A Place in the Sun(42)

“You should sleep.”

I shook my head, though sleep was close on the horizon regardless. I didn’t want the day to end. I fought hard against it, jerking awake every time I started to drift off. Gianluca kept talking to me, ensuring me that I could fall asleep, that he would stay. He whispered stories about Vernazza’s history as a fishing village, how the castle on top of the hill was previously used as a lookout for pirate invasions. He kept switching in and out of Italian and by the time I finally drifted off, his accented words wrapped around me like a warm blanket.

When I woke up the next morning, my bed was empty, but the scent of Gianluca clung heavy in my bed.





I STAYED WITH Georgie until she drifted off and then I lingered there in her bed, watching the rise and fall of her chest. She looked serene laying there, swollen red lips and pink cheeks and chestnut brown hair splayed out in every direction. She was tan from the top of her head down to where the sheet wrapped around her waist, and I wondered if she’d sunned without her top on. Women did it in Vernazza all the time, and I wouldn’t put it past Georgie to join them. That kind of exhibitionism took a certain level of confidence, and Georgie wasn’t lacking in that department.

I should have left as soon as she fell asleep, but for some reason, I felt compelled to stay. For a few inexplicable hours, I felt more comfortable down there in the village with her than I would have back in my refuge up the mountain. She could have woken up at any time and seen me there, watching over her like I was mad—and maybe I was, a little. My eyes followed the line of her frame slowly, from her chin down across her neck and smooth chest. I tried to memorize the dips and valleys of her body, the curve of her breasts.

She was an agonizing sort of beautiful, the kind that reached out and demanded everyone take notice. When she smiled, the world smiled with her, and more than once, I found myself wishing I was the man she deserved to be with, the one she had come to Italy to find.

I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t a mess. While I lay there with Georgie in her bed, I didn’t watch the rise and fall of her breath because it was beautiful, but for the fact that it was reassuring. Despite their best efforts to pull me out of my desolation, most people in my life had eventually been conditioned to withdraw from me at the first sign of displeasure. They were practical adults who, after touching the hot stove once, learned to avoid it. But it had been different from the start with Georgie—her almost childlike indifference to my feelings and heedless disregard for my aggression had allowed her to come closer than anyone before her, even though I’d only known her for a short time. I didn’t know whether or not that was a good thing.

I hovered my hand over her mouth and felt her exhales heat the center of my palm because I had to reassure myself that she was alive and well, young and healthy. The few times it seemed as though she’d stopped breathing, I’d lunged forward and felt for her breath. After the last time, I tugged my hand through my hair, angry with my fear. I stood and tugged on my shirt, felt around in the dark for my shoes, and let myself out of Georgie’s hotel room without glancing back at her.

I took the dark path up to my villa and collapsed into my bed when I got there. I wanted to wake up and go back to the way it had been before I’d met Georgie. I wanted to rewind the last few months and erase the feeling of helplessness. I didn’t want to fall for Georgie. I wanted to keep her at arm’s length, and even though I’d taken every precaution to do that, it was too late. Even before we’d kissed, I’d known. I looked forward to working with her at the bed and breakfast too much. I waited for her to arrive each morning, busying myself with something that looked productive, but really, I counted away the seconds until I would hear the gentle creak of the hinges as she walked through the front door.

Allie’s photo stared back at me from behind glass when I woke up the next morning. It had been taken on our wedding day and she was beaming right at the lens, picking up her heavy dress so she could spin around for me. I sat up in bed and dropped my feet to the ground, wiping sleep from my eyes and reaching out to turn the photo down. The metal frame clanked against my wooden night stand and I stood, craving distance.

I’d slept with women since Allie’s death. They were one-night stands, meaningless flings I could justify as part of the basic needs of life, but this thing with Georgie already felt a lot like love. I cared about her, and because loving someone else, wanting someone else, wasn’t an essential part of my existence, I began to feel, in a sense, that I was betraying Allie.

There’s a difference between losing a loved one and losing a person you’re in love with. To be in love with someone is to live inside them. Allie’s breaths were my own and when she drew her last one, I was the one left gulping for air. I hadn’t breathed deeply in five years.



…



I dragged my feet, heading to the bed and breakfast later that morning. I ate slowly, standing at my kitchen window and staring out at the sea. I found a few miscellaneous tasks I’d been putting off and told myself I couldn’t leave the house until they were done. I took out the trash and put up the clean dishes. I watered the plants outside and took a long shower, standing under the spray until the temperature had long turned cold.

I tugged on an old pair of jeans and a soft t-shirt, punched my feet into work boots, and then finally set out down the path toward Vernazza’s square.