19. Alessia
— ? —
Alessia
Then - The Year He Came Back
He asks me to walk down to the vineyard with him at golden hour, and I know.
I know from the way his hand is sweating in mine, from the way he keeps swallowing hard like there’s something stuck in his throat.
I know from the way the foreman’s crew keeps finding reasons to linger at the ends of the rows, pretending to check the netting while they sneak glances in our direction.
I know from the way Papa is up on the terrace with a glass of wine, watching, the same way he watched us the very first day Anthony walked into my life.
The light is perfect - that golden Tuscan glow that makes everything look like a painting, the kind of light that only exists in this specific place at this specific time of day.
The vines are heavy with grapes, deep purple against the green leaves, and the air smells like earth and sweetness and something that might be fate.
Anthony stops at the end of the long row where the oldest vines grow.
Our spot.
The place I waited in the blue dress until it got dark, the summer I was sixteen. The place I burned my thirteenth letter and promised myself I’d never say his name again.
“Alessia.” He takes both my hands. He’s pale under his tan, his jaw tight with something that looks like determination and terror in equal measure. “Before I ask you anything, there’s something I need you to know. Something you deserve to hear first, because after I say it-”
He’s kneeling.
He’s kneeling in the dirt in his good trousers, the fabric already staining at the knees, and there’s a ring box in his hand. The ring catches the sunset and throws tiny sparks across his face, and my heart stops beating entirely.
“Yes,” I say.
“Wait, I haven’t-”
“Yes.” I’m crying and laughing at once, while this ridiculous joy comes up out of somewhere deep inside me. “Yes, whatever it is, yes.”
I drop down in the dirt with him, my dress bunching around my knees, and I grab his face in both hands and kiss him before he can finish a single sentence. His mouth is warm and surprised against mine, and I can taste salt - his tears or mine, I don’t know anymore.
From the end of the row, the foreman’s crew starts cheering. Someone whistles, sharp and bright, and there’s applause, and up on the terrace my father raises his glass in a toast I can’t hear from here.
Anthony kisses me back like he’s drowning. Like I’m the only air he’s ever going to get. His hands come up to frame my face, and when he finally pulls back, his eyes are wet and wild.
“You didn’t let me finish,” he says, but he’s smiling now, that crooked smile I fell in love with when I was sixteen.
“I don’t need you to finish. I already know my answer.”
He slides the ring onto my finger, and his hand is shaking so badly it takes him two tries. The diamond catches the light, and I can’t believe this is real. I can’t believe that after everything - the years apart, the silence, the letters that went unanswered - we found our way back to each other.
“I let you go once,” Anthony says against my mouth. “I’m not making that mistake again.”
Much later, I’ll come back to this moment over and over.
I’ll remember before I ask you anything and something you deserve to hear first, and I’ll understand what he was trying to do.
I’ll understand that he was going to tell me something important, something that might have changed everything, and I didn’t let him.
But tonight I’m too happy to question anything. Fate gave me a second chance, and I grabbed it with both hands.
We stay in the vineyard until the stars come out, lying on our backs between the rows, his jacket spread beneath us to protect my dress from the dirt.
He points out constellations the way he did when we were teenagers, and I trace patterns on his palm with my fingertip, and we talk about the wedding and the future and all the things we’re going to do now that we have forever stretching out in front of us.
It’s late by the time we walk back up to the house. Papa has long since gone inside, and the terrace is empty, and there’s a chill in the air that makes me press closer to Anthony’s side.
I fall asleep with his arms around me and his heartbeat steady under my cheek.
I wake up at three in the morning, and his side of the bed is cold.
The terrace door is open. I can see the curtains moving in the night breeze, pale ghosts against the darkness. I pull his shirt on over my bare skin and pad to the doorway on silent feet.
Anthony is out there alone in the dark, his forearms braced on the stone railing, his head bowed. The moonlight catches the tension in his shoulders, the white of his knuckles where he’s gripping the stone.
“I’m sorry,” he’s saying, to no one at all. “I’m so sorry, Richard.”
I step back into the shadows before he can see me.
I tell myself he’s just grieving. That it’s natural, on a night like this, to think about the people who should have been here to celebrate with him. His uncle raised him. Of course he wishes Richard could have seen this.
But there’s something in his voice - something that sounds less like grief and more like guilt - that keeps me awake long after I’ve crept back to bed.