Chapter Twenty-Three
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ilias
“Good afternoon, welcome to Heather Sands. Are you checking in?” the impeccably dressed young man behind the reception desk asked as we approached, and the details quickly rolled off Oscar’s tongue since they were the same ones he’d been repeating for several weeks.
While the receptionist confirmed everything, I glanced around the entrance hall of the boutique hotel, which was right on the Yorkshire coast, taking it all in without really seeing any of it.
My mind was already elsewhere.
I was trying to put it down to the fact that it had been an intense couple of days, tacked onto a long couple of weeks. We were just over halfway through our list of hotels, with just the north of England and Scotland left to do, and I was starting to feel the effects of all the travelling.
But deep in my heart, I knew it was more than that.
Meeting Oscar’s family and having those intense moments of connection with him had stirred up long-dormant emotions and reclusive fears I couldn’t push away. There was a new weight resting on my chest—a monstrous fear that somehow I was going to lose Oscar the same way I’d lost Daniele.
Logically, I knew the chances of that scenario reoccurring were slim to none, but that didn’t stop the fear from whispering in my ear that I was destined to be alone. That in ten years, I’d have nothing more than scant memories of both of them and be left wondering whether they’d even existed at all.
That was the hardest part. The one thing I was terrified to admit—that as heavy as my grief was, the weight of my doubt was worse.
It was hard to confess, even to myself, that I hardly remembered Daniele anymore. My memories were like broken shards of glass that got cloudier with each passing day.
“Ilias?” Oscar asked, putting his hand on my shoulder and snapping me out of my thoughts. “You okay? Ready to go?”
“Yes.” I gave him a smile that even I knew was fake. “Let’s go put everything upstairs, then we can explore.”
Oscar frowned at me but said nothing. He reached for his bag and waited for me to follow him towards the stairs. I cursed internally because the one thing I hadn’t wanted was for Oscar to catch on to the fact that I wasn’t feeling myself, not that I was really trying to hide it.
I both desperately wanted and utterly hated the idea of him asking me what was wrong. The two sides of myself were at war, and I wasn’t sure which part was going to win. With anyone else I’d have buried my fear so deep it wouldn’t have been able to surface for another thousand years, but with him…
I thought back to that night in Hawaii when I’d first told him about Daniele and we’d talked about a possible relationship. Oscar had made me promise to tell him when I was scared, and I wanted to honour that, even if the idea made me want to run screaming for the hills.
“We’re just in here,” Oscar said. He’d stopped so suddenly I’d nearly walked into the back of him, and it was only at that point I realised we’d climbed three flights of stairs. I really was working on autopilot.
He clicked the key card into the lock and pushed the door open. “After you.”
“Thanks.” I stepped through the door, expecting another nice hotel room similar to the other ones we’d stayed in. Except, apparently, Heather Sands was determined to outdo their competition.
“Fucking hell,” I said. “Are you sure we’ve got the right room?”
“Yeah.” Oscar looked at the little card in his hand, then back at the door. “302. This place is pretty small, so it’s hard to get lost.” He glanced up, and I saw the exact moment he realised what I meant. I stifled a laugh.
“I’m pretty sure they’ve given us a suite.”
“Shit. This is bigger than my flat.”
The room was gorgeous; an enormous, open space with a soft, plush-looking sofa, coffee table, desk, and television at the front and large windows overlooking the sea on the far wall. An enormous bed made up with white sheets and deep purple cushions stood on a raised area to my right, and while it wasn’t a four-poster, it did look ridiculously comfortable.
There were large wardrobes in the same dark wood as the rest of the furniture, and through a door to my right I saw a bathroom and the edge of what looked like a claw-footed bath. The whole space oozed boutique charm and elegance, and for a moment I forgot about everything that had been bothering me.
“Okay,” I said as I let go of the handle of my suitcase. “This place is getting good marks on the Verrati index.”
Oscar chuckled. “But there isn’t a four-poster.”
