Chapter 19 #2
“We both made mistakes, Ella. We hurt each other badly, but we also learned. What I did to you wasn’t right.
Don’t think it was easy for me either. I wasn’t pissed because I hated you.
I was pissed because I loved you, because I love you…
My dreams were undone too. You weren’t the only one broken, love. ”
“You had every chance in the world to change your mind, Heithor, to not make me suffer, and still, you chose to hurt me. You didn’t trust me. You didn’t even give me the fucking benefit of the doubt! How can I believe you now? Trust you?”
“Maybe now you understand how I felt when you rejected the pregnancy and me.”
“Oh, no! Absolutely not. You are not turning this against me.”
“I’m not turning it, love,” he said gently, standing too.
“I’m hoping that, at last, you understand how difficult it was to try again.
You talk about trust, but, Ella, what makes me different from you?
Can you understand how hard it is to trust even when you want to?
And I did want to. I wanted very much to trust you one hundred percent.
Wanting it doesn’t make it happen, it only opens the way…
I wanted you despite my fears, despite the possibility of being hurt again, because being hurt while trying to be happy with the woman I love was better than nothing. That is love, Ella.”
I sighed, suddenly tired, letting my shoulders fall in the process, along with my carefully positioned barriers. I was too weak to hold them.
“Do you know what hurts me, Heithor? What kills me? I begged you so many times… You humiliated me so much, so, so much… mocked me and my love, and now you want that love?”
“I want whatever you’re willing to give me.”
I scowled, hard, while my tears fell without control.
“All I have is hatred.”
Heithor advanced, panic in his expression.
“No, that’s not all you have.”
“I can’t anymore, Heithor.”
“Please, Ella. We can start over.”
“I already started over without you,” I said, turning my head so I wouldn’t stare into his eyes.
Heithor recoiled, his face pale.
My legs were weak, and I sat back down on the sofa.
The sound of the rain filled the sepulchral silence, then it began to lessen.
“I saw the ring,” I said with bitterness after some time.
A ring was placed on the coffee table. I threw my gaze to the object I had coveted so much, that had hurt me so badly because of a misunderstanding.
“This one?” Heithor knelt before me. “I bought it the day Lucca was born. That was what I’d gone to do that morning.
I had planned everything. I was going to ask you to marry me on Christmas Eve.
I wanted my ring on your finger, wanted you to carry my last name.
I still want that, Antonella, more than I want to live. ”
My chin trembled, and I bit my lip as I looked at Heithor.
Dio, I had run from this same man who today seemed perfect as heaven, but who back then had acted like the devil himself while I begged for mercy.
“I can’t forget,” I whispered, suffocated by hurt.
“Neither of us will be able to.” He closed his eyes and released a sigh. “And that isn’t even what this is about, right? It isn’t that you can’t forget. You only want to hurt me.”
My eyes flooded and spilled over before I could stop them. I covered my face with my hands, crying until I sobbed and my body trembled. Heithor pulled me in, laying my face on his shoulder, his hand stroking my back while I cried out my hurt.
“I needed you so, so much… Why didn’t you take care of me like this?
I needed that care… For you to protect me, believe me, comfort me…
I was willing to forgive you if you had only tried, even if you didn’t trust me…
I wanted to forgive you because living with your distrust was better than living without you, Heithor…
I loved you so much, so much… I prayed every night, every day, begging for you to come to your senses, for your love to speak louder…
and for what? Do you have any idea how many nights I spent awake?
How painful they were for me, hearing my baby from the room without being able to go check on him? ”
“Forgive me, baby… forgive me, my love. I’m so sorry.”
“How maddening those moments were? To look at you, needing the man I loved, knowing he repudiated me for something I didn’t do?
That no matter how much I begged, how much I pleaded on my knees, you didn’t care enough to have mercy?
It wasn’t the humiliation or the begging.
It was your coldness that killed me every day…
You made little of me, of my love… You will never, never understand the depth of the anguish, the insane desperation I felt, day after day, minute after minute, second after second, with every damn breath, being so close to Lucca without being able to touch him…
Being close to you, unable to seek the refuge I needed in your arms… ”
The crying cut off my painful words, making me an absolute mess.
“You’re right, I’ll never understand, and I’m so sorry for that, love.”
“You sold the mansion,” I pointed out, full of pain, breathless.
“I did.”
“You would have left me behind.”
“Never, love,” he objected fiercely. “I know what it looks like. But that wasn’t how it was. You may not believe me, but, baby, I would never, never leave you behind.”
I believed him, but that didn’t ease the pain.
“Ella, I love you. There are no words for how much I love you or how much I miss you. I would walk on my knees across all of Italy if you said that was the punishment I had to pay to redeem myself for my mistakes. I would do anything for you. Anything, Ella. You only have to say the words. I’m dying for you to be mine again.
Being here, looking at you, you have no idea what it does to me…
I want our family together. I want you in my life, sleeping and waking together, every day, every night. ”
I lifted my head while the tears fell, barely able to see him.
“Please, Ella, let me breathe again.”
I held his gaze, stiff, resentful. I was afraid to trust and fall flat on my face, to feel more pain. Which caused me agony because I knew it was inevitable.
I tightened my hands hard on my thighs.
I wanted so badly to throw my arms around him and pull him against me, close my eyes and just breathe, letting all that weight and hardness inside me fade.
After an infinity of time, Heithor nodded in defeat, his jaw clenched in an iron grip, his eyes dull, and that was what cracked my steel armor.
“I know there’s so much hurt, so much pain.
You’re writing a new page, and I’m a blank page waiting for you to want to help me write it…
People change, Ella. You changed, became an incredible woman, and I’m fucking proud of you in the same measure that I dream of having you for myself…
” He paused, rising to his full height and moving away from me, his gaze destroyed as if he had been hit by a runaway freight train.
“I changed too, Ella. I am fucking sorry for the things I did and said to you. I’ve spent so long trying to think of the right way to say this to you, and God, I don’t know if one exists…
How can I say I’m sorry? How can I erase my wrong decisions?
How can I express the depth of my regrets?