“You’re fooling yourself, Georgie! You’re being so bloody stupid!”
It felt as if she’d just slapped me cross the face. “No I’m not!”
“You’re telling me you won’t even give a lovely guy a chance because you’re ‘not ready to throw in the towel’? HOW ROMANTIC!”
“Oh, just sod off. That’s not how it is.”
“Then tell me! How is it? You’re okay with just being Gianluca’s fuck buddy?!”
I shoved away from her then, so hard she fell back against the brush beside the trail. “You have no idea what you’re talking about! How dare you judge my choices. You think I should walk away from the man I love because some other guy walks up and says hi?”
“Oh bloody hell. You love him?! What about all the crap you wanted?! You had a list a mile long of all the things you cared about! You’re going to toss all that away?”
“I don’t care about any of that stuff! I don’t care if Taylor reads every miserable book on the planet! I want Gianluca and I want him enough to deal with the baggage. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to continue on—it’s my fuck buddy’s birthday!”
I HEARD KATERINA and Georgie shouting at one another—actually, we all heard them. The mountain, like most mountains, was deserted, and sound carried readily. We’d stopped to wait for them and then I listened carefully, bristling as Katerina tried to push Taylor on Georgie. My mates had the good sense to pretend they couldn’t hear it, but it was no use. Taylor wouldn’t meet my eyes, Massimo was watching me with pity, and Matteo and Paolo, the arseholes, were doing their best to contain their snickering. Apparently they enjoyed hearing the girls shouting about fuck buddies.
I didn’t.
I felt for Georgie in that moment. Having to defend her choice to be with me was hard to hear, especially when I hadn’t given her much to use in way of defense. I was angry with Katerina for assuming I wasn’t good enough for Georgie, for trying to convince her to give Taylor a chance. I was angry because she was right. I wasn’t good enough for Georgie, but more than anything, I wanted to be. I wanted to change. I wanted to be the man Georgie Archibald deserved to marry.
To marry.
I stared up at the sky and laughed a sort of crazy chuckle at how correct Allie had been.
“By the time you’re thirty, you’ll be happy again and madly in love. I promise. I’ll work some kind of cosmic magic to make it happen, just you wait and see.”
I guess you win, Allie.
You win.
“You want to go on, Luca?” Massimo asked, coming up to drop his hand on my shoulder. “We can give them a bit of privacy?”
Just then, Georgie crested the top of the mountain. Her cheeks were red with rage and her fists were clamped by her sides. I knew her feet were killing her, but she rushed past like she was on a mission. I reached out to stop her, but she tugged her arm free and shook her head.
“I’m continuing on the trail. I’ll see you at the finish line.”
I’D BECOME THE type of woman I loathed: a spineless git. For months, I’d followed Gianluca around like a sad little puppy, hoping he’d eventually soften his heart and take me home. A part of me had known this all along, but I’d been living in blissful denial up until Katerina had dropped that truth bomb on me in front of everyone.
Did everyone pity me?
Did they all think I was delusional for pining after Gianluca?
God, how embarrassing.
I hadn’t realized I’d become a sideshow attraction, the latest in a long string of women who thought they could sway the cranky recluse. How many had come before me? How many had left Vernazza brokenhearted?
I couldn’t face the group. I didn’t wait for them at the base of the trail; instead I headed straight for the train station and went back to Vernazza. I felt bad, not giving some sort of explanation for where I’d gone, but they’d probably guess I’d gone home.
My emotional torture had momentarily overshadowed the pain from the blisters on my feet, but by the time I unlocked the door to the bed and breakfast, there was no denying it: my body ached as much as my heart.
Mopsie was waiting for me on the other side of the door, offering up a furry toy mouse for me to take. I scooped him up and walked straight to the bathroom, drawing a nice, hot bath. I opened the window, the small one that faced the back alley; it let in the sounds of the sea without compromising my privacy. After a candle was lit and enough lavender-scented bubble bath poured into the warm water, I stripped and stepped in, setting Mopsie down on the tile. He had no desire to get in the water, but he was happy to lie on my warm clothes and resume his main mission in life: sleeping.
I kept the water going until I was nearly submerged, everything in the water but my face. I stared up at the white plaster ceiling and tried to make sense of my situation. Now that I had a bit of distance from her, I didn’t think Katerina was wrong. Her delivery was a bit harsh, but she was being a good friend, trying to watch out for my heart. She wanted me to stay away from Gianluca because it was obvious that I was going to get hurt, and she didn’t want that.
It was too late though. It was like being told to watch your step when you’ve already missed the stair. I should have listened to her earlier because now I was in the worst spot imaginable. I was stuck, so in love with Gianluca that I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t breathe without him. I felt it eating away at me. I was so desperate to keep him that I didn’t pay attention to the warning signs: the sick feeling in my stomach, the tight tug of my heart when he walked out of a room, the twisted thoughts in the back of my mind. I’d completely lost myself in him. I no longer wanted a simple kind of love. I’d settle for nothing short of crazy in love, and the moment Gianluca realized how serious I was about him, how shattered I’d be by the end of us, he would walk away. He had to; he was too much of a good guy to lead me on.