“True, but look at how big that bed is.” I climbed up the step and walked around the bed, glancing out the window. “And the view is gorgeous. I could walk around naked in here and nobody could see me.”
“Hmm, I like that idea,” Oscar said. He was watching me with a wicked smile, and it made my heart flutter like a bird desperate to take flight. “But does it squeak? That’s the true test, right?”
“Only one way to find out.” I let myself flop backwards onto the bed, listening for any tell-tale groans, but all I heard was the flump of my body onto the sheets, and the soft whoomp of the decorative cushions toppling onto me. Apparently, I had caused a pillow avalanche.
“No squeaking,” I said as I bounced my body up and down a few times to make sure. “But I’m not sure if they should lose marks for the number of pillows. I could have suffocated.”
As if to accentuate my point, another cushion landed on my face. I didn’t make any attempt to move it. I was having too much fun with the ridiculous moment. “See? I could die here.”
I heard Oscar laughing and the sound of his feet on the carpet. Then the cushion was lifted and the dark purple filling my vision was replaced with his face. He leant down and pressed a soft kiss to my lips.
“Ta-da, you’ve been rescued.”
“Such heroics,” I said, trying not to laugh. “How will I ever repay you?”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something.” He leant down and kissed me again. My hands came up to encircle his neck, pulling him down onto the bed with me. I wanted to lose myself in his kisses, his touch, his body. I wanted to get out of my head and leave my fears behind.
But with every press of his mouth, all I could think about was that I didn’t want this to end. That I didn’t want to wake up one morning not knowing what the touch of his lips felt like, haunted by only memories.
“Ilias?” Oscar asked. He pulled away and sat up, looking down at me with an expression filled with concern. “What’s going on?”
“It’s nothing. I’m just tired.”
“Please.” He put his hand on my chest, right above my heart. I knew he’d be able to feel how hard it was pounding. “Don’t shut me out. Talk to me.”
“Seriously, it’s nothing. Just leave it. Please.” I knew everything I was saying was wrong, but I didn’t know how to make it right. Talking to him was easy in principle, but harder to execute in reality.
“No.” His tone was gentle, but there was a firm edge to it that caught me by surprise. “Please, Ilias. We made a deal. We promised we’d talk to each other.”
“We promised we’d try,” I said. “There’s a difference there.”
“Don’t do that. It’s not fair.” He frowned, and it made my chest ache because I hated seeing him like that. “Come on, talk to me. I promise I’ll listen, and I promise I won’t judge you. Is this…” He hesitated, and I knew what he was going to ask before he said it, but it didn’t make the words hurt any less. “Is this about Daniele?”
And there it was. The one question I couldn’t avoid without lying to him outright. I was trapped.
“Yes,” I said quietly, my voice shaking. “It is.”
Then without warning, I started to cry.
My emotions consumed me, dark and raw and desperate to be fed. Tears flooded down my cheeks as my body shook and my breathing became rushed and ragged. I hadn’t cried like that in years, but it was like I’d opened a valve, and it was all flooding out faster than I could control.
Oscar was muttering soft words above me, making soothing sounds as his hand caressed my shoulder. In the back of my mind, I realised I’d curled onto my side, hugging my knees to my chest like it would make me disappear.
I didn’t know how long I cried because time seemed to slip away. But eventually, I felt my body calm, and I took a deep, shuddering breath. It felt like the first one I’d drawn in a lifetime.
It was like I’d been washed up on the shore after a storm, and behind me the sea was calm with only the edges of the ruffled waves showing any indication there had been disruption.
“I’m sorry,” I said. My voice was hoarse and broken.
“Don’t be.” Oscar leant down and pressed a soft kiss to my temple. I realised he was stretched out on the bed next to me, propped on the mountain of pillows. I shuffled slightly so I could rest my head in his lap, and his fingers carded through my hair as I let out another deep breath. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No. Not really.” I stared down at Oscar’s feet and realised he’d taken his shoes off. His socks had colourful triangles printed all over them. “But I probably should.”
