A week later
Slipping my hand underneath my pillow, I pulled out the gun that had taken up permanent residence there. I had contemplated leaving it behind, but couldn’t.
I slowly traced his initials with my thumb.EM.
Fuck.
I miss him.
If pathetic were a person, it would be me.
Elio wasn’t responding to my texts.
I sure as hell didn’t predict it would affect me this way, but it did. It left me with my thoughts, and those thoughts slowly transformed into guilt… and then regret.
At first, I packed up the guilt, and ignored the heaviness in my chest, which had been—to be honest—there since I left that cell at his compound.
I knew I’d been compromised, but I didn’t think it had gotten to the extent where I would be so tucked into myself, sinking into feelings I had no business feeling, especially at a time like this, a time when I needed my focus on the job I had to do.
My headphones firmly covered my ears, music playing, song after song starting and ending. I wasn’t really listening to the lyrics.
I turned on my side on the bed, facing the window; it was a floor-to-ceiling window showcasing the vast dark blue of the sea. Even with my headphones on, I could still hear the dull hum of the ship. I was missing out on all the fun just because I couldn’t get out of my head.
I never miss anyone. I shouldn’t misshim. It made no sense that I did, did it?
How could I miss someone who ignored me half the time? Someone who told me I was a mistake? I knew I was a mistake, but did he really have tosayit like that? Like he didn’t mean it but had to say it so we would have no reason to see each other again?
Couldn’t he just say, “Fuck off, we are nothing. You are better than me, and you messed up but made the right choice. I don’t want to see you because whatever tension between us is just too much, and I think you are better off without me”?
I sighed, knowing Elio would never say words like that.
I might have hurt him, but I probably should have been more honest. I should have made him listen to me. I talked him out of turning his lights off; why couldn’t I talk him into listening to me?
Three weeks of these thoughts filtering in and out of my mind, taking my focus away from everything else around me. God, it was driving me crazy.
I knew I messed up, but I didn’t need my mind reminding me of it every waking second.
It was funny because weeks ago, I hadn’t realized that I’d missed hearing his voice or that I liked his accent. Or his different facial expressions when explaining something to me while being a smart-ass. I knew he had a beautiful smile, but I was only just realizing how addictive it was.
Now I knew why I liked to say things to get on his nerves. It was so he would scowl in that gorgeous way of his.
And there was the way he furrowed his brows when thinking.
There was also the fact that he liked looking at me—specifically at my hair. It was the first thing his eyes always latched onto before he drank in my face.
Odd how just a few weeks were all it took to make me admit that maybe it wasn’t just his touch, or the sex. Maybe it wasjust… him. Maybe I was so high on him that I became insufferable to everyone around me. I knew I had to fix it.
But before I could make Elio listen, I would have to tell Devil. He was one of the reasons Elio turned a one-eighty and ended everything before anything really happened.
I groaned and turned on my back, staring up at the ceiling. Maybe I just needed to get Elio out of my system. I had had a taste that wasn’t enough, a taste that had me thirsting for more. I longed to have a meaningful or a stupid conversation with him where he’d try to prove me wrong by stating silly facts that I didn’t give a shit about. Things had been quiet on his end, and I wasn’t even wondering why he wasn’t making any moves to get the painting or if he knew where it was. I only cared about him… what he was doing,howhe was doing.
Had he given up on setting things right with Devil because of me? Did he really think I had purposefully tried to take away hopes of reconciliation between them?
I closed my eyes and sighed.
When had I lost control of my feelings? When we made love in the bathtub? When he took me to his house in Turin?
I slipped the gun right back underneath my pillow just as the door to my room opened.
