AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Should I be concerned that you’re not speaking?” she asks.
I brush away a few tiny curls off her forehead, allowing my fingers to drag down the side of her face. “No, Bella. I’m just enjoying you before our worlds become larger than the here and now.”
Her eyes turn downward, away from my face. She’s fading from our current reality. “I don’t want to think about it yet. I don’t want to ask all the questions I know I’ll have to. I’m not ready for it to go from simple to complicated.”
“I know. I feel it too.”
I roll to my back, linking my fingers with hers. Her rich brown locks lean toward mine until our temples meet, gazing up at the stars. Her melodic voice soothes me. “No matter where in the world we are, we can always come back to this. Looking up at the same sky, the same stars, the same moon.”
“That’s very poetic, Bella.”
“It’s also sad in a way.” Ava twists her body over to face me. She rests her beautiful frame on her elbow. Her painted toes slide over to mingle with mine. “I’ve never asked for anything. I don’t want to change anything about the way we are, with one exception, where we live. I’m not asking you to move to the US. I know you’d never ask me to move to Italy. We’re not there yet anyway. I just want hope. I don’t want to only see you inside of my phone screen. I’m going to need to touch you sometimes. The hope I need is that you want to make this work, whatever this is.”
“I do, Ava. If I could only explain how much. The six languages I know don’t cover what it is between us. Just know I’ve never felt anything like it. I need you to believe that.”
“You’ve never lied to me. Why wouldn’t I believe you? I’ve had to give you ultimate trust. We barely knew each other and I flew here because you asked, because I wanted to. Because I needed to. You only know the impulsive me. I’ve said and done things with you that if I sat and thought about them too long I’d freak out. You make it so I don’t.
“Everything you say puts me at ease. You’ve not just cared about the outside me; you’ve cared more about what’s inside of me. Wanting to know about what I love, don’t like so much, even something as simple as me hating clowns, you wanted to know. You know more about me than my best friend does. I’ve become Ava 2.0 because of you. I like her. I love her.”
I feel this gentle ache in my heart. She’s raw. She’s real. She’s mine, if I let her. “I love her too.” I place a gentle kiss on her soft, pink lips. “If I could, I’d stay right here.”
“Then let’s do that. Tomorrow is tomorrow. Today is today. I don’t want to lose one minute to sleep.”
“You need sleep, Bella.”
“I need you more.”
Ava
We lie under the stars for countless minutes. Every constellation has a new meaning. Rafael tells me stories about each and every one. Even if I’ve heard the story a thousand times, it becomes new to me again with his voice.
When the tide becomes too close to our feet, he pulls me into his arms while I hold the shoes, and carries me back upstairs to our room. I feel the strongest sense of déjà vu as he sets me down at the end of the bed. The curtains were closed earlier to keep out the heat of the sun. Now, he opens them wide, along with the sliding doors, to bring the outside in to us.
Rafael methodically turns off all lights around us except for a lone candle. The scent of sandalwood floats on the breeze around me, us. He sits down beside me on the bed, looking into my eyes. My head is tilted against my hand as he traces my face. “I don’t like seeing you sad, Ava.”
“I’m trying not to be.”
“You said tomorrow is tomorrow.”
“Saying it and feeling it in reality are two different things.”
“How can I make you feel better?”
“Tell me tonight won’t be the last time. Tell me I’ll still get the late-night video chats. Tell me I will still get wake-up calls in the morning and good nights while I’m eating dinner. Tell me you’ll show up on my doorstep once in a while. Even as I say it, I know it sounds too fast and, well, clingy.”
“No, Bella. I don’t see it like that. I see it as honest. I don’t see it as anything other than what I wish things to be. I want to make those things happen for us.”
The corners of my mouth can’t help but turn up. “Us.”
“That pleases you.”
“More than I can say.” I pull his hand in between mine, studying every inch. I want how they feel to be seared into my brain so I can feel them when they’re not there. “You know, you’re like Superman.”
Now the corners of his mouth turn up. His eyes sparkle even more than they have been. “What?”
“I’m independent. I always have been, to a fault sometimes. I can do anything and everything on my own. I’m finally at the point where I don’t want to. The way you look at me…I know I still can, and you’d want me to, but I don’t have to. You give me your soul each time you look at me. Honestly, I don’t need anything more than that.”
Rafael sighs. “You deserve the world, Ava.”
