“The tree house is too lonely for one wild animal.” I could understand that. Even though it had staff, it was still beautiful in a way that requires more than one to share it, or that beauty would turn into a haunting loneliness. I knew about that.
A rent-controlled apartment in New York.
A dog.
Emotional attachments.
Financial responsibilities.
All shackles imprisoning me to…an empty life.
How funny, but not in a hilarious way, that views of life can change when we’re moved from our usual spot.
Before I left New York, it was the thought of being caged by commitments that made it hard for me to breathe.
In Orvieto, in that moment, it was the loneliness. The idea of never finding my life’s true direction and following the passions of my heart. The thought of being another…Edna.
“Sì.” His voice was raspy. “I enjoy it, but only in thought. It has the power to stir a sense of loneliness in me that follows after I have left.”
After I have left.
I imagined it.
Naz gone from my life.
Not sitting with me in this small trattoria located on volcanic rock. Not showing me around narrow streets and through alleys, giving me history only his could rival. Not hearing the beep of his phone when it was time for me to eat. Or looking at me like I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. A touch so hot, it could only be translated into one word in any language:mine.
My mom was there one minute. The next she was gone.
My hands gripped the table as my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. I couldn’t catch my breath.
“Ava.”
Naz’s voice was in my ear, but I had to concentrate on taking one breath at a time. Of taking control of my heart…of my fucking life.
I’d built it in such a way that I could fly free—run and rat the streets, the only attachment the passion burning deep inside of me to find…
I looked up and my breath started coming even faster. Naz and the entire room swayed.
I’d always flown to his family.
To him.
I heard the chair scrape against the floor, and a cool breeze flowed over me, and then his arms were wrapped around me, carrying me out.
“All is well,uccellino selvatico,” he said, his voice calm and clear. I hardly bounced in his arms as he carried me through the town. When he got to the edge, he told me to open my eyes and breathe deeply, because… “You are flying. You are free.”
The entire world seemed like it existed below us.
A cool wind surged up, and my hair caught flight, twirling above my head.
I knew from below, looking up, it would look like we were pressed against the sky, and maybe, just maybe…we were flying free. Together but alone at the same time.
TWENTY-ONE
NAZZARENO
“A kingdom divided cannot stand,”Valerio was saying to Beni and Aristide.
