He promised me everything was fine, that we’d figure it out and I believed him.
I clean him with shaking hands, and I try not to cry because crying feels like admitting I can lose him. He watches me the whole time, silent, too quiet and too tense.
When I kiss the cut like luck is something you can bargain for, his jaw ticks, and he closes his eyes like it hurts.
“I’m okay,” he repeats, but it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.
When I finish, I climb back into bed and pull him close, forcing his hand to my stomach. He lets me. For a while, I think we’re okay.
Then I wake again at dawn.
Matteo is at the window, sitting on the edge of a chair like he’s afraid the bed will swallow him. The sea outside is silver, and the sun is barely up.
His shoulders are rigid, and his gaze is fixed on nothing. It’s like he’s listening for footsteps that aren’t there.
“Hey.” My voice is soft. I slide to the edge of the bed and reach for him, touching his arm.
He flinches again. Then he turns his face toward me, and it’s like looking at a stranger wearing his features. His eyes are too dark. His mouth is too hard.
“What are you thinking?” I whisper, and my fingers slide up his forearm to his wrist, to the place where his pulse is racing like it’s running from something.
He stares at me like the words are a trap. Then he looks away. “I can’t,” he mutters.
It doesn’t even register at first. It’s too vague. Too absurd.
“What?” I sit up, the sheet sliding down my chest. “You can’t what?”
His throat moves. He swallows, and I watch the muscle work like he’s forcing something down. “I’m not ready to be a father.”
The words hit me wrong, like they were said in the wrong room, in the wrong story.
I blink at him. Then I laugh once, breathless and sharp, because my brain refuses to believe him. “You’re just scared,” I whisper. “It’s okay. We’re both scared. We don’t have to decide everything right now.”
He shakes his head. Not frantic. Final.
“I’m not deciding.” His voice is flat. “I’m telling you I can’t do this.”
My skin goes cold, all the air siphoning from my lungs. “Can’t,” I rasp out, tasting the word. “Or won’t?”
His eyes flick to mine, and there’s something in them that looks like pity. Like I’m already the one left behind. “Either.”
The room tilts. I press my palm to my chest, a stupid reflex, like I can physically hold my heart to keep it from shattering.
“Is there someone else?” The question scrapes out of me because it has to be that. It has to be something.
“No.” He doesn’t even hesitate. “It’s me, Cat. It’s… my life.”
“What life?” My laugh breaks in half. I sit up straighter, rage rushing in because it’s the only thing that keeps me from falling apart. “You work at the marina and steal lemons from old ladies. You fix scooters, make coffee and flirt with tourists and talk about going back to Manhattan one day. What life is too big for this?”
I grab his hand and press it to my stomach hard enough to make him inhale sharply. I want him to feel the truth he’strying to abandon. “For us?” My voice cracks on the word like it’s glass.
He freezes. His fingers curl instinctively, protective, like his body still knows what his mouth is denying. For a second, I think I’ve got him. Then he rips his hand away like it burned him. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
I stare at him. Just stare at the bruise blooming on his ribs where I cleaned him hours ago. Then I stare at his hands, raw and scraped. Something happened. Something he won’t tell me. And now, he’s hiding behind that cowardly sentence.
“You asked me to trust you… You said we’d figure it out.”
“I was wrong.”
