Groggily, I sit up, rubbing at my eyes.“Good morning.”
It feels strange to say it.Such a mundane sort of greeting.
But it also feels…good.
“Morning.”He puts the plate of food in my lap.“Have something to eat.”
“Have you eaten?”I ask.“What about water?”
At the word “water” he produces the same bottle as yesterday, filled and sparkling, and pours it into two cups.
“I ate,” he says simply.“Now you.”He sips his water, watching me over the rim of the glass to make sure that I do it.
He doesn’t need to tell me twice.I’m ravenous after not eating much in the past twenty-four hours.I devour the bread with its sweet preserves.When I’m finished, Curse holds out his hand to me, helping me rise off the bench.I’m sore from the night spent on the wood, but I revel in the stiffness of my muscles.Because it means something.Proves I was here with him all night after all.That this hasn’t been a dream.
That he really loves me.
Curse doesn’t let go of my hand as we leave the church.
“Where’s Paulo?”I ask, expecting to see the older man out here among the gravestones.
“He came this morning.Brought me new clothes and the food.But he’s taking the rest of the week off.He said he’s going to visit his daughter and grandchildren in Palermo.”
“That’s not a euphemism, is it?”I ask, suddenly worried that Curse has done something.
“You worried I’ve made him disappear?”A slight smirk touches his lips.“Well, I didn’t.I did pay him an obscene amount of money, though.He’s just making use of it.”
Relief is so big and so sudden inside me that it escapes my throat in a laugh.Curse raises his brows at me, as if I’ve lost my mind, but I don’t care.He said he loves me.He’s stuck with me now.I throw my arms around his waist and squeeze.
And there, among the graves, standing on the bones of our buried past, he hugs me back.
I ask Curse where we’re going when we get into the car – a weird, tiny, old one that I don’t recognize.
“Toronto,” he replies.“But there’s one other place I want to go first.”
The other place, it turns out, is the beach.
Thebeach.That little private cove by the house papà stayed in.The house is empty now, no cars in the driveway, no movement behind the windows.When we make our way down to the sandy shore, there is no one there.
No one but us.
And it’s just the same;just the same.
How can it be?How can it be, when Curse and I are now so different?I don’t know if it’s comforting or disconcerting that this place can be so untouched, can remain just as it was, when we can’t.
But, for the first time in my fucking life, I don’t want things to be the way they were before.Standing with Curse on this sand, watching the bright aqua of the water shift beneath the sun, I want nothing but to be here with him, now, just as we are.
I trail along the beach slowly, keeping hold of Curse’s hand, memory blinking in and out.Those are the rock pools where Curse and I stirred the water with sticks, and I secretly pretended I was making a love potion.This is the place we crouched and watched the tiny crabs.
This is the boulder he laid his soaked clothes on, after pulling me from the water.
It’s so surreal, to see him standing beside it now, a man.
“I can’t believe we’re here,” I say, casting my gaze out over the water, the sky.With Curse, Taormina was heaven to me.Without him, it became hell.Now, it’s something in between.A place with beauty and wounds of its own.
Just like us.
“I can’t believe you’re the one who suggested it,” Curse says.“I heard you.When I was in the car.I heard you tell Alessandro to bring you here.”He cups my face.“How could you possibly think I wouldn’t follow you?”
