“Michael. Has he been released? Are the police not pursuing charges after all?”
Nico’s eyes flew wide and now he did reach for her, his hand stopping just short; before he could touch her shoulder, he dropped it back to his side.
“No, cara, no. I told you, he’ll be in prison for a very long time.”
“Oh.” She felt relief, yet calm didn’t follow. Her heart continued to pound, her fingers to shake. Even the falling snow couldn’t cool her heated brow.
“So why are you here?”
Another group emerged from the pub, loud and jovial, so he looked over his shoulder. “I’m parked just there. Can we speak in my car?”
In his car? Alone with him? In a confined space? Maddie wasn’t sure she could trust herself. She shook her head, her eyes unconsciously portraying her mistrust. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Afraid I’m going to kidnap you?”
It was a joke but she couldn’t even muster a ghost of a smile in response. “No.”
Her eyes strayed towards her father, except he wasn’t there anymore. The street was empty, just the pretty twinkling of fairy lights overhead and the distant singing of Christmas songs.
Nico sighed, lifting a hand and running it through his hair. He seemed different somehow. Less confident. Less sure of himself.
“You’re scaring me, Nico.” Then, with another frisson of alarm. “Is it Dante? Is he sick? Is he –,”
“No! Stop! Let me speak.”
“Well, hurry up. I have no idea what you’re doing here and I hate that. Tell me so I can understand and then go back to my normal life, please.”
He nodded, but his eyes were watchful, his expression impossible to interpret. “Is that what you want?”
“What?”
“To go back to your ‘normal’ life?”
She gulped for air, looking away from him, a hint of anger bursting through her. “I don’t know what my normal life is,” she said with a shake of her head. “Honestly? I feel like a tiny boat on an enormous ocean with no idea what direction I’m going in, completely at the mercy of the tides and honestly, I hate it. Half the time I feel close to sinking. That doesn’t make any sense, I know, it’s just –,”
“It makes perfect sense,” he promised, his voice rough. “Because it is exactly how I feel.”
“You don’t get it,” she refuted immediately.
“I do get it,” he insisted. “Because ever since you left Italy I have felt like I couldn’t make sense of anyone or anything. It’s as though all the best parts of me disappeared the day you did, and I no longer know who I am. Without you, I don’t make sense. Without you, nothing makes sense, nothing works, and most importantly, nothing seems to matter.” He paused, scanning he
r face, perhaps waiting for her to speak but his words had rendered her utterly mute. “You are my everything, Maddie. My everything. You are all I think about, all I dream about, you’re the person I want to speak to whenever anything of interest happens in my day. I miss your smile and your laugh and your voice and all I want is to go back to that morning in Italy and shake myself for not understanding any of this before it was too late.”
Snow fell. People moved around them. The lights overhead twinkled. But Maddie was only conscious of Nico. She felt his every movement in every cell of her body. They were two people connected by a thousand invisible strings.
“I don’t –,” she shook her head. Words wouldn’t come.
“All of my life, I’ve told myself I don’t believe in love. Certainly that I don’t want it. But the truth is, I’d just never known anything like what you make me feel.” He moved closer, so his body was separated from hers by only a hair’s breadth. “And the more I felt for you, the more I cared for you, the more I loved you, yes, the more afraid I became, because in my experience, love doesn’t end very well. It’s not something I ever planned to rely on as a source of happiness. I like things that are tangible and make sense. I like numbers,” he reminded her so she was transported back to the cave in Italy, that beautiful, magical evening they’d shared looking out over the sparkling ocean. But he was so serious, his expression so sombre, that even those memories didn’t warm her. “I like things that are rational and sensible, easy to predict and control.” He shook his head. “That’s not this.”
She swallowed, biting down on her lip.
“That last morning, I wanted you to stay with all my heart but I tried to find a way to make it sound like something else.” He shook his head angrily. “The truth is, you answer every single need I could ever have. I love every part of you. All of you. I love you completely, and always will. And I’m still terrified of what that means. Of what the flipside to loving someone so damned much is, but I cannot live without you, Maddie. I can’t.”
It was too much. Her eyes filled with tears and her breath was shallow. “But you said –,”
“I was a fool. Such a fool.” He shook his head and she felt the strength of his emotion. She felt the sincerity of his words. “I didn’t really understand my own heart until you left. And even then, I pretended not to know what was going on, nor why I was feeling as though I wanted to shout at everyone, all the time. But it was talking to Yaya on Christmas Eve that made me realise.”
She was silent, watchful, waiting, so he continued.