CAILY GALILEO
I gasped softly, my hands trembling and dropping the bracelet. I shuffled myself quickly away from him.
Face flushed. Heart pounding. Body slightly trembling and chest heaving up and down with every breath I took.
I diverted my gaze to the floor, trying to steady my breath very unsuccessfully. It was like I was going to fall into a panic attack any second from now.
I was in love with Pietro? I was…? How could that be possible? That could not be possible so what the hell was the voice inside my head telling me?
Why was it telling me to quit acting like I didn’t love him when I really… really didn’t love Pietro?
Or did I, really?
Oh fuck! No!
I palmed my face with both hands, my face contorting with frustration. In less than two weeks. How could I have fallen in love with a man I was so hell bent on hating in two weeks?
“How could you be like this, Caily? Why do you always make the worst decisions? Why do you always make decisions that sends you farther into his life?” I grumbled.
“You can’t… you can’t do this” I shook my head.
“What is it that you can’t do?” His cologne filled my nostrils as he leaned in close.
I jumped a little and quickly two three steps away from him.
I could not be in love with him, right? This was just as a result of the overwhelming lust that he was making me feel and probably because I have never felt the way he was making me feel and probably because he does things no one has ever…
‘Fuck!’ I am thinking too much about this shit too!
No love. None. I was not in love with anyone. Definitely not.
“What’s my pretty woman thinking about so much?” Pietro’s hand reached for my head and gave me a head pat that almost made me want to push him down to the couch behind him and kiss the hell out of him but instead I swallowed down that feeling and looked at him boldly.
“What’s the next thing to look at?” I asked, taking a step back to get his hand off my hair.
“There… you left that when you were leaving. You actually left everything back though.” He chuckled, pointing to a teddy bear in a glass case.
A blue teddy bear that my Aunt Mandy had gotten for me one time. But I had not liked it very much.
I approached the teddy bear, recalling how I had complained to Pietro about not liking the colour. He had bought me a teddy bear in my favourite colour that very night.
“There is the one I got for you.” He pointed towards another and I felt my heart beat harder.
This room was just filled of things that messed me up so much. How… how would I not feel like I was in love with him when there was so much things like this in here?
“And…” he walked up to me and dropped a box on the table in front of me.
“What’s in it?” I slowly asked, avoiding his eyes.
“Open it up, Peaches.” his voice urged me.
I gulped down, preparing myself for another heart racing against whatever was going to be in the box.
I crouched down to the table and pulled it open. I dropped the box cover gently and my brows furrowed at what was inside.
Letters. Several and several of them.
“Letters?”
“I wrote most them to confess to you but couldn’t hand you any of them.” he chuckled.
“And then I concluded it would be on your eighteenth birthday. There are several more from recent years too.”
I picked one out as he spoke and I slowly opened it.
‘Peaches, I am on my bed right now with two bullets inside of me…”
I stopped reading and looked up at him with widened eyes.
“Two bullets were… In your body?”
“That’s not the point of that letter and yeah, I know you are worried for me but I am right in front of you, alive so that shit didn’t kill me, tesoro”
I took in a deep, breathy breath, torn, for a second between worrying more about the two bullets or reading the letter. I eventually chose both.
I returned my gaze to the letter to read more of its contents, my heart still turning at the thought of two bullets in Pietro.
“… waiting for the doctor’s arrival but all I can think about is not my life or my death. All I can think about is you, yet again. If I could see you, if you could hold my hands just once and call my name, I would live or die the happiest man. I don’t mind dying though as long as I am certain you will be willing to glance at my corpse and shed even a single tear for me. But fuck all that bullshit about death, I am more than certain that my existence cannot come to an end unless you wish for it to. Every second I breathe is all because you want me and guess how that makes me feel? It makes me feel on top of the fucking world because it assures me that you still want me alive regardless of how much your pretty lips utter how much you hate me. The moment you truly truly hate me is the moment my existence comes to an end. The moment I walk past you and you don’t glance at me. The moment I stand in front of you and you don’t look in my eyes. That is the moment I will lose my life, Peaches. My life and my death resides in your hands. Soon, I will have you’
A tear dropped onto the paper, no matter how hard I had willed it not to drop. I just could not help myself so much when he drives me insane like this.
I looked up at him from my crouched position. He was looking at me already but what was I expecting? He probably always has his gaze on me. All these while, all these years, he has had his gaze on me. Watching me, loving me in this sick and twisted manner!
“I hate you!” I sobbed out before dropping the letter and running out of the room.
I couldn’t take more of all that. If I read one more letter, I could as well jump on him and scream at him that I loved him, that I belonged to him and that my entire existence probably always knew that he was the only man for me, that some sort of fate or destiny had tied me to him and I wasn’t positive I would ever want to untie the string even if I was given a chance to do so.
“How?” I palmed my face, leaning against the wall, my chest heaving and my cheeks getting wet with my tears.
“I love him… I love Pietro. I do… I do… I love him.” I sobbed, slowly dropping down to the floor.
“I love him and I… I love how he loves me.” I could deny it a million times but the truth was I did… I did love the way he loved me and that just made me insane, just like he is.
In love with a monster. In love with Pietro Giacometti.
But that wasn’t good news. If anything, this revelation was bad news. Really really bad news.