“Tell you what?” I approach him, curiosity starting to replace some of the angst weighing me down.
“Where your biscuits are.” He closes the cupboard door and pins me with his brown eyes.
“I don’t have any biscuits.”
His jaw drops. “What?”
“They’re full of sugar and no protein,” I explain.
“But they taste so good! Especially when dunked in tea.” Marcello puts his hands on his hips.
“I’m sure you can drink one cup of tea without a biscuit.”
“I mean, Ican, but I don’t want to. I’m really hungry after that… lesson.”
Our last lesson.
I bring a hand to my stomach. “I am too. I’ll cook, really soon. Let’s just drink our tea and start the puzzle, yeah?”
“Fine,” Marcello says, sounding anything but.
I point to the cupboard near his legs. “There are some protein bars in there, if you’re really desperate.”
Marcello bends with enviable agility although I do hear his knees crack. “That’ll do. That’ll do. Want one?”
“Go on then,” I say and I catch the bar he throws at me.
Ten or so minutes later and we’re sitting at my dining table with our half-drunk mugs of tea and a few hundred pieces of jigsaw puzzle in front of us. I’ve wiped away the crumbs our protein bars left and we’re rummaging through the box trying to find edge pieces.
I hate to admit it but Marcello was right. This is therapeutic. My mind focuses on the task with little resistance and after a while I stop counting how many pieces we’ve found to ensure we end up with a number divisible by three. And I don’t mind that I stop counting. I don’t feel the pull to start my count again. I still reassure myself that I could, if I had to, but I don’t do it. And by the time I’ve downed the last of my tea, I know I’ll be able to stop at any moment and not worry about it.
“Oh! I found a corner piece!” Marcello says with what is probably too much delight, but I feel it too.
“Well done,” I tell him and I reach over to slap the side of his shoulder. He looks up at me when the contact breaks and I feel like a myriad of emotions flitter through his eyes before they finally settle in a slightly lost expression.
“Thanks,” he says, his voice airy.
We share silent eye contact for another moment before his gaze drops and he goes back to sorting through the pieces in the box while I go abouttrying to join the ones we’ve already found. We didn’t come up with this strategy; we just sort of fell into it. And I like that. I like that we work well together as a team.
I also like how Marcello hums while he flicks through the pieces in the box. I like how his shaking leg occasionally brushes against mine under the table. I don’t recognise any of the melodies he makes, and eventually I understand why when a few Italian words slip out. He doesn’t seem to be aware that he’s singing so I don’t draw attention to it. I wonder if it calms him, the humming and singing. I hope so.
“Another one!” he exclaims and holds it up for me to see. He looks so proud, so happy. I feel a familiar wave of determination rise in me. I want to make him happy, and proud. I want to make him smile like this. I want to make him feel like this. Forever. For. Fucking. Forever.
But I can’t… Unless.
“I almost forgot,” I think out loud. “You said you have something to talk to me about. Earlier. Before we… had our lesson.”
Marcello’s smile evaporates in an instant. “Oh, yeah.”
“What was it?” I pick up a piece of the puzzle and study it, hoping it makes me look the very opposite of how I feel – deeply invested and desperate to know what it was.
“It was nothing,” he says quickly. Too quickly.
“No,” I say and I make sure I have his eye contact before I continue. “It was something. You know you can tell me whatever you want, Marcello. I’d like to think we can be honest with each other.”
The last sentence leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Because I have not been honest with Marcello. Not in the slightest.
“Well,” he breaks eye contact again and a pink blushes his cheeks, just above his beard, “I was wondering…”
