Til You Come Back to Me Again - A Love Story

Heartsick

Heartsick

Three years later

Sylvia and I had lunch, which we'd finished some time ago. I had invited her because I needed to talk. Now, she just sat and patiently waited while I quietly gathered my thoughts.

"He's going on a date tonight."

"Another date that you encouraged him to go on," Sylvia stated. "His sixth or seventh in three years if I'm remembering correctly."

I silently nodded, my insides twisting up in knots.

"You're not happy about him dating, are you? You never have been." When I said nothing, she asked, "What about you? When is the last time you went out with someone?"

"I can't remember."

"I do. It was six months ago. In in the past three years, you have dated even less than he has. Why is that?"

I needed to answer her. I desperately needed to confide in her and share what I had carried inside for three long years, but I had no clue how to even begin. And what would she think of me when I did speak the words–words that my heart had considered forbidden to utter for so long?

Sylvia's wise eyes stared into mine, and then I knew she knew.

"When did you begin to fall in love with him?"

With her earnest question, the floodgates of my mind opened and my thoughts slowly tumbled through my lips.

I loved Angelo De Luca more than words could possibly express. I couldn't really pinpoint when I knew for sure, but looking back, I realized my feelings for him began to change even before the cruise, they just didn't start to materialize until then.

Wiping away the tears that came unbidden, I remembered wondering if something was wrong with me. And even though I had tried to shake it off and go on pretending things were normal, I couldn't. For me, everything was changing then. I was changing, though it took me a while to realize just what was happening to me.

Many times during the cruise, I had caught myself staring at Angelo when he wasn't looking. Whenever we stood on the deck looking out over the ocean, I found myself watching the breeze tousle his dark hair, marveling at the vividness of his blue eyes and the way his tanned skin looked in the sun. I had felt an unfamiliar warmth curl in my stomach on the morning we docked in St. Martins when he opened the door to let me in before he'd even put his shirt on. The muscles of his arms and chest were lean and chiseled. I had seen him without a shirt plenty of times before, and had spent time swimming and on the beach with him shirtless. But that day I was seeing him in a different light. Angelo looked like an untouchable Italian god. He was so handsome–he always had been, but only then did I truly admit to myself that I was attracted to the man that raised me, the man who had cared for me for most of my life.

Each and every day after that trip, my feelings continued to grow until I couldn't deny it any longer. I deeply loved him. I may have been young, but my heart had known what it wanted. Over the years, that want had become a need, one that was so strong, I could barely conceal it, and I was scared to death of him finding out.

"I don't know what to do," I finally said. "He still sees me as a child and probably always will. One day he will find someone else. He will fall in love and marry again. And I don't know if I could handle that."

"Yes, he will marry again one day," Sylvia said. "And no, you wouldn't be able to handle that. But you won't have to."

"What do you mean?"