“I think you should stay, and if you feel like a piece of you is still missing after all that time, you need to try to forgive,” Lily says.
I look through the window. Her words should feel like a plan, but they only spread an ache through my chest. I came here to forget. “I want to stay, but I can’t stay in his house.”
“Of course, you can.” Saar waves my objection away.
“You have to stop rejecting everything based on the right and wrong you accepted at one point in your life,” Celeste says. “Do you love the house?”
“Yes,” I grumble.
“You can stay there for free for as long as you want. What objections can you possibly have?” Saar asks.
“I’d still feel I owe him something.”
Celeste covers Amelie’s ears. “Fuck that. He owes you more.”
The vineyards stretch in front of me, their bare vines rising in neat rows from the frost-kissed earth. Winter has stripped the valley to its essence—no flowers, no fruit, only the quiet dignity of rest. The rest I needed more than I realized.
I tug the wool blanket tighter around my shoulders. My stomach growls, but I’m too cozy to go down to the village yet.
I haven’t prepared a proper meal in weeks. The idea of doing anything in the kitchen, other than making a cup of coffee, has been anxiety-inducing.
I have some sort of kitchen-related PTSD. I would rather attend a silent retreat with Xander’s grandmother than cut another tomato in my life.
Xander.
Staying at Xander’s house alone this past week has been amazing. The stillness. The peace. The creative flow.
It’s been agonizing. Because if I thought staying in Tuscany would help me forget, staying in his house makes that impossible.
But I stopped fighting it, because I don’t think it matters where I live—Xander Stone etched himself on my mind, and forgetting him is not an option. I’m not even sure if learning to live without him is possible.
But I try. I try hard. When I go for a walk. When I write. When I mindlessly scroll on my phone. When I wake up. When I go to bed.
At all other times, I hope he’ll just show up. In thatscenario, I try to move past my hurt. The picture usually breaks apart.
To make things worse, ever since the girls left, I’ve been receiving a bouquet of sunflowers and a fresh pistachio Danish from my favorite New York bakery every day.
I hate him for that.
But I also love him for it.
Fuck.
I take a sip of my tea, and then reach for my notebook and pen.
The air smells of damp stone, cypress, and distant woodsmoke. The comfortable wooden chair creaks, the only sound on the veranda. It’s just me here, the hush of the hills, and the whisper of ink on paper.
My pen hovers for a beat before I let it drop onto the page. The first lines spill out like breath:
The eagle didn’t remember when it had forgotten how to fly.
Only that one day, the wind no longer came when it opened its wings.
I pause and reread the lines. I have written four more stories since the girls left. Maybe I’ll finish another book before the first one is out.
I smile and put the pen to paper again, when Ihear my phone from inside. Sighing, I enter the house and find the offending device on the dining table.
It’s Tessa. My finger hovers over the green button, but I hesitate. My sense of duty pushes me to answer, even though I’m ninety-nine percent sure the sole purpose of the call is to complain about the bistro.
