Chapter 10 #4
“…I gave you my love, my heart. I gave myself to you completely without asking for anything in return. I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t want and didn’t hope, like some fucking idiot in love, that someday you might come to love me, or at least feel for me a quarter of what I felt for you.
Though you made a point of making it clear to me that was about as likely as fucking world peace.
But that’s what any idiot in love does. He deludes himself.
And for what? For you to use me and step on me according to your mood, without caring about the pain you were causing me?
Without taking my feelings into account?
Because that’s what I got from you, Antonella.
Pain and more pain. And you still have the nerve to blame me?
First find one concrete mistake from when we were together…
” He paused, giving an agitated, scornful laugh.
“What am I saying? You were never truly with me. We never had a real relationship. We had a fling, didn’t we? Good night, Antonella.”
Then he drove the final nail into my coffin.
“Enough… I’m done with you.”
I panicked, suddenly feeling my heart grow too heavy.
“Io ti amo, cazzo!”
Heithor froze, then slashed his hand between us, his baritone hard and measured. “No… Don’t do this… I’m sick of your games.”
“I’m not playing any game. I love you, Heithor.”
He didn’t say or do anything while I held my heart and my hopes in the palms of my hands, waiting in vain for any kind of reaction from him.
Heithor was motionless and silent. His gaze pinned to me, cautious and skeptical, studying me, searching for answers and explanations that piled up on the tip of my tongue.
And for the first time, I exposed myself in a way I never had before.
I didn’t worry about choosing the words.
I locked away my pride and fear. And I just stood there, letting all those words I had kept for so long, the ones that had suffocated me so much, float into the air.
There, it was just me. Antonella.
No tricks, no masks, no walls or lies.
Carefully, I placed my heart and my hopes in his hands and offered up my face to be slapped with no guarantee at all.
“Forgive me for being so stupid and making so many mistakes. I was a complete idiot for acting the way I did with you. I-I… It took me too long to realize that what I felt for you went far beyond sex, and it took me even longer to admit to myself that this feeling was much deeper than I thought and bigger than I could bear. It took me another long while to accept it, because accepting it brought me pain and regret for being so stupid as to take you out of my life.” I sobbed, my lips trembling.
“Seeing you that last time and knowing you were leaving me almost killed me with sadness. That was the worst day of my life. I had never felt so hurt, so alone, so hollow before. But not even that emptiness and that pain can compare to the hole that opened in my chest when I saw you here again and knew I had lost you. That you weren’t mine anymore.
I died and bled every day because of your coldness and your indifference.
Because I knew you were with that woman.
That everything you had offered me was now hers, not mine.
“I died and I still die of jealousy, and I hate it, because it makes me vulnerable and reminds me how stupid I was for not keeping you. There aren’t enough words to describe the size of the regret I feel for making you suffer, for rejecting you and our baby.
Dio, I will never forgive myself for that, and still I hope that someday you’ll be able to forgive me for everything I did to both of you.
” I sniffled, drawing in a deep breath as I wiped my eyes with the backs of my hands and went on in my strained voice.
“One day I told you you were unique. I just didn’t know…
no… I didn’t want to see the truth in those words…
There is no one and there will never be anyone else for me…
I can’t and don’t want to love anyone who isn’t you, because you have always been and will always be the only one.
The only one I want in every way this feeling encompasses.
Even all those things I always thought were cheesy and ridiculous.
The whole package… I know you don’t trust me, especially after everything that happened between us and all my effort to keep you at a distance.
But this is the only truth here. I love you, Heithor.
I love you so much it hurts… I want you with a madness I never thought it was possible to feel.
And I also know I have no right to ask you for anything, but I need to, whether it’s fair or not, whether it’s too late or not…
Once, you told me you would always love me…
that… that you would wait for me… and I hope that still stands, because I want you.
I want everything you offered me back then.
I want you to give us a second chance, to give me a second chance to do it right…
to make us work. Please, give me a chance to show you that I can do this well… that I can make you happy. Please.”
When I finished, I was breathing hard, barely able to control the trembling of my chin, my throat raw and aching, tears falling nonstop.
I waited, waited, waited…
I waited for anything, for the smallest reaction… that never came.
Thor was a statue carved without emotion. He destroyed my hopes and my heart. Brought my soul to its knees while I tried to stay standing.
I had lost him, and there was nothing I could do about it.
I drew in shallow breaths, trying to compose myself at least on the outside while I gathered my ground-up, shredded heart from his hands. I forced a smile. “I guess your silence says everything. I-I hope… that at least someday you’ll be able to forgive me…”