This Love

by Hilaria Alexander

  “I can’t say yes, I’m sorry.”

  He nodded. I leaned down to kiss him again, but he hardly kissed me back.

  I locked eyes with him, trying to understand if we were okay. He grabbed my hips and gave them a squeeze.

  “Let’s go back to the hotel,” he said.

  I thought there would be more friction between us after our argument, but instead some of the tension had dissipated and we went back to our usual flirty banter. Lou seemed to be fine; he looked like he understood why I couldn’t follow him, but things were far from clear between us. We hadn’t spoken about our future or when I’d be leaving. Were we going to break up? Will I have to say goodbye to him forever? I didn’t want to ruin our last few days together, but I felt I had to bring it up. Now I was the one wanting to initiate the discussion. But I didn’t.

  We returned to Florence, and had a wonderful couple of days working. We listened to a few tracks, and it felt so exciting to be part of it all. He listened to something first, and then he put the headphones on my ears. My eyes lit up listening to the music—it was me singing. He pointed at me and mouthed something like, “This is you,” his smile reaching his eyes. Blood rushed to my cheeks and I smiled in response. But as our eyes locked, his smile fell, replaced by a certain familiar hunger. His jaw was taut and his eyes clouded with lust. This was nothing new, and still, I couldn’t help feeling my heart was in my throat, beating out of control. He turned around to say something to the guys and they walked out of the studio, closing the door behind them.

  He attacked my mouth and his hands traveled immediately under my shirt. My lips parted to welcome him. I wanted to feel everything. We kissed passionately, possessively. I was out of breath before too long, both our chests heaving.

  “Ella,” he said softly, catching his breath, his forehead pressed against mine.

  “Lou,” I replied, mimicking the tone of his voice.

  He gave me a longing look and took a deep breath.

  “Is it that hard to understand that I want you with me?” he asked.

  I looked at him, confused, not understanding. He gave me a knowing look, raising one eyebrow. Oh, so, that’s what it is about. I guess I had been naïve thinking the discussion was over after all.

  I took a deep breath. “No, it isn’t hard to understand. I want you too. I want to be with you. But there is something else I want too,” I replied. “I think I might have finally figured out what I’m going to do.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I was thinking of going back to Amsterdam, enroll in a music program. School is certainly more reasonable here in Europe than it is in the U.S.”

  His eyes lit up. “That’s great. I think it’s a good idea.”

  “You do?” I sensed that wasn’t all he had to say about it.

  “I do, but I think you could come to Tennessee and enroll in a music school there. I could help you out.”

  “What part of I have to do it on my own have you not understood?” I asked him, tugging playfully on his shirt, my voice a low whisper, still hoarse from the kissing. I didn’t want to fight. It didn’t work though. I saw his jaw harden and his eyes lost that playful spark. I knew I was hurting his feelings and his ego too.

  “It’s a wonderful offer, and I love that you’re so generous, but I can’t accept it. If you care about me like you say you do, you’ll have to accept I’m doing things my way.”

  I touched his face with my hand but he removed it and walked away from me. He didn’t understand. I needed him to understand.

  “You’re asking me to follow you around without questioning whether or not it’s the right thing for me, how is that any different than my parents running my life? You’re inviting me along to fit in with your life and your commitments...what’s going to happen to mine?” I asked, the tone in my voice almost angry.

  “You’re going to figure that out along the way,” he said, turning to face me.

  “I’m going to end up resenting you and I don’t want to do that. If I’m going to make some mistakes, I want them to be mine, one hundred percent.”

  He gave me a serious look. I didn’t want this to escalate even more. I wanted my silly, cheerful southern man back. I fought against the angry feelings he had stirred inside of me. I was going to make him understand my point of view. I closed the distance between us, raised myself up on my tip-toes and gave him a peck.

  “It’s kind of your fault,” I told him, trying to lighten up the mood, but he didn’t react the way I had hoped.

  “How is it my fault?” he asked defensively.

