Chapter 32
Vico
Huddled on the sofa in Camilla's living room, I hide my face in my hands. After fleeing directly from the hospital to here, I only found Alessia. Camilla is at a checkup appointment with the girls, and it seems that Aurora went jogging three hours ago and hasn't returned yet.
As I so often do, I let out a heavy sigh. "My God, why didn't I stop Hanna?"
Alessia sets a glass of grappa in front of me. Then she sits next to me and wraps her arm around my shoulders. "Blaming yourself won't change anything."
Distraught, I look at her. "She had to go to the hospital. Because of me!"
I still can't believe it. I don't understand how she could crash the scooter on a perfectly paved road. But she did. And I didn't protect her.
"Did you force her to go on the joyride?" My little sister's gentle tone doesn't make things any better. She shouldn't be downplaying this. It's damn serious.
Silently, I shake my head. Yet I shouldn't have handed her the scooter so carelessly.
"You see," Alessia says firmly, "she's a grown woman. It was her decision."
It's not that simple. My stupid talk about leaving the comfort zone and enjoying the adrenaline rush was what even got her thinking about trying it. "I am to blame. Me, alone."
She lays her head on my shoulder, her thick curls falling over my chest down to my belly. "You said she only broke her arm. Nothing else."
I spring up from the sofa. "But that's not the point. It's about what could have happened!" And not just in terms of a serious injury. No. Hanna's accident has shown me even more clearly how quickly we can lose someone. Every breath could be our last, and we don't even need to have a brain tumor for that.
I pace back and forth in the kitchen-living room, passing by the wooden table where we've sat so many times, never fully aware of our mortality. Heading to the floor-to-ceiling window, we constantly look outside without realizing that we might be seeing the view for the last time.
"Vico, this won't help if you beat yourself up like this." Alessia's tone urges me to pull myself together, but at least she doesn't try to follow me. From the blue checkered sofa, she stares at me.
I shake my head. "How could I ever do anything else?" I ask, my voice barely audible, and I strike the wall.
This morning, I could have lost Hanna. And that, without ever truly having her for myself.
Our lips have never touched. I've never opened my eyes in the morning and looked directly into her beautiful face. Yet the thought of something happening to her makes the walls around my heart, which were already close to collapsing, grow once again.
It is better to never have loved than to lose love.
That was true then. It is true now and will always be true. I need to be free. That alone will make me happy in the long run.
Instantly, I feel my heart rebel. It longs for Hanna, wants to hear her bright laughter and smell the flowery scent of her hair. It wants to discover how her lips taste and how her skin feels close to mine.
"This is not just about the accident." Alessia sounds surprised. "It's more than that, isn't it?" I see her rising from the sofa in my peripheral vision. She never takes her eyes off me as she approaches. "What is there between you and Hanna?"
"Nothing." Oh God, even I can hear the lack of conviction in my voice. That's enough for me to know that, despite everything, I won't be able to stay away from her.
She is taken. And now, she had an accident that could have cost her life.
There couldn't be a clearer sign. What else has to happen for me to finally realize this is going nowhere?
Alessia stands close to my side and rests her head on my shoulder. "Mm-hmm," she says absentmindedly. "Nothing. I understand."
Her words fade into the silence between us. Together, we look out the window. Where now, a flock of birds crosses the sky with so much ease, as if nothing could harm them.