I find myself checking my phone obsessively, though I don’t know what I’m looking for. Messages from Holdan about the annulment progress. Updates from Dr. Lyons about the waiting list. Anything that gives me the illusion of taking constructive action instead of just sitting here missing someone I should be grateful to be free of.
The rational part of my mind knows exactly what’s happening. Stockholm syndrome doesn’t end the moment captivity does. The psychological bonds formed in extreme situations take time to fade. This constant preoccupation with Ginni’s welfare is just my brain trying to process trauma by maintaining connection to the source.
It’s not love. It’s not longing. It’s just my psyche trying to make sense of an experience that defied every assumption I had about myself and my life.
But if that’s true, why does everything feel so fucking empty?
I walk through my house, noting details that should be comforting but somehow aren’t. My expensive furniture, chosen for style rather than comfort. My pristine kitchen, barely used because I eat most meals at restaurants or the club. My bedroom, functional and sterile, nothing like the warm cocoon of silk and candlelight where I spent two weeks learning what it felt like to be wanted.
Really wanted. Not just tolerated or useful or feared, but actively desired by someone who studied my preferences like they were sacred texts. Someone who remembered every small kindness I’d ever shown him and built a fantasy around the idea that I might be capable of love.
I pour myself a whisky and try to read, but the words swim on the page. Try to watch television, but the voices feel distant and meaningless. Try to listen to music, but every song sounds wrong, too harsh or too sentimental or just too much without Ginni’s soft commentary to filter it through.
When did I become dependent on his presence? When did his voice become the soundtrack I needed to feel settled? It’s disturbing how quickly I adapted to having him there, how natural it felt to have someone anticipating my needs and working to meet them.
That’s all it was, I tell myself. Convenience. Having someone devoted to my comfort and pleasure. Any reasonable man would miss that level of service. It doesn’t mean anything deeper.
But then I remember the way he looked at me when I asked him to sing. The pure joy on his face, like I’d given him the greatest gift imaginable just by wanting to hear his voice. The way he’d melted against me when I kissed him, soft and trusting and so fucking beautiful it made my chest ache.
I remember him drawing me that afternoon, the way I’d posed so patiently while he sketched, chattering about art and technique and his nonna’s lessons. The way his whole face had lit up when I told him I was honored to be his muse. As if being important to me was all he’d ever wanted.
When was the last time anyone looked at me like that? Like I was the center of their universe, the answer to every prayer they’d ever made? When was the last time someone was grateful just to be in my presence?
Never. The answer is never, because normal people don’t worship their partners like devotional objects. Normal relationships involve compromise and negotiation and the gradual erosion of romance into comfortable routine.
What Ginni offered was neither normal nor sustainable. It was obsession disguised as devotion, desperation dressed up as love. The fact that it felt good doesn’t make it healthy.
But Cristo, it felt good. It felt like coming home after a lifetime of wandering. It felt like finally being seen and known and valued for exactly who I was rather than what I could provide.
The whisky burns as it goes down, amber fire that does nothing to warm the cold spreading through my chest. I’m doing the right thing. The responsible thing. Getting the annulment, finding proper care for Ginni, returning to my real life before this temporary madness does any more damage.
But sitting here in my perfect house, surrounded by all the trappings of success that used to feel like accomplishments, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m making the biggest mistake of my life.
The world feels dimmer without Ginni in it. Quieter. More ordinary.
And maybe that’s the real problem. Not that I was traumatized by my captivity, but that I was spoiled by it. Two weeks of being someone’s entire world, of being loved with an intensity that burned away everything ordinary and safe and predictable.
How do I go back to normal after that? How do I settle for being just another successful man in an expensive suit when I’ve tasted what it feels like to be someone’s salvation?
The whisky bottle sits on the coffee table, catching the evening light streaming through windows that face the real world instead of projected fantasies. Everything here is real. Solid. Dependable.
So why does it all feel like scenery in a play I’m no longer sure I want to be in?
I close my eyes and try to imagine my life moving forward. The annulment finalized, Ginni safely settled in Dr. Lyons’s care, this whole episode buried so deep it becomes something that happened to someone else. I can see it clearly. Rational, responsible, exactly what any sane man would do.
But when I open my eyes, the empty house stretches around me like a mausoleum. Beautiful and lifeless and achingly quiet.
And for the first time since I escaped, I fully allow myself to admit the truth I’ve been running from.
I miss him. Really miss him. I miss my beautiful, broken, dangerous menace. I miss his laugh and his intensity and the way he made even the most mundane moments feel charged with possibility.
The world is darker without him in it. And no amount of rational thinking is going to change that.
Chapter thirty-four
Carlo
The doorbell rings just as I’m pouring my third whisky of the evening. Or maybe fourth. I’ve lost count, which isn’t like me. Nothing about the last few days has been like me.