  “You gave me the opportunity to see how much I love this. You gave me the chance to believe I’m a good musician. I might not have passion for classical music anymore, but I want, I need to play music. I want to do this, but I have to figure it out on my own.”

  “You really want to do this?” he asked, biting his bottom lip.

  I nodded and waited for his reaction. He didn’t say anything, but he laced his fingers with mine.

  “Yes, but like I said, I need to do it my way.”

  “Okay,” he nodded, seeming to finally understand. His eyes were still clouded though. There was something else bothering him.

  “I do have a question though.”

  “Shoot,” he replied with a grin.

  “What’s going to happen with us?”

  He looked away from me, his face solemn, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He took a strand of my hair and started playing with it, running his fingers through the length of it.

  His voice sounded distant when he said, “I don’t know.”

  This didn’t sound like a good time to talk about feelings. Neither one had said a word about it. I was pretty sure he felt the same way I did, but I didn’t want to be the one taking the leap and exposing myself. There was a small chance I could be wrong. Would either one of us say it if we didn’t have to go separate ways soon?

  “Maybe we could still be in touch? We could Skype, talk on the phone? Maybe you could come visit again? Or… I could come visit you?”

  He turned and the look on his face told me he didn’t agree.

  He exhaled and said, “I’m going to have a pretty tight schedule after I get back. I don’t think they’ll let me get away anytime soon. Besides, I don’t want to have a long-distance relationship with someone living on the other side of the world. It’s hard enough when the person you love is a few states away,” he scoffed. “How could we make it work living on different continents?”

  Ouch. I don’t know what hurt more, his flat-out refusal or the fact that he thought we couldn’t survive being apart for a while.

  “I’m going on a walk,” he said coldly, walking out of the recording studio.

  Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.

  CHAPTER 19

  I ended up crying, a lot. At first downstairs playing the most depressing concerto pieces I could think of, then under the shower, and also out on the terrace, hours later, when I saw he wasn’t coming back.

  I just couldn’t stop the tears. I didn’t want to say goodbye to him, but I couldn’t bring myself to follow him. I wanted to ask him to wait for me, but that wouldn’t be fair either, would it? Eventually, I rinsed my face with cold water, and went to bed.

  Hours later, I felt his arms wrap around my waist, and his lips kissed my bare shoulder over and over. I placed my hand over his.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured, holding me tighter.

  “It’s okay,” I replied, although I was far from okay. Nothing about him flipping out was okay, but I didn’t want to fight. I reached up behind me to touch his face. He grabbed my hand and started placing kisses on it trailing up to my arm. I was still mad, but did I want to stop him? The answer was no. It was pointless trying to avoid this. Anytime could have been our last time. I wanted him. I turned around and when his lips touched mine I wanted to moan and cry at the same time.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized, his voice soft and his hand
caressing my face. “I’m so sorry.”

  I kissed him, and as his lips parted, I wrapped my tongue around his. I could taste the bourbon, but I didn’t care. I would have drank my sorrows away earlier that night too, if I wasn’t so sure I would end up feeling more miserable.

  I kissed him slowly, deeply, trying to let him know through my touch how much I loved him. I loved him, and letting go of him was going to be the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life. He kissed me with the same intensity, and something told me he wasn’t going to let me forget tonight.

  His fingers ran across my skin, from my waist, to my hip, to my leg, only to go up again, bringing them between my legs, rubbing my sweet spot. It never ceased to amaze me how quickly my body would respond to his touch. His fingertips running across my skin alone were an instant turn-on. My body ached, hungered for his fingers, his hand, his mouth.

  I wrapped my leg around him, my hand slipping under the waistband of his underwear, reaching for his cock, trying to give him the same kind of pleasure. He grunted at my touch, and started moving his fingers faster, pressing my clit with his thumb, my body tensing and arching under him. He didn’t stop until I reached my climax, my voice high-pitched and frantic. He barely gave me time to recover before he started undressing me, kissing more of my skin as he got me naked. He flicked a nipple with one hand, while sucking on the other. He bit and sucked and licked until I was very vocal about how he was affecting me, and only then he did leave my breast and started placing kisses on my stomach.

