Chapter 10 #4
“What do you want?” Mom asks Luca. She cuts straight through the bullshit, all the unasked questions, and all the years of thoughts, assumptions, regrets, and memories. Kindness is layered over every word.
Relief slicks through me like oil.
It’s Luca who edges closer, until our arms are touching.
The electricity that low-level buzzes through me whenever he’s in the same room sparks like static.
It doesn’t stop just because my parents are watching us—Dad with intense scrutiny, and Mom pretty much the same way, though she tries to soften it a little.
Luca’s fingers bump against mine. Especially now, he’s asking permission.
He’s offering comfort and seeking it. Maybe I should have waited.
I hate that I’m hurting the people I love, but every minute we didn’t have this conversation would be disingenuous.
Playing a part at Luca’s when we met was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
My parents always taught me to be honest. To figure out who I was and be exactly that, no matter what anyone thought.
They don’t know I lied to Luca. They don’t know any of that. They don’t know that from the very first second, meeting him was like meeting the other half of my soul when I didn’t even know it was missing.
They have no notion of just how understanding, wise, compassionate, and forgiving Luca has been.
I grasp Luca’s hand, hanging on firmly. Mom gives Dad the whole remember what it was like to be in love silent conversation. My parents have a silent language that they’ve used for years to communicate with each other.
“I want her to be happy,” Luca rasps. “And me too. I want for us to live, hopefully side by side, but not always in a literal sense.”
“How do you plan on achieving that?” Dad snaps, his fear obvious. While he just dropped the most earth-shattering revelation about the bakery, his fear seeps through. My parents want me to live my own life, but they love me, and letting me move across the country is nearly unfathomable.
“Day by day,” Luca starts, speaking at the same time as me.
“You can’t ask Luca something like that. Even the greatest philosophers and scientists can’t give you a step-by-step guide to achieving happiness or define what that even is.”
“I’ve lived with plenty of regret, but I’ve known real joy too.
If I could go back, I’d do so many things differently.
I don’t want to stop Dulcie from making her own path, but I would like to shield her from what I can.
I was a kid once, with all the jittery, hypocritical, wild youthful dreams. That can be beautiful, but also destructive.
I tried to live without fear, but that turned into borderline recklessness.
I’ve spent a lot of sleepless nights battling with the past and trying to figure out how to get the future right.
I thought I knew what I wanted. I even thought I was in love once.
“I’ve had to relearn what I want, rebuild, regroup, and realize that maybe…
I didn’t have any idea. I’m still learning, still making mistakes, and still trying to figure it all out.
For a long time, I thought the accident happened as a punishment.
I had to pull myself out of that dark hole and realize it was just an accident.
That’s all. It doesn’t mean I’m undeserving.
” Luca sighs loudly, frustration twisting through the sound of his lungs emptying.
What he just said was so beautiful, but I understand he’s struggling to put words to some of his deepest, darkest moments. They’re never going to come out properly or be enough. I edge closer to him so our hips brush and our bodies connect at more than just one point.
“I’m here because what’s gone unsaid shouldn’t have,” he continues. “We’ve only tortured ourselves. There’s no making that right, but there can be a future. I truly want that. And I’m here because Dulcie asked me to be, and honestly, it might be irrational, but I’d give her the world if I could.”
Oof. Every single time in my life that I’ve ever thought I knew what a chokehold was, I was wrong. This. This is if chokehold and heart-stopping had a baby. I was so wrong. Maybe there are words. Luca just found them.
“I don’t like this.” Dad just drops that and lets it linger in the air like noxious gas. Ever tried making a vegetable pie? There was a time in recent memory when Dad thought he could turn up the heat on savory instead of sweet. It wasn’t a good result.
“That’s why I told you to take some time,” I urge. “Luca’s going to get a hotel, and he’s not leaving here for a while. Nothing is going to be decided in an hour.” I silently plead with my parents to just try to understand.
It’s a big ask.
Luca and I don’t even fully understand what this is. You can’t and shouldn’t expect a lifetime to be delivered to you in a few days. Going slow isn’t just for people who are overwhelmed and need time to process. It’s also so that every little moment can be celebrated, enjoyed, and treasured.
“Your mother—” Dad protests. His throat works hard. “This will break her heart.”
“I’m right here,” Mom responds wryly. She jabs Dad in the ribs gently, but it’s me she focuses on.
“My heart is still intact.” She’s worn the same watch for years.
And now, she glances at it. “The pie’s going to be a bit yet.
You both must be starved and exhausted. Why don’t we continue this tomorrow? ”
Red creeps up Dad’s neck, but after a moment of silent communication with Mom, he nods tightly.
“Can I take your bags back to the house with us?” Mom asks carefully.
She’s trying to tell me that I can take my time.
I can have these moments. My life is my own, and my choices are my own.
As much as they’d like to protect me, they can’t do life for me.
Now, I can see all my mom’s urgings over the years for what they were.
She wasn’t trying to decide my future. She was working tirelessly to equip me to live my life on my own terms.
“Yes.” My throat is almost too thick to squeeze out the word, but I force out a few more past the giant lump. “I’ll be back there later.”
Dad’s mouth presses into a thin line in the same way it often does when he’s experimenting with a new pie and the taste test doesn’t come out the way he thought it would. He doesn’t argue with my mom, though. He just nods tightly.
I can’t read that unspoken language my parents have, but after working beside my dad for years, I’ve become good at reading his tells.
It’s how I know he’s putting on a tough front, but inside, he’s falling apart and hurting.
He doesn’t want to lose me. I’ve layered emotion on top of emotion in an effort to be honest, and it’s a lot.
