Chapter 4 #3
My inner alarms start blaring. They’re not escape alarms, though.
That would be too easy. They’re the kind of alarms that only make me panic as they come from some deep internal place inside me that has been more than lonely for a very long time.
I’ve had relationships in the past, but true intimacy and real trust have been a rare commodity for me.
It’s not because someone shattered me or taught me that people can’t be trusted.
I guess I’ve just never been able to open that part of me up and give it to another person and be truly vulnerable.
And it’s not because I was too young. I just never found the right person.
Certainly, I’ve never stood frozen in one spot for so long, wishing the floor could chain me down before I start closing the distance between this counter and the other side of the room and putting certain theories and lust-induced imaginings to the test.
Luca has that raw beauty, talent, and kindness magnetism like no one I’ve ever known.
It’s getting harder and harder to stop my brain from plunging straight down the smut rabbit hole that ends with me shouting something about fuck it, why not, before licking Luca from his jaw, straight down his neck, and onto his chest after tearing his shirt open, divesting him of it completely, putting his suspenders back on, and then going for his pants.
“Mine’s at the back of my mouth, actually,” he adds. “Ask my toothbrush. Mornings can be so brutal.” He laughs nervously, trying to dispel the awkwardness, but only making it worse.
More silence. The lingering quiet makes me want to panic laugh, but that would only up the ante. I’m not good with diversions, but we need a change of subject, fast. “Can I ask you something personal?” More personal than gagging?
“Sure. Let’s continue the trend.”
I rub my damp palms down my black velvet skirt. “How did you first cope with… with having your life changed like that? Did you read the stuff people were writing? There must have been a crazy amount of speculation.”
He sighs so hard that his shoulders sag, making me feel like a total asshole.
“I cared way too much. Having this happen actually helped with that. Before, I was constantly looking myself up and reading the negative shit people had to say. I told myself I was doing it so I could get better, but really, I was just taking it to heart, internalizing most of it, and beating myself up for it. I don’t know if everyone is their harshest critic, but I definitely was mine. ”
“About people not liking your food?”
Our bakery has had three negative reviews in the past five years, and I know just how personally my dad took those, even though one was left by some troll teenager who was disappointed that the bakery didn’t sell alien brain pie.
Seriously. I can’t imagine what being a sort of celebrity in any way would feel like.
Luca runs his hands over his knees, grasping and curling his fingers into his thighs.
“Sometimes it was about the food, but mostly, it was about the person making it or the establishment they own. It made me feel extra shitty when it was so clear how little the person leaving that review—be they a client or a food critic—actually understood about who I really was and what I was trying to do.”
“People make assumptions. I know I did.” There’s my unfiltered thoughts, running ahead of my mouth again.
I can’t find the floor with my eyes fast enough, but that feels cowardly, so I tear them back up to Luca’s face and at least give him the courtesy of a proper apology now that I’ve put it out there. “I can’t apologize enough for that.”
“It’s not your fault. Neither of us expected an arranged date to actually go well. I don’t blame you for thinking my mom is probably a little bit unhinged and that I’m… well… a little bit strange too. What other conclusions were you supposed to draw from the whole situation?”
“It’s not…” I trail off.
It’s not like I can tell him that I’m sorry for hating him with some true menace-level worthy spite when I didn’t understand the situation at all.
I thought he was one of those people who couldn’t be counted on.
A heartbreaker. A life wrecker. Someone who doesn’t give a shit about anyone else’s hopes and dreams. A minefield of manipulation and bad decisions.
I used that depth of bad feeling to drive me into these lies, and now I’m trapped.
I wish he could know how sorry I am for that too.
I’ll tell him. Soon.
But until then, I’m still desperately sorry for every second that I haven’t.
“At least you didn’t just give up.” That’s what I admire most about him.
It’s crazy that we just met yesterday, because it somehow feels like we’ve known each other for years.
If I can’t give him a true apology, then I can give him this.
