Page 56 of Run

“I think you should stay,” Daniela replied.

Her words were enough to send my heart lifting, but it crashed down just as quickly. “Why?” I asked, suspicion coming over me.

Daniela chuckled. “You and she really are a pair. She asked me to ask you to stay if you came,” she said. “You know where the kitchen is. Help yourself.”

Then she went to the back of the house, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

How many times had I imagined me and Giovanna together like this, building a little life, a little family?

More than I could count.

And these days with her had only made the longing, the sadness at the loss that much more acute. I tried to tell myself that loving Giovanna was habit, something that I had done for so long I didn’t know how to do anything else.

But I knew that wasn’t true. I loved her deeply, loved her in ways that I never would anyone else.

And soon she would be gone.

Most days that kind of realization would have sparked anger, sent me into a spiraling rage, but now it did nothing.

I would get used to it. I’d walked around with the hole in my heart for years already, what would be the rest of my life compared to that? Nothing I couldn’t handle.

Or so I told myself. In the next moment, I decided to prove it. There was no time to do so like the present.

What would waiting around for Giovanna do? I needed to get out of here. As much as I wanted to see her one last time, hear her say good-bye, doing so would do nothing to slake the pain and loss, so what was the point?

I made two strides toward the door before the sound of her voice stopped me.

“You gonna leave without saying good-bye?”

I didn’t turn to face her but glanced back at her over my shoulder. “Thought I’d even the score,” I said.

She gave me a faint, haunting smile and then walked closer.

“Guess I deserve that,” she said.

“Probably worse,” I said.

“Probably,” she replied.

She stayed silent, gaze searching, for what I didn’t know. I needed to steel my heart, build a wall that even Giovanna couldn’t breach.

So I stood, watching, waiting. It seemed she was doing the same.

I don’t know how long was spent that way, so close, yet so distant. I again marveled at what it was like to be so close to her again, again remembering that I would pay the price for this later, when I was alone without her.

“Were you really going to leave?”

She’d finally spoken, but I was so deep in my thoughts it took me a moment to process what she’d said. A second later, I nodded.

“I don’t have a reason to stay,” I said.

She wilted a little, but quickly regained her ground.

“You didn’t want to see me?”

“No.”

“Vincent…”