CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The walls are closing in.
I've been staring at the same four walls of my bedroom for three days and I can feel them getting smaller with each passing hour, pressing in from all sides until there's barely enough air to breathe.
I'm pacing again, the same path I've worn into the carpet over the last seventy-two hours, back and forth from the window to the door, door to window, my hands opening and closing at my sides because I need to do something with them and there's nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing except this room and these walls and the counting down of hours until I marry someone I don't love.
I make another circuit of the room and my breathing is coming too fast, shallow gasps that don't quite fill my lungs, and I know this feeling, recognize the edge of it, the way panic starts creeping in at the periphery before it takes over completely.
The door opens and Alessia slips inside, closing it quietly behind her.
She takes one look at me and her face does something complicated.
"Come sit down," she says gently.
"I can't sit down." My voice comes out sharper than I intend. "If I sit down I'm going to start screaming and I don't think I'll be able to stop."
"Isabella—"
"I need to leave this house." I stop pacing and look at her directly. "I need to go somewhere, anywhere, I don't care where. I just need to not be inside these walls for a few hours or I'm going to lose my mind."
She crosses to me and takes my hands, holding them firmly when I try to pull away.
"Breathe with me," she says. "In for four, hold for four, out for four."
"That's not going to help."
"Try it anyway."
I try it because she's looking at me with such concern that I can't refuse, and we breathe together for a minute, maybe two, and the panic pulls back slightly but doesn't disappear.
"Better?" she asks.
"No." I shake my head. "I appreciate what you're trying to do but breathing exercises aren't going to fix this. I need to move. I need space. I need—" My voice cracks. "I need to not be trapped in here counting down the hours until my life becomes something I don't recognize."
She looks at me for a long moment, searching my face, and then she nods once, decisive.
"I'll talk to Matteo."
"He won't let me leave."
"He will if I explain it properly." She squeezes my hands once more before letting go. "Just wait here. Don't do anything drastic."
She leaves and I go back to pacing because sitting still remains impossible, and I count the minutes until she comes back, and when she doesn't come back after ten minutes I start counting the seconds.
Fifteen minutes later the door opens again.
Matteo.
He stands in the doorway and looks at me and I watch him take in my face, my posture, the way my hands are shaking slightly at my sides, and his expression shifts into something I haven't seen from him in years.
Worry.
"Alessia said you're not doing well," he says quietly.
The understatement is so absurd I almost laugh. "I've been better."
He comes inside and closes the door and we stand there looking at each other, and I see him choosing his words carefully, weighing what to say.
