Tangled In Strings

Chapter Thirty

It's shocking how easy it is to wake up on the biggest day of your life.

How your eyes snap open as if they had only been resting, and adjust to the luminous light pouring in through the windows within seconds. How easy it is for your lips to curve—no—soar upward, and brighten the more you reflect on this one moment. The moment between the life you had, and the life you only aspired, dreamed of, and the life you're finally granted. Everything is easier. Thinking is easier. Breathing, too.

The seconds my eyes remain on the window are spent in a particular kind of disbelief, bliss, almost too much to bear, and the moment is only disrupted when the movement beside me, slight and gentle, brings Giovanni into my view. A glorious man, who light attracts to like a backdrop, radiating and coming off of him like rays. Sunlight dances on his skin, shining like diamonds as he moves over me, placing his hand beside my head on the pillow.

I look up at him, speechless. Utterly speechless.

And I know why.

It's the look of contentment on his face, complete immersive contentment. The look that says, "I'm here, and I have no intention of leaving." It's not the first time he's done it, nor do I believe he's even attempting to achieve anything by it. Hell, I doubt he knows he's given it to me.

His weight is partially pressed to mine, and if I could move at all, I'd force all of it upon me. But my hands are curved under my chin, both of them, and my eyes are round. His fingers, still warm from sleep, graze my cheek, just under the bone and his smile goes lopsided.

"Let's hope the superstitions are wrong about seeing the bride day of, huh?"

I feel my head nod, slowly, very slowly. I wish I could do more, but my body has failed me. My heart is racing, and he can feel it. His hand rests against the skin concealing it, very softly.

"Scarlett?"

No one likes vulnerability. It's crippling. It's stupid. God—to put it all on display, out on the line, a person's got to be crazy to risk that. He does it nearly every day. Every damn day, and it's easy as breathing for him, or at least it looks it. I prefer to give it away less, because I know how dangerous that can be.

It's so much safer to hold it in. To hold everything in until it bubbles and pours through. I've always been very good at the imprisonment of my emotions. Or at least, I was. Before I met Giovanni, before my life flipped on its side.

Everything is so raw. My skin's almost peeled back, revealing all of the cloudy dark stuff beneath. It's been patched up mostly, with tender love and care, but it's impossible to get it all. Not after the life I've seen.

Giovanni's eyes, so dark and expressive, move from my pale skin to my face, and I watch his brows curve in slow motion, as his radiance dulls with worry. I sweep over his features, and I hear my breath catch. And my chest swells enough to suffocate me—hard enough to force me to speak the words I am fighting, praying I can keep in, so that I won't betray myself.

The plea sounds weak, polite, and unlike me.

"Don't ever leave me...please."

It's heartbreaking, to even hear myself utter those words, knowing every single ounce of me is burrowed in them. His profile, which had hardened with concern, smooths out in one move as he exhales slightly. He can always see deep into my soul, and he doesn't divert from that now.

He sees the foggy darkness, and banishes it, wrapping his hand under my neck, bringing my mouth the space it takes to meet his halfway. He kisses me, so hard, and neither of us breathes the whole time. Just suspended in that kiss, letting it take all of our air.