Chapter 66 Elisa
Elisa
No doubt this is Caroline’s way of taking revenge. She had the power and she used it. I, on the other hand, have nothing.
She won.
And with time, she’ll probably take Michael from me too.
I don’t see how I could feel worse.
One thing is for sure, it will take months, maybe years, to forget him, but if I stayed here in London, I would die inside.
If this is the life he wants, I won’t stand in his way. But I can’t be with a man who thinks I should automatically leave everything for him, especially when he isn’t willing to do the same for me.
London’s a great place to visit, I can’t deny it has its merits, but it’s not for me. I’ve never felt as sad and alone as I have since I’ve been here, and I can’t allow my happiness to depend on the moments Michael decides to give me.
I quickly dry my hair without bothering to style it and go back to the room, finding it empty.
It’s raining outside. The sky, which has been overcast for a week, has finally given way, sending torrents of rain down the windowpanes, making it impossible to see outside.
I’m wearing the last clean clothes I have left: a gray tartan skirt I found at the vintage exchange exhibition in Bagno a Ripoli, a too-tight white sweater that I bought without trying on, black tights with stretched-out ankles I inherited from Giada, and my burgundy Doc Martens, which I’ve worn and polished a thousand times.
I look at myself in the mirror. What business do I have with Michael, with his apartment, with his friends and his life?
I close my suitcase and drag it into the living room, where Michael is standing by the front door already dressed and wearing a tie. In short, ready for another day at the office.
“If the taxi isn’t here, I’ll wait for it in the lobby so you can go ahead to work,” I tell him.
“I didn’t call a taxi. I’m going to take you.”
“There’s no need.” And I don’t want him to.
“It would take forever to get one in this rain, and it would cost you at least two hundred pounds.”
“Fine,” I relent. We each stare anywhere but at each other, silently trapped in a devastating feeling of surrender. “I’m ready.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
He reaches out to take my suitcase, and our hands touch on the handle, contact that pushes our gazes to meet against our will.
“So, this is how it ends?” he asks me.
The words have the power to send me into a crisis, draining any strength I have left to reply.
Michael lets go of the suitcase, takes my face in his hands, and kisses me, pushing me against the still-closed door.
My lips welcome him, opening with desperation. I’m holding on to him, my fingers tight on his shoulders and my eyes squeezed shut because I’m too afraid to look at him.
He lifts my sweater, revealing my breasts, which he kisses, and I don’t offer the slightest resistance.
If there has to be a last time, let’s give it everything we have.
I unhook his belt and unbutton his trousers, and he lifts me against the door, my arms wrapped around his neck.
His right hand finds its way between my legs, shifting my panties to the side, and a second later I feel him inside of me.
My moan is muffled by his mouth.
It’s a strange kind of pleasure, combined with a pain stirred by each of his thrusts, but I don’t dislike it, so I encourage him by responding to him with the rhythm of my pelvis, telling him to go faster, to go as hard as he can.
“I’m going to hurt you like this,” he whispers in my ear.
“Please don’t stop.” I don’t know what I feel, but I need to find a way to turn it off.
“I don’t want our last time to be like this.” Michael slows down, and the furious sex we were having until a second ago becomes something poignant, rending, as he slowly leads me to the brink of pleasure.
Our bodies say goodbye, uniting in one last, desperate orgasm, which this time pierces us like a blade.
“Loving you is like slow dancing in a room that’s on fire,” he says, his forehead against mine. “You know you should run, but you want to finish the song and wait to find out what the next one will be, even if you’re in flames.”
“We’re already too burned.”
We exchange one last kiss that tastes as salty as my tears, and then we turn and leave.
As I get into the car, a hot, sticky substance moistens my thighs. For the first time, we didn’t use protection—neither of us thought about it. And if . . .
“Look, I didn’t use . . .”
“I’ll take the pill,” I interrupt. I’m not sixteen anymore. I’m certainly not used to risky relationships, but at least now I know what to do.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be; we needed it.” We had to feel each other fully for our last time.
The journey to Stansted is prolonged torture. Each of us in their own head, with their own thoughts, with just the sound of the pouring rain on the roof of the Range Rover to fill the silence between us.
When we arrive, he takes my suitcase and brings me inside, and I don’t object, even though I’m aware he’s making this increasingly difficult.
Once we reach security, we stop. He can’t follow me through.
“I’d love to come to the gate.”
“What for?” I ask.
“I don’t know, in the hopes you might change your mind at the last minute.”
“Or you could change yours,” I venture, but his silence in return is a tacit no, and our attempt to ignore it fails miserably.
“We could try to do this long distance,” he suggests.
“So, what, I’d come here one weekend and you’d come to Belvedere the next?”
“Yeah,” he replies, sounding convinced.
“For how long? Six months? A year? And then what? One weekend I won’t be able to come, the next you’ll be too busy, then we’ll argue about not seeing each other enough, then we’ll have to decide how to move forward, and we’ll be right back here again.”
“Can we at least try not to argue? Christ, I’ve never felt worse in my life, Elisa. How can I watch the only person I’ve ever loved walk away?”
“I love you too, Michael.”
“Then why are we hurting each other?”
“I will always love the Michael I met at Le Giuggiole, the smiling Michael, the Michael who sings ‘Fiumi di Parole’ with me, the Michael who takes me to Florence in the Cinquecento he restored with his own hands, the Michael who helps me birth a foal . . . but the London Michael, the Michael who doesn’t have a second for himself, the guest-in-his-own-house Michael—that’s not my Michael. ”
He lowers his head and tilts my chin with his hand so I can look at him. “I will always be your Michael,” he whispers against my lips. “And you will always be my Elisa.” He brushes my lips with his. “Always.”
The kiss is like a movie, long, intense, passionate, breathtaking. I try to imprint every detail in my memory, the scent of his skin that still smells of aftershave, the warmth of his breath, the softness of his lips, his taste, the velvety vigor of his tongue caressing mine.
We separate with a sigh, and I walk away toward the security line, struggling to counteract the magnetic force drawing me back to him.
I promise myself I won’t look back, but I do it once, twice, three times, and Michael is always there, holding me in his gaze.
At least we tried—we owed that much to ourselves. It didn’t work out, but it never could have lasted between two people like us.
I put my suitcase on the belt, go through the metal detector, and retrieve my luggage on the other side. Now there’s no turning back.
I turn to look at Michael again, now just a speck in the crowd, but he sees me and I see him.
I don’t know how long we stay like this, but in the end an agent asks me to go to my gate to make room for the other passengers in security.
After a few more steps, Michael disappears from my sight. It really is over.