  He parted my legs with his hands and started placing kisses on the inside of my thigh, scratching me lightly with his scruff. The man seemed to be on a mission. I understood his urgency, but if he kept going on like this, with this intensity, he was going to break me. Death by multiple orgasms. I laughed at the thought and bit my lip.

  “What is it?” he asked, his voice gruff.

  “You’re going to break me if you keep going like this. Have mercy. Slow down,” I said, meeting his eyes.

  He got closer and placed a kiss on my lips, cradling my face.

  “I just want you to remember,” he told me, his voice low and rough. As if I could forget any of this, ever. He lowered himself between my legs again and went in for the kill. I didn’t want to be sad, but between our fight earlier, our imminent separation, what we felt for each other, the things left unsaid between us, and the physical pleasure, I couldn’t take any more.

  When I came down from my high, he hugged and kissed me, and then ran his thumb on my lip. I blinked my tears away. He might have seen them, or felt them, but he didn’t say a thing.

  I removed his boxers, climbed on top of him and started moving with him, riding him hard, his hands on my hips guiding me on top of him. I’d never get out of my head the way he looked at me when we came together, breathing hard, his face serious, hands still running all over my body as if he hadn’t had enough.

  It went on for hours. It seemed we would reach a point where we were satisfied, and we’d just snuggle and kiss; we would be close to falling asleep and then we’d look at each other and the longing, the hunger was there again. A deeper kiss was all it took to start all over. It had to be three or four in the morning before we finally fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  “I wish things could be different,” he said, trying to catch his breath.

  “I do too,” I replied.

  “I don’t want to say goodbye,” he added, his head lying on my chest.

  But it was inevitable, I had to go, and he knew it. My taxi would be here soon. I asked him not to take me to the station. It was hard enough as it was.

  It had been three days since our last fight, and we had spent it wrapping things up and screwing our brains out every moment we could. The desperation had been at an all-time high, and we both knew it but were determined to deny it until the end.

  As we lay partially undressed on the farm style kitchen table, I realized this had been an act of desperation too. We always joked about how huge and sturdy-looking this table was, and how we had to test it. We never got around to doing that, so it only seemed natural to start ripping the clothes off each other at the very last minute and go for one last hurrah. It had to be one of our most intense sessions to date. Our last.

  I kissed his head as I tried to move from underneath him. He tried to stop me by pinning my wrists to the table. He kissed me again and then looked at me for a long moment. I couldn’t quite tell what he was thinking, but the look in his eyes scared the shit out of me. We gazed at each other for a few more seconds, and I saw the gleam of excitement in his eyes when one’s about to do something stupid.

  “Don’t say it.” I warned him.

  His amusement dissipated, his face became hard and his eyes were blazing.

  “Don’t say what, Ella? That I’m falling in love with you?” he asked.

  Yeah, that. I stared at him, my heart beating wild.

  He let go of me and I grabbed his face in my hands. It was too late to say anything. There was no time left. He loved me, or he was falling in love with me. That wasn’t going to change things though.

  Loving someone didn’t mean you were always given the chance to love them. Most love stories did not have a happy ending, I already knew that. I loved him and realized part of me will always love him. He might never know the depth of my feelings for him, but it was okay. This was the way it was supposed to be, or so I thought.

  “I will never forget you,” I told him as I gave him one more kiss.

  “Will you call me when you get back home?” he asked.

  He had convinced me to let him come downstairs to help me with my luggage. I wanted to avoid any chance to turn our goodbye into something ugly; it was unbearable as it was. As we made our way out on the street, I gave my silent goodbye to all the things that had become familiar over the last few weeks. His hand was still holding mine as he repeated the question and asked me to call him. Tears were beginning to prickle my eyes. Could he not see how hard this was for me? Could he not see how hard it was to walk away from him? It took all I had to keep my shit together and not break down.

