THE PAST
PIETRO GIACOMETTI
Confronts his father for letting her go. His father advices him. Pietro finds her that night and watches her from the next window. Marks that she still belongs to him and always will.
“I hate you. Read my lips… I hate you so much and I will never ever… never forgive you!” Those words, that teary face stained with blood from me holding her face, that sadness and anger, that hatred. All that kept me up the entire night.
She had said all those words to me and she had called me a monster. My Peaches had looked at me and she had seen a monster. She had not seen that human she always wanted to be around, she had not seen a man who would always be there for her. All she has seen was a monster she wanted to flee away from.
And I should let her.
I should let Caily run far away from me so that I would never have to see her in tears like that again. I should let her go away from me so that this obsession for her, this need for her could at least die down but I could not. I could not let her run away from me because my need for her could never die down.
She would come to understand my actions and she would take back her words about me being a monster. Because I could be a monster to the entire world but to her, to Caily, I only ever wanted to be an angel and that was what I was to her.
Her father was the monster and I was the angel who had gotten rid of that monster.
It could take a while but eventually Caily would understand my actions from last night and everything would be perfect once more.
I glanced at the wall clock. It was 11am. 11am and I wasn’t getting out of bed even though I had not had a wink of sleep.
I pulled the sheets off me and stepped out of bed, wondering where Caily was at the moment. Hiding in one of the houses around, scared of me?
“Fuck you Pietro!” I cursed myself out loud because I hated it. I hated that Caily was scared of me. She wasn’t supposed to be afraid of me, I should be the one she runs to when something else scares her, I should be her comfort and her warmth.
The door of my room suddenly opened and I cursed at myself for not locking it after dragging myself in in the middle of the night.
“You are up” my father waltzed in like he was welcome in my room.
“How long has it been since I stepped into your room?” He looked around the room with a smug look on his face.
“Where is Peaches now?”
“Caily? Well, your pretty little girl…” He breathed in and breathed out.
I let my gaze narrow at him, waiting for a full response from him.
“Where is she?” I asked, stepping closer to him.
I didn’t like the look on his face right now. I never liked any look on his face but this one in particular, I hated it.
“She’s gone.” He replied and my eyes turned a little bigger.
“What did you just say?”
“You heard me right, Pietro. She is gone. She left with her aunt”
I rushed towards him and grabbed him by the collar.
“She left?! You let her leave?!”
He groaned and pushed me off him. I felt weak and lifeless already so it was quite easy for him to push me off him.
“I let her leave because that is what is proper for us to do. Proper for you to do.” My father seethed for a second and I just looked at him, anger burning in my eyes.
“Proper? Did I ever care about proper? When did this family itself ever care about being proper?!”
“Don’t overdo things, Pietro.” He smoothened his shirt, a distasteful look on his face as he did so.
“You should have known right from the beginning that Caily could never be yours. I thought you were going to drop the thoughts of her after a few weeks or a few months but it’s obvious that didn’t happen. That girl is too good for you, Pietro and you are also too good for her. It’s a complete mismatch.”
“If you ever need the company of women, you know exactly where to get them…”
Those words made me frown. If my father thought I craved the touch or warmth of any other person then he had only a flimsy idea of what Caily was to me.
He moved away from me, heading towards the door but he stopped at the door, turned and leaned on the door.
“I know that right now, the only thing in your head is how you are going to find her. And yes, you could quite easily find her but don’t.” He said the words like they were an advice that I had asked for.
“That girl just lost her father. It doesn’t matter what you said her father was doing to her, you completely battered her father’s body in front of her, if you appear in front of her right now, she’s going to hate you more than she currently does.” He said and for the first time in a very long time, I was forced to agree that my father could be right.
“And if you truly like this girl, I think the best thing you can do for her is to let her go. Pietro, love should not be a thing for you. You are incapable of loving in the way a normal human should and your love will only lead that girl to a tragic end, an end you’d hate yourself for. Listen to me this one time and stay away from Caily. Let her go. When it is time for you to get married, you can find a woman who can handle you. Caily is not that woman.”
He pulled the door open and walked out of my room, leaving me standing in the middle of it like a forlorn idiot.
I was incapable of loving in the way normal humans should? And Caily wasn’t the woman who could handle me?
My father was wrong this time. Very fucking wrong because if there ever was going to be a woman who could handle me, it was going to be Caily. My Peaches was the only woman who could do that and my father just had zero idea of how unique Caily was.
THE NEXT NIGHT
I stood at the window of the cheap hotel room, looking out of it at a window in the next building. The lights were on and the curtains were up but there was no one in my sight.
My hands were tucked in my pocket and my shoe kicked the feet after every three seconds.
And then finally, she walked over to the window and I got a glimpse of her. She looked out of the window for a second, that soulfully sad look still on her face.
I pulled my lower lip into my mouth and bit hard on it, knowing I could have done things in a much better way.
I watched her pull the curtains down and I could see her silhouette as she moved away from the window.
“Right. Heal up just fine for me, Peaches. I’d give you all the time you need to heal up, all the time you need to forget that you ever said you hate me and after then I’ll be back to reclaim my position in your life because no matter what happens, you’ll always be MINE, PEACHES.”