His Bambina

Chapter 36

Aria's POV:

I'm not sure what time I got down here or what woke me up in the first place. Did I even truly fall asleep?

The soft under-glow of the counter-tops are just bright enough to help me see my cereal. Not that I really need to see the soggy, chocolatey mess I'm mindlessly swirling around in my bowl.

The floor creaks behind me.

I didn't have to turn around to know it was him.

His presence fills the room like a storm front–silent, electric, and heavy with all the things we'd left unsaid. I keep my eyes on my cereal, trying to control the flutter in my chest, but my shaking hands betray me.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asks, voice low and rough. 

I finally glance up at him.

He is thinner. Paler. A healing cut traced his jaw, and his arm was still bandaged, but he stands like the walls might fall if he didn't keep holding them up. His eyes, though, are the same as before he left. Tired. Haunted. Searching for... something.

"Funny," I bite, curling my fingers tighter around my spoon. "You made it through hell and back, but walking down the hallway to talk to me was too much."

His expression doesn't change but something in his jaw tightens. Good. Let him feel it.

"I didn't know if you'd want to see me," he mutters.

I laugh, bitter and quiet. "And you decided for me. Again."

He steps into the kitchen, slower than I remembered. There is a limp he's trying to hide. Of course he was. Always hiding. Always bleeding in silence.

"I wasn't sure what I'd say," he murmured.

"You had plenty of time to think about it," I snap, the words sharp before I could soften them. "Or was I not worth a second of that?"

He flinches. Not much. Just a flicker in his eyes. But I catch it, and God help me, part of me hates how much I still care that I hurt him.

"You're worth more than any damn thing I have left," he whispers.

My breath catches. Damn him.

"You didn't come," I whisper back. "You could have died out there, and I-" I stop myself. I can feel my throat closing. "I thought you were gone. And even though you weren't... you still were."

He looks at me like he's drowning. Like he wants to swim toward me but doesn't trust his own arms to carry the weight.

"I was trying to protect you," he says. "From me."

The silence that follows feels deafening. He steps closer, hesitant, as if crossing some invisible line.

"I don't know if I deserve to be here," he whispers. "But I couldn't stay away anymore."

My heart breaks a little. The truth is: I don't know if I want him to stay away either.

I glance down at the soggy bowl. I wasn't sure what hurt more the anger, or the ache of still loving him.

"If you're going to leave again," I whispered, "just do it now. Before I let myself hope."

He doesn't answer right away. Then, slowly, he reaches across the counter, fingers brushing mine. Just barely. Just enough to make my heart scream.

"What can I do? Please, bella, just tell me what I can do to make you love me again." The man everyone sees as the strong beast, stands in front of me nearly crumbling to his knees. I want to scream. I want to tell him to go back to being cold and heartless, because it was so much easier to let him go when he acted as if I were nothing. But now? I'm almost certain he'd jump off a cliff if I asked him to.