“I don’t think love should be taken for granted, and I don’t think you should keep on a path of least resistance.”
“This is hardly… the Italian guy. What’s happening? You’re acting strange.”
“Can you honestly say that if you were healthy, you’d marry her?”
“Yes. But we’d have a proper engagement.”
He was sure. Through hid glassy eyes, I saw a rock-solid surety. Antonio must have been that sure when he’d asked Valentina, but me? I wasn’t beating myself up, but the circumstances had brought his proposal on too quickly, and after seeing his wife alive and well, I couldn’t assume his feelings for me would withstand her return. Even if he’d meant it when he asked me to marry him, everything had changed...
Jonathan meant it. He did. Daniel had meant it. But Antonio couldn’t.
I fished in my pocket and came up with my soot-stained ring. I pressed it into his palm. “Try again, and use this. Give it back when you can buy her her own.”
His hand didn’t close around it at first. God, he was so messed up. Was he even conscious?
“The last time I saw you,” I said, “you were killing oranges for sport and making jokes in Italian. This is… I don’t know. A wake-up call.”
I had to spend the rest of my life doing right. If I had to answer for my actions, I wanted to be able to stand up and say that I had definitively and consciously decided to be better, do better, be a person I could be proud of.
“I never joke in Italian.”
“Sorry to make it about me,” I whispered.
He smiled a little then held up the ring so he could see it. “I’m boring right now. And all anyone talks about is me. Where did you get this? They said you went on the run? Did you start robbing jewelry stores?” He lowered his hand as if he were too weak to hold it up.
I didn’t know how much of this conversation he’d remember, if any of it. “Someone really wanted me for a while. You’ve met him.”
“Daniel won’t be happy. He still wants you.”
“How do you know?”
“I know regret when I see it,” he said.
“He’ll tell himself he cares, but we cancel each other out. We add up to nothing. Trust me when I say I’d rather break up for the right reasons than get married for the wrong ones. With him, or anyone else. I’m either first in line, or I walk.”
“You’re not the uptight priss I thought you were. You’re a priss with a purpose. I’m proud of you.”
“You thought I was an uptight priss?” I said with a smile. I’d never thought of myself that way, but maybe I was.
“I think I underestimated you. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I can’t explain why I feel okay about it, but I do.”
“Thank you.” He held the ring in his fist as if he were afraid to lose it. “Pledge closed.”
“Pledge closed.” I kissed his forehead. It was cold, and my heart ached for him. “I’ll try to come back, but you might not see me for a while.”
fourteen.
theresa
left in tears. My family was in the waiting room two doors down, and I craved them. Margie and Sheila, even Mom, whose hugs felt like being loosely wrapped in chicken wire. I wanted them. A week ago, I’d wanted to get away from them, but on that day, all I wanted was to be a pack animal. Surround myself in them. Drown out thoughts of Valentina and soak in family love.
I touched my St. Christopher medal before I got in their sights. I’d avoided facing my family on the way in because I needed strength for Jonathan.