“You don’t have to if you’re not ready.”
“I don’t think I ever will be,” I said.
“Nobody ever is I don’t think. But I’m here. I promise I’m not going anywhere.” Oscar’s words were like a soothing balm on my soul. I nodded.
“I know. Logically, I do anyway. It’s just…” I sighed. If there was one thing I hated more than anything else it was feeling vulnerable. It felt like all my nerves had been exposed and every moment was agony.
“Are you scared I’m going to run away?” Oscar asked. “Or do you think I’m trying to replace Daniele?”
“No, it’s not that.” The second option had never even crossed my mind if I was honest. I’d never seen the two as mutually exclusive, and perhaps that was because I wasn’t sure whether Daniele and I would ever have made it that far.
“I’m scared I’m going to lose you too,” I said eventually. “I know the chance of history repeating itself is very low, but all I can think about is how much I don’t want to lose you. The fear is paralysing me because all I can think about is being in the same situation in ten years’ time except I’m haunted by two ghosts instead of one. I know it’s ridiculous—”
“It’s not ridiculous,” Oscar said. “You went through something awful, something that I wouldn’t wish upon anybody.”
“Thanks.” I smiled weakly, but I was still looking at Oscar’s feet. The triangles were red, orange, blue, and green. In the back of my mind, I was trying to count them. “Do you know the worst part? Apart from nobody else knowing.”
“What?”
“It’s that I hardly remember him anymore. And I feel like such a shit person for that. All I can remember are fragments: the sound of his laughter, the shape of his smile, how much he loved pistachio gelato. They’re all just pieces, and I can’t remember how to put them together anymore. If I didn’t have pictures, I’d have forgotten what he looked like.”
I held my breath, waiting for Oscar to tell me what a horrible person I was. It was like waiting for an axe to fall.
“You’re not a shit person,” he said softly. “You’re human. People forget, and it’s okay. I know it’s not the same, but I can barely remember my dad. I don’t even know if half my memories of him are real or not or if they’re just stories I’ve been told or things I’ve imagined. It hurts, and I wish it was different, but it’s not something I can change. You can’t punish yourself for being human.”
“Do you know the worst part?” My voice was barely above a whisper. “Sometimes, I don’t wish it was different. I mean, I wish Daniele hadn’t died, but that’s because death is shit, and he wasn’t even twenty. But… I don’t even know if we’d still have been married. I was in love with the idea of him, rather than the idea of being married to him. I guess it’s more the hindsight of growing up, but we barely knew each other, and I’m so different now.
“It might have worked. I mean my nonna ran away and married my grandad at seventeen, and they’d only spoken like three times, and they’ve been married for over sixty years. But I don’t think we’d have been the same. And I feel guilty about that… that Daniele died for something that might not have lasted more than six months.”
With every word, it felt like I was draining some long-festering wound in my chest that I’d refused to acknowledge. The pain was almost unbearable, but by the time I’d reached the end, I somehow felt better for it.
“I understand,” said Oscar. “But you can’t beat yourself up for that. At the time, you wanted to marry him. You loved him, and you believed in your relationship. That means something, I promise. The years might have changed your perspective, but they don’t change how you felt at the time. You loved him, and Daniele knew that. And that’s the most important thing.”
“You think so?” I felt like a child looking for some kind of desperate reassurance.
“I do.” His fingers continued to card through my hair, and I felt my eyelids starting to droop. My emotional outburst had left me feeling utterly exhausted. I wasn’t usually an afternoon nap person, but today might have to be an exception.
“Just for the record,” Oscar continued. “I’m not going anywhere. I know you said you’re afraid of losing me, and I understand that. But I want you to know I’ll be here for as long as you want me.”
I nodded, shifting my position slightly and draping my hand over his thigh. As long as I wanted him… that sounded nice.
As sleep dragged me under, I wondered if forever would be possible.