I stopped but did not face her.
“I…” The one letter was as strangled as mine.
I nodded and headed for the door.
Lightning flashed. Thunder rolled. Rain sounded like pebbles falling against glass as it came down harder outside the windows.
It seemed like a cool wind rushed my back before she jumped on it, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and her legs around my stomach.
She kissed my neck as if she could not stop. “How long do we have?” She barely got out. “Until the challenge?”
“Late summer.” I kissed her hands.
Her face replaced her lips and she started to cry into my neck.
I pulled her around so she was facing me. “Look at me,” I ordered.
She did.
“We will not live like we are dying, my empyrean bird. We will live as though we have already been set free, or we will not live at all.”
She took a shuddering breath and wrapped her arms around me.
A minute or so later, she nodded into my neck.
After I dressed her, we left.
FORTY-SEVEN
AVA
Time.
We all think we have it, until a sudden storm brutal enough to steal it looms in the distance. It pushes the sun out of our days and clouds our moon over at night. It steals all sense of control and eats away at our happiness, until we feel like we’re a bird trapped in a cage by the love that lured us in there.
Love is the bars that create our prison and the doors to freedom. Both are made of the same materials.
Or as a wiseman once told me,The love that is strong enough to save us is also the love that can destroy us. As it should be.
I wrote all this down in an email and emailed it back to myself. I refused to forget it. Sooner or later, when I felt like I could finally breathe easy, after this challenge was over, I was going to post it on my Instagram account with a picture to go with it.
Maybe I would even say something about the chaos in the snow globe when it’s turned upside down, but how it always settles.
Nazzareno had given my phone back with all my pictures, and I scrolled through them while he was in the shower.
We were still in New York. I wanted this time with him. Time away from Italy and all that waited for us there.
I’d made a vow to myself that while we were here, I wouldn’t obsess over what would happen there. It was going to be hard to do, but even if I still didn’t agree with the challenge, I wanted to give Nazzareno what he wanted from me.
The honor to do this.
I sighed, long and hard, as he slipped in beside me, his body hot and smelling like a fresh shower. Neil and Andrea had offered us the rent-controlled apartment, and because it felt like a full circle moment, we decided to stay for one night.
Nazzareno took my reading glasses off and set them on the coffee table. The mattress in the bedroom was the same one that had belonged to Aunt Lucia, and I refused to sleep on it. Nazzareno had agreed with a nod.
He slipped his hand underneath my cami and gave me a kiss that made me thankful for the sofa underneath me. It was the kind of kiss that had to take a breath after the lips separate—we made a noise as we parted.
I ran my fingertips up and down his arm, and his skin puckered. “I really don’t want to talk about it after this, but I have something to say.”
