Show me love.

Fourteen

I had never been a fan of anything scary. I always hid behind cushions when Flo and Paul watched scary movies, and climbed the stairs two at a time once it was done. From true-crimes, fictions and documentaries, anything that made my heart rate rise slightly more than normal was enough to make me turn the channel. 

But I couldn't turn the channel on this. This wasn't a Ted Bundy documentary, and it wasn't IT climbing from the drains. 

This was real life. My life. 

I squint my eyes, my dry lips smacking together. My neck ached and my shoulder burned with a warm ray of sunlight dripping through the car window. Suddenly aware that my nightmare wasn't a dream, my instinctive panic makes me shoot upright. 

"Calm down." Jason's husky, yet comforting, voice soothes me. He takes a side glance at me, his eyes trained to the stretch of road ahead. He was still dressed in his opening night suit, although missing a few top buttons and a discarded tie. "Are you alright?" 

"Where are we?" My voice was just as groggy as his. There was a pulsating ache behind my eyes, spreading across my forehead and making my eyebrows involuntarily knit together in a hope to relieve the burning headache. 

The winding stretch of clear road ahead was just that. A road. Surrounded by beautiful greenery that stretched for miles. A clear blue sky and brightly blinding sun should've been enough to make every ounce of worry disappear. 

"Italy." He replies. "Positano, to be exact."

"Italy?" I mumble. Last night's attire made me squirm, but the in flight socks from Jason's drawer aboard his jet saved my feet from the deadly high heels. I could already feel the blisters nipping at my heels. "I've never been here before."

He lets out a small grunt of a supposed laugh. "Well, I'm sorry it's not under better circumstances."

I frown. My fingers twitched to his hand that clenched the steering wheel in a deathly grip. I immediately feel them loosen, but only slightly. "Are you okay?" 

"It was too dangerous for us to stay in the city." He tells me in a low rumble. I swallow loudly and nod, my stomach churning sickenly. "Here is the only place I could think of that nobody else knows."

"Nobody knows?" I ask. 

"My parents." He says. "We came here a few times for family vacation when I was young, I can't remember it though but I always remembered looking at photographs and getting a whole range of emotions. Then I visited here alone during my gap year from college for almost three months before the business became everything."

"My mom always told me to visit Italy." I mumble quietly. "Touch the walls of the colosseum, throw a coin into the Trevi fountain, walk along the Amalfi Coast, drink wine overlooking Lake Garda."

"Sounds like my perfect woman."

I laughed and nodded. "She would've loved that. She would definitely been charmed by you."

"I would have aimed to please." He smiles gently, unraveling his grasp and slipping his fingers through mine. "We'll be here soon."

He fell quiet again, and I hated Jason quiet. I hated not knowing what he was thinking, what he was planning, what questions he was asking himself. The worry lines fell deep across his forehead and stress creases hung below his tired eyes. 

Within twenty more minutes, we reach his secret destination. I follow behind him, my feet warm on the cobble ground. The small path overgrown with multicoloured flowers, ivy climbing the stone walls until we reached the little blue door hidden amongst the greenery. Jason fishes the key from his pocket and gives the door a small shove with his shoulder.