His arms uncrossed, he pushed his hands deep into his trouser pockets and his loud exhale found me. I could feel his need for me being projected across the room. I revelled in it and used it to fuel what I knew I had to do. Clasping the folder in front of me with both hands I added an extra wiggle as I walked nearer to him.
Although I tried hard not to, my nostrils found his cologne floating on the air-conditioning of the large room. Like a woman fighting for her very existence, let alone her life, I breathed him in and let him fill up every single one of my senses.
Longing for him ran through me.
I opened my folder and trying to ignore how very close he had stepped up to the side of my body, I began to spread out the pictures I had especially chosen in front of me.
‘I’ve brought these with me to give you examples of how I see my future.’
I stood back after speaking and let him close in further towards the table. One by one I watched as he picked up my work and began to examine them.
I could hear his breathing begin to quicken as he picked up one photograph after another. On the top I had deliberately placed the pictures of Crete, its heritage sites and its gorgeous beaches.
‘A photography business? You know already that I think you have a good eye,’ he offered as he took each one in.
Then I held my breath as he found the ones of him that I’d deliberately placed underneath. The ones in casual clothes. The photographs I’d taken of him when he wasn’t aware and the ones when he’d been looking down the lens of my camera with such longing I’d almost disintegrated on the spot. As I heard him clear his throat, I knew that he’d found the one at the bottom of the pile. The one he’d taken of me as I’d walked into church not ten minutes before he’d walked out.
‘Mio angelo,’ he whispered.
My heart rate quickened at the words as they fell out of his mouth without so much as a thought. The same words I had mourned that I might never hear again. I knew then he hadn’t left me because he didn’t care, but because he cared too much.
The room around us fell into a painful silence and I held my breath before going into what I knew was going to be the biggest speech of my life.
‘Tell me what you see, Nico.’
He picked up the photos one by one over and over again.
‘Mainly, I see me.’
I knew he had turned his face towards me, but I refused to meet his questioning gaze.
‘Do you? Do you really?’
‘I don’t understand.’ He shook his head a little as if he was trying to arrange all the pieces of a jigsaw in his mind. ‘Do you want me to back a business venture for your photography? Because I will without a moment’s hesitation.’
‘You didn’t answer me… Do you really see you in those pictures? I mean really see you. I want the truth; you have told me several times that you always tell the truth.’
He looked down at the table again and I allowed my eyes to focus on the side of his face.
‘That’s the real you, Nico. You weren’t playacting. You were being the man I truly believe you were always meant to be. Look at them! Understand who you are.’
‘This is who I’m supposed to be.’ He answered me but still kept his eyes on the mass of colour I’d placed on the table as he moved the smooth pieces of paper around with one finger.
‘No,’ I voiced louder than I’d intended. ‘This is who your father told you to be and whether you want to believe it or not, by casting me and the life we have together aside you’re allowing him to win… to win, Nic… please understand that.’ I couldn’t help the begging tone that entered my voice.
Suddenly, he moved and turning to face me he grabbed hold of my forearms and pulled me into him. All of the air expelled from my lungs. Slowly, I looked up into his face. The pain he was in was etched on every single part of the handsome features in front of me.
‘I left to protect you.’
Gently, I shook my head at him and lifting a hand up towards him I let my forefinger stroke his cleft chin and watched as his jaw relaxed just a little under my touch.
‘No, you left to protect yourself. You’re scared of being alive and hurting. He still has such a hold over you that you still believe all the lies he fed you and you don’t have the strength to push him away… You see, Nico Morello, you can run from me, but you can’t hide, because I see you, like you saw me.’
‘You were wearing my mamma’s necklace… in church that day.’ He offered me the information so that I might understand. ‘It was the same one I unravelled from the coarse rope she chose to end her life with.’ A silent tear began to run down his face.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know,’ I whispered up to him as he dipped his forehead to mine and let it rest there.
‘I’ve never told anyone before, so you couldn’t have known.’
I opened my hands and gripped onto his shirt, holding him tightly to me.
‘Then let me in… let me all the way in and together we can put all the pieces of our shattered hearts back together.’
‘I can’t walk away from this life.’
‘I know, and I’m not asking you to. I accept this is part of who you are, because I love you.’
‘I wish you didn’t, and this would be so much fucking easier.’
I summoned all the strength I had left in me.
‘This is your chance to choose, Nico. Remember what Mrs. Davison told us both?’ I questioned, and then I continued on not waiting for a reply. ‘We are in charge of our own lives. We are not our parents even if we look like them, because we are not created in their exact image. The adults around us imprint on us growing up and we are made to believe certain things about who we are. Once we become independent, we can become who we were meant to be. There are other ways forward and we carve out those other paths by fighting for what we really want… Fight for me, Nico like I’m prepared to fight for you.’
I reluctantly pulled myself out of his arms and once again put my hand inside my folder. After finding what I was looking for I placed the small piece of white plastic, with the two blue lines that I’d been saving until last, down on top of the photographs. His eyes followed my every movement and he stiffened in response to what he found.
‘This is both of ours chance to choose a different pathway. This isn’t about you and Cade, or me and Brody anymore. This is about us. This is our child I’m carrying and I’m choosing to make their life different to ours. I’m choosing love, and happiness. I’m choosing a different ending. I choose you and our baby. I hope you can be strong enough to be the man I know you are to choose us… But if you don’t, we’ll be fine without you.’ I managed to swallow down the sob that was creeping into my voice.
I turned on my heels and although I wanted to bolt towards the closed door, I made sure I walked calmly away. My face was wet with tears, but not able to give him any more of an insight into my feelings, I let them fall. Just as my hand touched the doorknob with my back towards him, I spoke again.
‘Remember, you have to embrace your darkness to see your stars shine. Our baby is your star.’
I pulled open the door and walked through it, not knowing if I would ever see him again.