I just hope things will look better at breakfast tomorrow, even if sleep won’t come for any of us.
“If you’re craving pizza, the new place that opened up last month is excellent. We ordered from there a few nights ago,” Mom offers in an effort to break the tension and dispel some of the lingering sadness.
Immediately, I get visions of the twenty-eight incher from New York that blew my mind and probably would have broken the internet if I cared to ever make posts, which I don’t. But it was almost good enough to break my ghostly status over.
Pro tip: use the socials as a silent bystander, where no one ever knows you’re there. They’re way more fun that way.
It’s weird thinking about my parents getting food from somewhere. They never do that. Luca and I share a look. That’s all it takes to make me burst out laughing. “Thanks, you guys. I’ll see you later.”
“How much later?” Dad huffs.
I don’t know what time it is now. Maybe eight?
Now that my mom mentioned food, I realize just how starved I am.
Luca’s probably hungry too. The nerves did us in, but now that the first evening is somewhat over, and the anxiety is dissipating, it leaves room for the stomach to feel nothing short of painfully empty.
“I’ll text when I’m on my way.” I kiss Mom’s cheek and then Dad’s. They give me the family group hug.
To their credit, at least they don’t give Luca a hairy eyeball as we head out the back door.
The bakery is nowhere near downtown. The location would have been better situated in the heart of everything with a whole bunch of foot traffic, but that wasn’t how it went down when my great-grandfather bought this place.
He was looking for budget real estate. He believed that if something is good, people will drive out of their way for it.
That just means there’s a whole jumble of mismatched stores around us.
Most of them are closed by this time. A few streets over, there’s a small residential section that’s extremely out of place.
Two doors down is a vet’s office, a small independent grocery store, and a convenience station with gas pumps that have more than likely been rotting there since the forties.
I love this area. I grew up here. It’s completely my vibe.
“Uh, should we call for a car or food first? I can order it and then get a taxi, and we could pick it up along the way.” This morning, Luca booked a hotel for himself. It’s on the other side of the city, but this is Marietta. We could probably walk there, and it would only take us a few hours.
“That sounds like a plan,” he says.
What Luca sounds like is dazed. Yes, you can sound that way as well as look it.
It’s my parents. Me. This whole trip, especially when he hasn’t left his house in years. It’s crashing headlong into the past. It’s not eating since this morning.
I can only fix one thing at a time. I loop my arm through his, changing up the plan so we can have a bit of a walk first. He just has that small bag with him, and it doesn’t seem like a problem for him to carry it. If he gets tired, I’d be happy to help shoulder the burden.
All the burdens. As a team effort.
If he’d let me.
“There’s a sub shop about ten minutes from here, and I know they’re open late. We could get sandwiches and get a cab from there if you want.”
Meaning, are you okay? Luca isn’t a recluse, but at the same time, he was so worried about the way he looked that he didn’t ever go out.
That was in New York, and I can see why it would bother him there, but there’s no way I’m going to force him to do something he doesn’t want to do here.
If even one person makes a single comment or looks at him funny, I know I’m going to turn into a shape-shifting werewolf.
Fuck the subs, I’ll have their rude ass for dinner.
And the rest of them too.
He pulls the hood of his hoodie back up and draws the strings tight. “If you want subs, we’ll get subs.”
My heart practically explodes. Suddenly, the words come. What I’ve been trying to put together for days, losing sleep over, and what I couldn’t figure out how to say to my parents, it’s just there.
Luca’s bag hangs from his shoulder, leaving his hands free, so I take them both in mine and step so close that our chests almost touch.
“I don’t believe in love at first sight.
My dad said this was just infatuation, but it’s not.
I’m not even sure I believe in soulmates, at least not the way the world makes them out to be.
I think they can exist if you find parts of yourself in someone else.
Sometimes those parts are missing, but other times you didn’t even know they existed at all.
It doesn’t have to be romantic. It’s part of that for me.
Finding pieces of myself I didn’t know I even needed to search for until I met you.
“But it’s your flaws that are beautiful.
And I’m not talking about scars. I mean everything that makes you who you are.
I just… I have this deep surety that they’d match so well with mine.
We’re not mirror images of each other. We’re two people from different backgrounds who have lived different lives, but we can still be perfect for each other.
There are parts of me that need parts of you.
Like puzzle pieces fitting together. Interlocking. Completing…”
I stumble through the last bit and trail off. If I’d waited to give my thoughts a chance to formulate themselves properly, I could have been more eloquent, but fuck that. I don’t need eloquence. I need honesty.
Isn’t that the rarest thing in the world?
Luca’s eyes never leave my face. He stares back steadily, but I can tell how his mind is whirring. I don’t want to ask for clarification, but the longer we stand here, the more unnerving this gets.
And then.
He gathers up a handful of my long hair and brushes it back over my shoulder so gently and tenderly that it sends my heart spilling out of my chest all over again. It’s becoming a hazard.
My parents have cameras in the bakery, and they might have heard what I just said if they were in the office.
But it’s okay. I wish I could have expressed all that earlier to help them understand.
I left a different person than the one I am right now.
A minute can change you. I’ve had a lot of minutes, not all of them with Luca, but I needed those minutes by myself just as badly.
Luca grazes my forehead with a kiss that lights up my whole body. Warmth pools in my limbs and gathers in my stomach in a delicious, sloshy puddle.
“I hear you,” he breathes. That’s it. No philosophy or in-depth response. Nothing to affirm or challenge my theories. No sparring of wits.
Just that he’s listening.
He’s feeling.
He’s thinking and processing.
And that means more than anything in the world.