“It would be so easy to say that you’d never look whole again and then wallow in it and get angry and bitter. ”
“There was plenty of wallowing at first. It was my mom who made appointments with a few different plastic surgeons. She had them come to my old house, which was where I was staying after I discharged my own ass from the hospital against everyone’s wishes, because I didn’t want to go out anywhere.
They were good doctors, but they were better people, and they made me see that I won’t ever be the same way again, but there’s beauty in that too.
They said it would hurt, but they were confident they could put me back together.
It’s a slow process, but sometimes not slow enough. ”
“I hear that. I’m scared of hospitals. Needles freak me out. Not tattoo needles. Mostly just the medical kind. I’m really lucky that I’ve been healthy, and my family has been too. Really, really lucky.”
“I’m not afraid of it, but I dread it. Is that the same thing?”
“No. My fears are mostly irrational because it hasn’t happened to me. Dread is well grounded.”
“My mom also made me speak to several therapists. It doesn’t work for everyone, but it helped me some.”
“You’re very open with this,” I point out.
He grins. “NDA, remember?”
Oh, I haven’t forgotten about the gagging comment.
I couldn’t forget it if I lived for another hundred years, and then a zombie apocalypse took me out, and I got another twenty rotten years, and then someone donated my zombie ass skeleton to science once the whole outbreak was cured, and I was preserved in a museum for another two centuries.
“I guess it might have helped me more than some,” he continues.
“As a man, it’s rough. It’s hard to learn how to open up and spill out what’s churning around in my head.
There was one therapist who let me say whatever I was thinking, so I gave it to them straight.
All the ugly, the loathing, the hateful, the fearful.
They just sat and took it all and told me it was perfectly fine to feel those things, and that if I wanted to get past all that, I could. ”
“That’s very kind.”
“Kind of their job.”
“No, I mean finding a place where you can just be you is so rare.” There are several huge windows at the very end of the massive kitchen, and Luca’s eyes stray there and remain there.
His side profile is so devastatingly gorgeous.
It’s the good side of his face, but even if it weren’t, I’d still find him beautiful.
“It’s hard for everyone to be who they truly are. ”
“I’m not there yet, and I don’t know if I’ve ever known that. There are so many different versions of me, all at the same time. Or there was. The chef, the business owner, the spoiled rich kid, the son, the grandson, the friend.”
I came here for one reason. All of this was to fix what was broken between Luca and my dad, so I have to do that. I’m not here for a good time. Luca doesn’t even know who I really am, so how can we be friends or truly get to know each other?
“The partner?” I suggest with no small amount of guilt. Guilt doesn’t even begin to cover it.
I can tell that I’ve surprised him. “You read about that?”
“Yeah. There wasn’t much, just something about how you got your start at this little bakery in the middle of nowhere a long time ago.”
This is a different kind of gagging. As in, I’m being gagged by the words because they’re hard and awful. I want his side of what happened, but I hate that I basically have to lead him into a trap to do it. This is the most dishonest I’ve felt over the past few weeks. My stomach churns and twists.
“I had this one friend.” His hands clench in his lap.
He studies them hard, his head and shoulders hunched over, his hair falling into his face.
He’s the picture of someone who just took an arrow straight to the back.
“The one I told you about last night, where I kept trying to call him, but I kept hanging up.”
“You should let the call go through. He’d probably want to hear from you.”
His head snaps up. There’s nothing cruel in his dark eyes. If anything, there’s as much guilt there as what I feel. Great. We’re both consumed with it. “He’d have every right to gloat about this being what I deserve.”
I gasp.
He studies me without flinching. He truly believes that.
“Never,” I breathe. “He would never do that.”
“How do you know?”
I shake my head. “I just have a feeling.”
“I can’t go back there now. I’d probably scare his kids.
Err… wait. I don’t know. I’m assuming he had them.
I’ve forced myself not to look him up online.
I’m not a masochist. I always felt horrible about how things ended.
I thought it was always understood that my stay there would be temporary.
I never lied about that. When I had to leave, I caused a lot of hurt, and even though I wasn’t entirely responsible, over the years, I’ve still felt like I was. ”
He’s been carrying around this burden for as many years as my dad has.
My heart aches.