But for me, I’d been a miserable bastard. No matter how hard I tried to forget Isla, it had been impossible. Memories of her consumed me every second of every day, but that wasn’t unusual on its own. The amount of time she occupied my thoughts were a testament to how deeply I cared for her and loved her.
Then a few weeks ago, out of the blue, I had heart palpitations. I thought I was having a heart attack, but our family physician had assured me that I was in perfect health. He’d said it sounded like a panic attack. The more I considered the possibility, the more it made sense.
If I weren’t such a stubborn asshole, I would’ve searched for Isla long before now, but my pride had gotten the better of me. Why would I search for her, when she left me?
Obviously, I didn’t mean as much to her as she had wanted me to believe.
So why was I looking for her after all this time?
Nightmares.
Horrible, heart-pounding, breath-stealing nightmares. The kind that if I’d been a child, I would have peed the bed from the fright they had given me. Most times, I couldn’t even recall them in their entirety after I woke up, drenched in sweat and disoriented.
And every terrifying dream had been about Isla.
However, the snippets I could recall had been of me saving her, over and over again, from various situations.
I felt it in my bones: Isla wasn’t okay. She wasn’t living her best life without me and was in some kind of trouble. But I couldn’t imagine what.
Perhaps my mind was fucking with me because I missed her. Either way, I needed confirmation she was safe.
Then again, I could be paranoid after everything my sister went through last year. But I suspected the nightmares were more about me needing Isla and not her needing me to save her.
Isla was strong when pushed to her limit. I’d taken her for granted, and she showed her strength when she walked out of my life.
Cazzo!I slammed my fist on my desk.
Nothing in my privileged world had mattered afterMy-laleft me. And despite my attempts to erase her from my memory, my heart wouldn’t allow me to. Every detail about her had been seared on my soul.
The taste of her lips.
The feel of her fingertips trailing down my neck.
The smell of her skin and the sound of her moans.
Figlio di puttana!I pounded my mahogany desk, hating how much I still wanted her. Hating how nothing about her had faded from my memory. I wasn’t a teenager anymore. I was a grown fucking man who shouldn’t be thinking of his ex-girlfriend.
After all, she broke up with me! Me!
Last Monday night rushed back to me. I had woken up at one in the morning and couldn’t fall back to sleep. I felt on the brink of a panic attack as images of Isla flooded my mind. The same scene had haunted me a few more nights at exactly the same time: 1:00 am.
It was all so strange.
Even weirder, I had this odd need to walk the floor for an hour, sometimes two, before my mind settled. Honestly, if I wasn’t a God-fearing man, I might believe I was possessed by an evil spirit or something.
What sane person paced in their bedroom, groggy and exhausted? But there I’d been for multiple nights, going back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth like I had no control over my body.
The nightmares needed to stop once and for all. I couldn’t function on little sleep and was completely exhausted.
The decision to find Isla and put my worries to rest hadbeen easy. Although, admittedly, the idea of being face-to-face with her scared the shit out of me.
Would she reject me?
Did she have a boyfriend? Or worse, a husband?
Impossible. Isla with another man was unfathomable.
What we had was special. Of course, I never admitted it to anyone, especially not to Isla. In any case, I knew that she was my person just as I was hers.
