Chapter Thirty-Nine Lily
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Lily
D o you mind if we pass by the cemetery?” Lorenzo asks as we drive away from the house.
“Um…no. Of course not.” My palms start to sweat because the last time I went there was when we buried my dad. But for Lorenzo, I’m willing to put the memories aside and support him however he needs, even if it means doing something I usually avoid.
“Are you sure?” He takes his eyes off the road for a quick second.
“Yeah, but can we pass by the shop first?”
“Why?”
“I’m not going to show up to meet your parents empty-handed. That’s rude.”
Lorenzo parks in front of Rose & Thorn ten minutes later, and I hop out to make a quick bouquet of my favorite pink flowers before rushing back to the car.
“It’s the best I could do under a time crunch.”
“She’ll love it.”
The ride to the cemetery is quiet, but in a soothing kind of way. Lorenzo keeps tapping his thigh in sets of threes, and I eventually reach over to hold his hand instead.
“You good?” I ask.
He nods. “I usually save visits for Fridays, but I felt… Today was…”
“Hard?”
“Yeah.” He releases a lungful of air.
“I’m sorry…if my family triggered you, that is.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t apologize because I can’t get over my grief.”
His statement is so ridiculous, I can’t help laughing, which causes him to hit a curb.
“Are you laughing at me?”
I suck in a few gulps of air. “Yes, because what do you mean you can’t get over your grief? There’s no such thing!”
His lips press together, and his furrowed brows are putting in extra work today from how hard I’m making him think.
“So long as you love your parents, you’ll never stop grieving them, so the best way you can help yourself is to learn to coexist with the feeling.” Now, if only I could take my own advice.
“You talk like it’s that easy.”
“It’s not. I’m the first one to admit that I struggle with it.”
“So what do you suggest?”
I give his hand a squeeze. “Sharing that pain with each other so we both feel less…alone.”
He stays quiet for a minute while we drive through the main road of the cemetery.
“Thank you,” he says as he parks in the lot.
“No need to thank me. This is what friends do.” I reach for the bouquet.
“Lily?” He reaches for my hand before I can escape the car.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want to be your friend.”
My heart takes a brief intermission. “Why not?”
He cups my cheek. “I’d much rather be your boyfriend, if that’s an option.”
I stop breathing altogether, but who cares. Oxygen is overrated.
“You…what?”
“I thought about what you said yesterday, and you’re right—I am bothered by you talking about a future with another man because I so desperately want that man to be me.”
My mouth falls opens, but no words come out.
“I don’t want to lie to myself anymore about what we are. I don’t want to pretend . I want you to be mine, not because of an arrangement but because you choose to be.”
“You mean that?”
“With every fiber of my being.”
“I’m supposed to believe you changed your mind less than twenty-four hours later?”
“I’ve been changing my mind for weeks , but last night forced me to accept what I’ve been denying for far too long.”
“What?”
“If I had a thirty-year plan, you’d be the woman I would want to share it with.”
Lorenzo once described falling in love as a collection of small, impactful moments, and this happens to be one of them for me.
I can feel it.
I slip my hand into Lorenzo’s, and together we head down the cobblestoned pathway. He tells me about how he’s visited the cemetery every Friday since he moved to Lake Wisteria, and I’m blown away by his commitment to visiting his parents’ graves.
It’s hard to not feel guilty when I don’t do the same, but Lorenzo reassures me that I have the fountain, which is far less morbid.
When Lorenzo heads to his parents’ tombstones, I hang back on the sidewalk, giving him space to talk to his parents. Their headstones look less weathered by time than the other ones nearby, and the bouquet Lorenzo picked up on Friday is placed in front of his mother’s resting place.
I blink twice at it. “Oh God.”
He looks up from his squatting position with a smile. “Not that you asked, but it was cute to watch you get jealous about them.”
“I was not jealous.” The words leave my mouth in a rush.
He stands to his full height. “You totally were.”
“Okay. Whatever. Let’s say I was a teeny, tiny bit jealous and pretend this conversation never happened.”
“Are you kidding? I’m writing all about it in my diary tonight.”
I huff.
He smiles, only for it to go from smug to somber when he looks back down at the headstones.
“Ciao, Mamma e Papà.” He starts speaking in Italian, so I have no idea what he is saying.