  “No phone calls, remember?” I told him in an admonishing tone.

  He nodded, looking remorseful. Eyes, look your last, I thought to myself, trying to hold back the tears. Great, I had to bring the Bard out, didn’t I? This wasn’t a tragedy. This was life. We weren’t the first lovers that had to part, and we wouldn’t be the last. But good God, I was going to miss him so much.

  I smoothed his hair, caressed his face and gave him one last, brief peck on his lips, before turning away from him. He grabbed my wrist and I turned around.

  I looked at his face and he was frowning, his eyebrows bunched up together; he looked just as crushed as I was by this goodbye.

  “If you really want to write songs, then write. Write everything down, okay?” I met his eyes and nodded. I thought he’d let go of my wrist, but he pulled me to him, cradled my head and dove in, with one last, deep, passionate kiss. His tongue wrapped around mine shattering any willpower I had left. I wanted to push him away and leave; I had been purposely keeping our interactions to a minimum—at least ever since our kitchen session—but he had to ruin it all and give me the best last kiss, just to make things worse. He sucked on my bottom lip, kissed me again, and finally let me go. I felt his eyes on me, but I couldn’t bear looking back at him.

  “Goodbye, Lou,” I said, turning around and getting in the cab.

  Let the meltdown commence, I thought as the taxi put more and more distance between the man in the rearview mirror and me.

  All my life, I had done the wise, smart thing by not falling in love with anyone. But now, my time had come, and boy, was it going to hurt! Suddenly, all I could think about were songs about love and heartache. I had never quite understood the sense of loss and longing of songs like “I’ll Be Seeing You” or “Good Morning Heartache.” I had never fully understood the wounded vulnerability of Billie Holiday’s voice, but now, it all m
ade a lot more sense. And I feared this feeling of loss wasn’t going away anytime soon. I placed my luggage on the shelf above my spot and flopped on the seat. I stared into space as Florence disappeared right before my eyes and tears started falling behind my sunglasses.

  I was crying, but I wasn’t going to break. I wasn’t going to break like a little girl.

  CHAPTER 20

  Hello Paris, you motherfucking city of love. I should have gone straight home, but changed my mind and ended up staying a few days. It was all part of my new plan: stick to what you say. No more bullshit, no more hiding. Lou was right, I came to Europe because I felt I had never done enough, never lived enough. So, no time like the present. Since I was here, I might as well sightsee and find out what the big deal was about. This would also give me a little time before I went back to my Amsterdam family. As long as I was on my own, I could do as I pleased. If I wanted to have a crying fit in my hotel room, I could do that. I couldn’t bear to cry in front of Helga. Good lord, she would freak and get all motherly on me, which would only end up making me feel even sorrier for myself. How did people manage to get over break-ups? It felt like I might never get over it. Strangely enough, part of me was almost okay with it. It was worth it. Lou had been worth it. Paris would be good for me. I was sure I would blend in, and I’d be just another girl with a broken heart and the occasional tear running down from behind her sunglasses.

  What I understood early on was that motherfucking Paris could be damn cold in June. I had left sunny Italy and gotten here under a blanket of gray clouds and chilly air. Even now, I was shivering inside the Louvre. Maybe I was Stendhaling, just like Lou told me at the Uffizi. Or maybe I was sick. I was wearing a wool turtleneck inside the museum and I was shivering. It could have been Caravaggio’s fault—the “Death of the Virgin” was downright chilling. It had always been one of my favorite Caravaggio paintings, and I became obsessed with it after I had read in an art history book that he used a dead prostitute found in the Tiber river as a model, hence the swollen tummy. The Church rejected the painting, deeming it inappropriate because of the Virgin’s pose and bare legs, but now it held one of the best spots in the museum, right by Leonardo’s “Virgin of the Rocks.” There was something so macabre about the whole thing, and then again, you’d have to appreciate the artist’s quest to be realistic and portray a death scene as it would look in real life, rather than following the iconography of the time. Macabre or not, it was one of the most beautiful things I had seen up close.