Paper Trails 2 | Draft

25.

Thank you all for over 24k reads ❤️ Important authors note at the end, so I hope you read it. :)

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"This is the part where your life changes and you don't even realize it."

*****

Today was going to be a good day. I had that resolve the minute I woke up. I planned to keep that resolve, so I started my morning off right. I made breakfast—waffles, bacon, and a steaming hot cup of coffee. I showered using some fancy smelling body wash. I washed my hair. I even put on a face mask, because that would definitely help me relax. It was going to be a good day, I was damned sure of it. As I lounged on the couch in my fluffy white robe, face mask settling into my skin and another cup of coffee in my hand, I thought about Niccolò.

It was weird. I wasn't exactly sure what we were, if we were anything. And yet, I knew. I was his. He was mine. We were...each other's. Which is probably more dangerous than it sounds. But it didn't matter. None of it mattered. Because here I was. Hoping to have a good day—so far, so good. And I was thinking about a man who loves me. And he does, in his way. In whatever way he could.

I hadn't heard him say it since, and I never said it after that, and that was fine. Because it was out there and we both knew. It was something that didn't need to be repeated again and again, because if it was it somehow became less.

I took a sip of the coffee.

Niccolò. Niccolò Di Vio. My Niccolò Di Vio. Who was born on the seventeenth of November to two parents who loved him and took care of him the best way they knew how. And even if his dad did dangerous things, he never forgot to instill some sort of lesson in his son's life. He was a father, the way fathers should be. There.

I was jealous. I would never know what that's life. To have a father who'd do anything for his family. To have a father at all. I would never know what it's like to have a mother who loved me unconditionally. More than herself, as a mother does. I would never know what it's like to see my parents in love, completely and utterly.

It made me wonder. What was his resistance? Niccolò grew up in a loving home to a large, loving family. Why did he avoid love now?

If I'd grown up with half the things he did, maybe I'd be different. Understanding. Maybe I'd understand love.

Or maybe love isn't something you're supposed to understand.

Makes sense.

I didn't understand my feelings for Niccolò. I just knew they were there, and they were strong. And they changed me. They did. I wasn't like this. The girl who pampered herself at home and thought about the man who completely ruined sex with another guy for her.