Page 45 of Dirty Hearts

I watched the dark black strands of his mingle with the white strands of mine. Darkness and light.

Just like us.

Different. Too different. Day and night were never together. Not for long, just that breath of the evening, but it was always clear that the two could never coexist at the same time.

Like us.

Every time we were together, something would happen to highlight all the issues we faced. Something would happen to keep us apart.

It saddened me, because I was pretty certain that at one point, we were just a guy and a girl who were in love.

I knew I was.

I turned to face him, turning into his embrace, and he moved to my lips. Kissing me.

I sunk into the kiss, wanting it so badly my body ached for it. Ached for him.

But we needed to talk.

I pulled back, stepping back out of his arms so I could look at him.

“I’m sorry. It’s… I can’t control myself when I’m with you.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

If I wasn’t mistaken, he looked nervous too.

“Me too.”

He held my gaze, making me melt even more.

“I was going to stay… I mean… years ago. I thought of staying and not going to Europe. It was why I waited so long to tell you. It was stupid to do that… to wait. Maybe if I’d told you what was going on, we wouldn’t have argued so badly, and everything else that happened would never have happened.Maybe.”

It was amaybe, because in my head me leaving had opened the door for him to be with Marissa. Perhaps before I was just standing in the way. They’d suited each other. Same temperament, same wild streak. She would have loved to be married to the mafia boss. She would have loved the whole dark underworld life. The money, the power. Everything.

Me? I didn’t know about it. I didn’t care about those things.

I just cared about him.

“It wasn’t for you to do anything.” Claudius shook his head. “What happened was my fault. All mine. I knew you were working toward a big goal, Europe was a big chance for you to do more, be more. But the idiot that I was never saw that. I was selfish, very selfish. Like I am with everything else. I got a chance to fix things, and I never took it.”

“Did you want to? Did you want to fix things with me?” My voice quivered.

“Of course.”

“Why didn’t you? I was stupid. I waited that day thinking you’d come and at least say goodbye to me. Pa had to drag me away. Then I waited at the airport, but you never came.” That sarcastic laugh escaped my lips again. “I don’t think I ever cried so much. I hate crying in public. There I was at the airport, bawling my eyes out with my parents trying to console me. And strangers.”

He blinked and looked me over. “A woman. A woman probably around late sixties with a blue handbag. Silver-streaked hair. I thought she looked like a Sunday school teacher. She handed you a packet of Kleenex and a little chocolate bar. I was too far away to hear what she was saying, but I figured it had to be that thing where having something sweet helped to reduce shock.”

My heart… froze, and that chill expanded to my core, making me feel like my lungs were about to collapse in on themselves.

The chill tightened my chest, constricting my breathing. I barely registered that my hands had moved up to my mouth.

What was he saying to me?

He was there?

“You… went? You were there?” My eyes welled up with tears.

He nodded slowly, and there it was again. The feeling that I’d missed a chunk of something. Like someone had erased my mind of things I should know and didn’t.