Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
His eyes were darting around the cabin before this, but right now, they are sweeping to my face and locking in. He’s trying to do what I wanted to do, which is to convey everything he’s feeling with a single glance. I can’t possibly unpack that. There’s so much there, but I still try, falling into those alluring green depths. I find myself swaying toward him even though my feet are locked in place. It’s a battle of my will against my body. If I move an inch, I know I’m going to break.
“Then you came,” he says softly.
A shiver breaks over me, rattling my insides like a wolf snapping at the bars of a cage. I’m suddenly drenched in the same exact sensation I had standing in Luca’s kitchen yesterday. It’s something I can only describe as a primal longing mixed with what feels like hunger. The kind of hunger I’ve always kept locked away in the unknown chambers of my heart and the unexplored parts of my mind.
I’ve wanted to do life with abandon, but something has always stopped me. Expectations. Rules. The limitations I’ve put on myself. I’ve always held something back, afraid to give everything I have to just one thing because if that thing breaks, then it’ll all be gone in an instant. I watched the passion bleed out of my parents, year after year, and I was powerless to give them back their joy. I never knew what it was exactly, until this moment, but looking back now, I can see that if there is anything even close to magic, it was the loss of that, and hope, that bled them into where they are now.
And it’s not Luca’s fault.
It’s not mine either.
But maybe witnessing it enough stopped me from ever telling them what I truly wanted to do with my life.
It stopped me from ever telling anyone.
I went to business school, not culinary school.
I dated, but I never found anyone I wanted to let close.
I have friends, but no one who properly and truly knows the heart of me.
I love my parents so much, but even they don’t know what’s in my heart.
Maybe I’ve hidden that from myself, too, never fully daring to let it loose because once you open the lid on that, there’s no stuffing it all back inside.
Case in point: Pandora.
I’ve been lost in my head while Luca was probably waiting for me to say something. He grasps the chair in front of him like he needs the support, his knuckles whitening against the curved backrest.
“You saw more than just the ones on my face,” he tells me. “And I saw the ones I left on you before you were even born, because I left them behind in your life as a legacy. That was wrong, and now I know for certain what I left behind. I can’t undo it, but I do want to change it. I didn’t mean to start a slow unraveling that would end in absolute destruction.”
I try to force a smile. It’s hard when the ground seems to be moving in waves beneath my feet. “That might be a little extreme.”
“Is it? I seemed to have stolen your dad’s fire and light.”
Jesus, that curse. There’s no such thing as a curse, and there’s no such thing as magic. Just what people do and say, and how others take it and choose to live with it after.
“Dampened it, maybe. But I do believe in every single person being responsible for their reactions and how they fix or don’t fix themselves. As you said, it’s been a long time. I don’t even fully agree with my dad’s request.” I shrug helplessly. “I just didn’t know what else to do. I knew I couldn’t fix anything, and I didn’t expect you to either. I just thought that maybe if I came out here, I could change my dad’s perspective and help him see that the fire was there all along. It’s hard to get rid of the coals. They’re the most dangerous part. They’re still under there, glowing hot, waiting for their revival.”
He grabs a piece of pizza and holds it up in the air above his face before bringing it to his mouth. Then, he bites and chews, and I’m mesmerized. I hoped he’d come here, but I didn’t truly think he would. Now he’s here, and he’s saying exactly what I wanted him to say, so why am I so unprepared for it? Why do I have zero defenses when it comes to this man? With him, I’ve been stripped bare from the beginning.
The lifetime we could have had never happened. If it had, I know I never would have kissed him. He would have been like an uncle to me, and good god, I’m not judging anyone, but the amount of uncle fucking stories that people I know have been talking about lately are just… a lot.