CAPO

40. Here

Giovanni didn't know if it was nervousness he was feeling, adrenaline or happiness. He guessed it was a mixture of both and maybe, nervousness was the most prominent compound in his mixture.

He chewed on the inside of his cheek as he waited. Then, he heard soft thuds coming closer to the door and he inhaled deeply through his nose, his abdomen tightening with anticipation.

He heard the door unlock and then everything happened in slow motion for him.

The door swung open, revealing a slightly disheveled girl, with dark purple bags under her eyes, her tied behind her back into a loose ponytail and his black shirt, now clean and smelling of her.

Arabella's lips parted and she felt a hard, sharp pang to her chest and her back. It was like two worlds colliding. It was like the sun and the water mixed and it caused catastrophic, powerful, earth shattering tension throughout the surface.

Her legs felt like jelly as she stand rooted to her spot. Giovanni had looked up and straightened his back, his hands behind his back. The bruises and cuts on his face had healed to a degree, and his hair was curler than ever and brushed back messily, the blue under his eyes deep and murky.

"Giovanni—" She breathed, his name sounding foreign.

He didn't say anything, he didn't move. Just like in the hospital. Arabella took a step towards him, her chest on fire and the butterflies burning.

He licked his lips, the corner of his mouth tilting upwards. She was now stood a few inches from him and he could smell the vanilla perfume she wore, he could see the sadness in her eyes as she stared up at him in complete awe.

She lifted her arms, tying them around his neck as she stood on her tiptoes, her face pushed into the crook of his neck. His eyes fluttered close upon feeling her skin on him and it felt as though flowers were blooming on his skin, like he was a flower and she was the water he craved.

His arms tangled around her waist and he pulled her tightly to him, stuffing his face between her lifted arm and cheek, inhaling life from her.

And then he heard the soft, muffled cries of the girl and his heart shattered immediately. He loosened his grip and pushed her by her waist, making her drop her hands. He shut the door behind him and cupped her cheeks then. She turned her face, not wanting him to see how she was hurting.

He pushed away ringlets of hair and tilted up her face, leaning down. He kissed her forehead and then he kissed the fallen flowers on her cheek, wiping them away. He kissed the corner of her mouth and her cries only doubled, her eyes shutting tightly as she held onto his hands, wetness sliding down his thumb.

"I'm here, my love," He whispered, kissing her, "It's okay, I'm here, doll."

Her shoulders crumbled forward and she lowered her face, only to be pulled into his chest. She pushed her face into his shirt, crumbling the fabric in her fists, her shoulders raking with her sobs.

Giovanni tangled his fingers in her ponytail, pulling the hair tie from her hair. Her strands fell down her back and his fingers worked in her locks, brushing through them.

"I-I thought you weren't going to wake up," She mumbled, her tear laced voice causing Giovanni's chest to ache. He shushed her, "I know, darling. I'm sorry," He apologised gently, telling her he meant it with his heart and his soul by the way he held her and ached for her.

"Please don't leave me," She announced sadly, her voice shattered with feelings. "Look at me," He ordered. She obeyed, leaning back as she stared at him.

He wiped her tears with the pad of his thumbs, "I'm not leaving, Arabella. I can never leave you," He said firmly, making her keep her gaze on him as he bended, ignoring the pain within his body. He faced her now, his tear drowned finger brushing over her swollen lips, his eyes watching his own movements.

He leaned forward and he pressed his lips against hers. She parted her lips instantly, begging him to come inside with a whimper. He latched his arms around her and scooped her up, his hands holding onto her backside and her legs around his hips, and he walked them to the chair from before and he sat in it with the Sun on his lap, kissing him how she needed.

His arms lazily swung over the back of the chair and as she adjusted, his face scrunched up into pain and she seemed to notice because he let a throaty, pain-filled groan leave his lips.

She backed off and Giovanni inhaled through gritted teeth, lifting his shirt.

Black stitches, dried blood and surrounding the stitches was a purple, swollen bruise. Arabella gasped, her soft fingers brushing just next to the injury, her eyes latched onto it.

She looked up at Giovanni and found him already watching her, his expression unreadable. She pressed on the armrests of the chair so as to stand, put his thick arm snaked around her lower back and he brought her back.

"It's fine, kiss me," He said, cupping her cheek. She almost smiled as she pushed him down by putting a hand on his jaw, "If it hurts we need to stop," She protested softly,

"No, we don't. I haven't kissed you in two weeks, Arabella. Let me kiss you, por favore,"

She obeyed although reluctantly. He hummed against her lips and she kept her hands from his torso. Her fingers snaked between the curls behind his head and her other hand found his, and without even trying, Giovanni had put his fingers inbetween hers as he kissed her. He held her hand through his words of love on her lips, through telling her that he loved her with the way he kissed her; delicate, warm, with so much feelings that it almost suffocated Arabella.

She pulled away from his lips, leaning against him as she regained her breath, keeping her eyes closed.

"I've missed you," Giovanni whispered.

"And I've missed you,"

He smiled, pushing her hair behind her ear, exposing the healed scar on her eyebrow. She smiled back at him, and that's the moment when Giovanni passed his soul onto the girl, he gave it to her through their connected hands and she took it and patched it onto her bruised soul.

And with his next words, her soul was healed. And with hers, Giovanni's once black, hate-filled and meaningless soul was replenished with love and adoration for everything around him, the broken stem of the flower in his chest was put back together and she watered it with her voice and presense and words.

"I love you, Arabella,"

"I love you more, Giovanni,"