“Vi ho portato a Lily oggi, cosi potete finalmente conoscerla. Sono molto sicuro che la amereste piu di quanto amate me.” I He looks back over his shoulder and smiles. It isn’t blinding—not that I expect it to be—but it does reach his eyes, which look a little less haunted than earlier today.
He continues speaking for a bit before calling me over. I place the flowers I brought beside Lorenzo’s bouquet before he wraps an arm around me and tugs me against him until there isn’t an inch of space between us.
“Hi.” I smile down at the headstones. “I’m Lily, your son’s…”
“Girlfriend,” he says without missing a beat.
Butterflies explode in my stomach because, wow. Okay. We’re really doing this.
After all the time we’ve spent fighting against the inevitable, it feels like everything is finally clicking into place for us, and I couldn’t be happier.
“Yes. That’s me. His girlfriend.”
His eyes seem to sparkle.
We both turn toward the headstones. I stay quiet while he tells his parents about our weekend and about how much money he raised for Healing Hearts.
“Over a quarter of a million dollars. Can you believe it?” he says.
I smile at the wonder in his voice. It makes him sound younger and much less burdened from his chronic sadness.
He shakes his head in disbelief. “I still can’t believe that Julian of all people dropped fifty thousand.”
“Do they know about your history?” I tease.
“Yes, and they’re very much Team Lorenzo. You, though? I’m not too sure.”
I fake a gasp of outrage. “Are you trying to ruin my first impression?”
“Oh. They’ve heard plenty about you already, so no need to worry about that.”
Something in my stomach flutters at Lorenzo talking about me to his parents .
If the man isn’t in love with me yet, he is already halfway there, if that genuine smile on his face is anything to go by.
And I look forward to the day when he finally realizes it himself.
I’m not sure why I ask Lorenzo if he is okay with stopping by my dad’s grave on our way out, but I do.
I mean, I know why I asked. The visit to the Vittoris’ graves gave me courage, but it quickly wore off once we started walking toward my father’s resting place.
My heart beats harder, blood pumping in my ears like my body can’t tell the difference between visiting a grave and fighting for my life.
At this moment, it feels a bit like both.
Lorenzo must sense the change in me, and he wraps his hand around mine, keeping me grounded. “We could come back another day.”
I appreciate his offer—I really do, but I shake my head. It feels wrong to visit the cemetery without paying my dad a visit, even if it is for only a minute.
If Lorenzo can manage this every Friday, I can make it through sixty seconds.
I want to.
I’m not sure what I was expecting when we arrive at my dad’s grave, but a meticulously kept area and a floral arrangement of freshly cut yellow roses wasn’t it.
My mom must visit more often than I thought, and guilt needles a hole through my chest.
Everyone grieves differently , I remind myself.
Lorenzo lets go of my hand and softly touches my cheek, cradling it with the palm of his hand. “Do you want me to give you a moment?”
“No.” I dig my heels into the ground. “Don’t go.”
He dips his head and tucks me into his side instead, lending me some of his strength without saying a single word.
“Hola, Papi,” I start, keeping my eyes drilled to the tombstone because I don’t trust myself not to cry if I look over at Lorenzo. “This is Lorenzo.”
“Hi,” he says, completely serious.
“I’m sorry I don’t visit you here,” I whisper. “But I think of you every day. I miss your laugh. I miss your jokes. I miss the sound of your voice, especially in the mornings because you were always my favorite alarm clock.” I breathe through the pain in my torso. “I just…miss you.”
I struggle to come up with much else. Maybe if I had known we’d be stopping by, I would’ve prepared a speech, but it was a spontaneous decision that makes me feel inadequate compared to Lorenzo’s earlier visit.
“I don’t know what else to say.” My voice wobbles.
“Hey,” he says, his smooth voice a much-needed comfort.
I turn my head to get a better look at him. “What?”
“There’s no pressure to speak. We can stand here in silence for as long as you want, or we could go.”
“You made it look so easy. I’m a bit jealous.”
“I’ve been at this for a while.” His smile is slow, and I appreciate every second of it.
Just like I appreciate him .
His strength. His resilience. The confidence he exudes, and the way he brings out the same in me. He makes me want to believe in myself again and my ability to handle anything that comes my way, because I know that if I struggle, he will be there to support me until I can hold my own.
I don’t say the words aloud, but I feel them with every fiber of my being, and I hope one day I’ll finally have the courage to share them.