Nora's POV
I've tried on what feels like thousands of dresses. It's not everyday when you have to attend your ex-fiance's wedding who is also going to be marrying your cousin. I despise Vera, just like her mother, Ysabella. They've always just assumed they're better then most but it's far from it. I've never really believed someone is better than another.
We spent so much time together after our night with each other. He was sympathetic to my situation with Nonna, a reason as to why I don't tell a lot of people. I don't need sympathy, I don't need pity. I just want someone who will help me to cope, someone who will listen to me when I need it, and someone who will just support me. Shawn is doing that for me in more ways than I ever thought someone could do. He was still struggling with his own demons but he was handling them easily enough.
I didn't want my day to end but I had to get back to Nonna since my mom was working and someone needed to be home with her. She has good days and bad days, but she's starting to forget more though. We've noticed it in the last few weeks that things are on what seems to be a rapid decline. Sometimes this happens, sometimes her mental stance drops and then evens out for a while, then drops quickly again, then evens out. It's difficult.
Shawn and I talk every day, either I see him or we spend the day chatting. It's like I've never really thought I had free time and now all the sudden any free time I had I spend texting him. But I still have my life, I still read at night, still take a long walk by myself on Sunday, and still working, still hang out with my friends. He hasn't taken up every aspect of my life, but I welcome his invasion.
This weekend we are planning on heading to Vera and Piero's wedding in Vermont. Nonna and my mom had taken the train a few days before and the last thing I wanted to do was arrive three days early to the wedding. So we're taking the train for eight hours to Vermont. We'll rent a car once we get there so we can at least disappear when we want to, and we haven't planned on coming home until Monday.
"So can I just wear this to the wedding?" I've taken to Shawn's place to help him pack, apparently all that time with a personal shopper and personal stylist, he still struggles with the confidence to dress himself. I peek around my shoulder and notice him holding up black slacks and a button up shirt. Simple, what one would wear to a wedding, but he's so worried about impressing my family.
"It will be fine Shawn." I stifle a giggle. It's hard not to laugh at him when he's fretting.
"What are you wearing?" I turn in my chair as he pulls out a garment bag to place his outfit in.
"I just have a green dress with a sweater if it gets chilly. The wedding is inside but you just never know about those venues." I picked something that hits just above the knees, sleeveless, clings to my figure just a little bit but not too much that it's inappropriate. Then I have two extra dresses just in case, a navy one as well as a black one. We'll see how it all plans out, we have to meet up for the rehearsal dinner, apparently out of town guests are invited. I'm hoping that we get there too late and that we can't attend but my thoughts are that it won't happen.
"When do we need to leave?" He asks.
"Um." I pause and look at my phone. "Our train leaves in an hour and a half." I spent yesterday packing and was here today early enough to help Shawn prepare, we have to be at the station by 9:00.
"So what are the arrangements this weekend? Like where am I staying?" He asks zipping up his bag.
"Well Nonna is staying with her son, my uncle, mama has a hotel room and she got another one for us to use so if you want you can sleep in it by yourself and I can stay with my mom or I'm sure we could stay in it together." I casually look at my phone to try to read his reaction. We've known each other for almost three months now, we've just been getting together and being together. And I'm completely okay with not having a title, many have asked us what we are and we just say that we're friends. It's not that I don't want to be more I just don't need to rush things.
I see things going well for us, I see things progressing so I don't need to move quickly. Nonna and Nonno moved quickly but that was a different time, different circumstances.
"So stay together then?" He asks, laughing. "All finished." He places his bag down and pulls his jacket off the hanger.
"Well lets go." I start walking away, we usually always get stopped while out in public because of him, people have picked up and speculated but it's not something that we comment on. Shawn wants a private life and I completely respect that.
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Train rides always bore me. When I was younger and Nonno would take us on trips by train he would always have these games to play. We'd play the alphabet game, I spy, card games, we'd chat in Italian, Nonna would braid my hair, our long trips wouldn't seem so long after all.
Shawn and I have gotten to our car easily enough, we talked about just getting seats but we wanted a place to lounge and relax so Shawn opted for one of those bedroom cars. That way we could leave our things some place safe and wonder about the train if we needed to. We have an eight hour ride ahead of us to Vermont. It's a beautiful place, it's always nice to get out of the city but it always seems like once I get out all I want to do is get back.
"So are you just going to rest your legs on mine this whole time?" Shawn bites back a laugh as I press my heels in to his thighs just a little bit, making him squeal.
"Maybe." I put a book mark in my spot and rest it on my chest. We've been here for an hour and I'm already over this trip. "What do you want to do?" I ask. We watched through the large glass window for about ten minutes before settling down to read our own books. Shawn doesn't seem to keep his attention long as he put his book down after a half an hour, impatiently waiting for me to finish mine. I could read all day if I was allowed.
"I don't know. Lets go get something to eat?" He suggests. I pass the book to our bench seat and swing my legs off of him, standing and stretching slightly. Shawn jumps up quickly, anxious to leave our confined space, he grasps my hand and lightly pulls me towards the narrow hallway. Sometimes you just never get used to the gentle rocking of the passenger car back and forth. Whenever I leave a train it always seems like just for a second things aren't quite right, my balance shifty.
I let him pull me down the hallway, moving from train car to train car until we get to the restaurant car, picking seats that swivel back and forth. My attention quickly averted to the fact that my chair can move from side to side.
"Can I take you anywhere?" Shawn teases, picking up his menu to scan.
"Nowhere." I playfully smack his menu away with mine. When I'm not busy with work, my mind starts to relax and I'm usually doing things that are not to my character.
We order and I just can't help myself to spin in my chair ever so slightly, just enough to annoy Shawn a little more. His slight eye roll, and hidden smile makes me laugh.
"So what are you working on in class?" I ask. Shawn's taken a mixed media art course through NYU, he's always been one to draw, but creating sculptures is something he's always been interested in.
"Um we started working with stone. We all got pieces and have to carve and polish them into whatever we create. I honestly thought it would be impossible but it's quite interesting. My piece has really taken its own direction."
"It looks really nice." I tell him as I scroll through the pictures he's shown me on his phone. "I really like this picture." I stop at a picture of him and I that he had taken of us while I was making those dreaded flower crowns. That shy smile he has returns to his face as he looks out the window and laughs. "When do you have to go home?" I set his phone down and slide it back to him.
"I'm leaving in three weeks, right before Halloween and I won't be back until the first of the year." I'm dreading it. We haven't officially defined our relationship, mainly because he's leaving for so long. A lot can happen in two months.
"I'm dreading it." I confess, letting my hand fall along the table for him to grab.
"We'll be fine." He links his fingers with mine and I feel like I could stare at his eyes forever, and just get lost in them. We'll be fine.
There is a we.
