“We call thempiante grasse,” he said, his eyes flicking over to the pot. “What are you doing here and why are you asking me about plants?”
“Because sometimes it can help. Did you ever hear about the Three-Three-Three rule?” she asked. He shook his head no. Lora gestured toward the bench, silently asking for permission to sit next to him. He nodded. “You find three things that you can see, three things that you can hear, and three things that you can touch. You’re already through the first part. So, what can you hear?”
“I can hear you worrying too much about me,” he said, his hands relaxed off his hips.
“Anything else?” she asked, settling onto the bench.
“The band started up again,” he said, after a pause.
“Probably a good sign, right?”
He nodded again, his shoulders settling back down.
“I can hear the water dripping from thefontanellathere in the corner,” he said, gesturing toward the dark marble form.
“Now you have to touch three things.”
“Does the bench count?”
“For your ass, it does.” She smiled.
“Then it counts.” He reached into his pocket and produced a coin. “Two euros.”
“Perfect. One more.”
Without looking, he picked up her hand and threaded their fingers together, placing the clasp on top of his knee.
“You.”
“How do you feel now?” she asked, rubbing her thumb on the back of his knuckles. He pulled his hand away.
“Better.”
“Good,” she said, her discarded hand lying open in her lap.
“I was wrong,” he said, looking up at the sliver of moon hanging over the garden. “I could not have been more wrong.”
“What were you wrong about?”
“I thought it wouldn’t happen here. I thought it was a New York thing. I thought it was because I was weak from growing up in a town that was so small you could fit the whole population into a subway car. It was work stress and staying ahead of the markets and hours of research and so many late nights. It was dehydration, being hung over, arguing with Danni, no sleep. I thought it was the honking horns and police sirens and whatever other stupid excuses I made. It was always something else…” He trailed off. “But it was me all along.”
“Were you holding your breath all this time? For four years?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice cracking. “Maybe I was.”
“No one could live like that,” she said. “Just hoping that something awful wasn’t going to happen every single day.”
“What else was I supposed to do?”
She shrugged, leaned back to look up at the glittering, obsidian sky.
“Know that even if it did happen, you can handle it. I know it sounds really annoying, but anxiety can’t kill you. It feels like it’s going to, but it’s really only a big jerk at the end of the day. Like any bully, it will run off if you stand up to it.”
“That’s the solution, huh?”
“No. That’s a quick fix. The solution is something else that you’re going to have to figure out. But that’s a little above my pay grade.”
“Well, I’ve got a lot of figuring out to do. Including how to explain what the hell happened tonight to a town full of people.”
