front of the mirror combing his hair, a towel wrapped around his waist, water droplets still running over his smooth chest and back.
He smelled of tropical shampoo and the hot sun. His hair fixed, he dressed in a white t-shirt, throwing on a pair of old jeans.
A knock on the door announced that lunch had arrived. Brando told me to dress and meet him in the room. My stomach made a rude noise, and he told me to listen to it.
At first I went for pajamas, but deciding on something different, I threw on a thin Henley top with a pair of frayed jean shorts, and left it at that, since we were not venturing further than the room. The mirror caught my reflection on the way out. I stopped dead and then took a hesitant step forward, my fingers clasped to the cross around my neck.
My appearance was enough to scare the fish.
