Tangled In Strings

Chapter Nine

I'm embarrassed. Hateful. Pained. Enraged. Horrified.

My body shakes at the force of my emotions. My eyes scan over to the towering dark trees across the large field behind Maria's home, behind the adjoining apartment Giovanni and I have been staying in.

I chose the spot, expecting he wouldn't find me there, yet he does. Of course he does.

When I feel him approaching, I stop pacing and look up at him in the dark, our only sources of light being the moon and a dull flickering light outside the apartment. He's alone, thankfully. My chest expands.

"I'll be alright in a moment," I tell him firmly, my throat tight. I've gathered myself together in my solitude.

He finally speaks after minutes of watching me. "Scarlett."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"If you just push it back..." he looks down, "it might help you to talk about it."

I laugh, angry. "Yeah, no. It definitely wouldn't."

"Scarlett, I've seen you have nightmares. Nothing like this. This was an extremely vivid dream. You were screaming–"

"This is what I was talking about, Giovanni." My wounded soul is intent on giving myself a beating, intent on making him take it too.

"What do you mean?"

I begin to move again, gliding across the soft grass with bare feet. "Moving in with you. This is what I was telling you." I stop. "This is a reality for me. Those kinds of dreams, that kind of fear, is normal for me, Giovanni."

"I didn't know that," he replies. "It still doesn't change anything."

"It does. It changes everything." I place my hands on either side of my throbbing skull, and my fingers find my temples. "I've fooled myself into–"

"Nothing."

I stop and stare. He shrugs.

"You've fooled yourself into nothing, Scarlett. This meltdown you are having is your insecurity, your fear throwing you off."

"And those things make me who I am, Giovanni. I will always feel them."

"I won't let you feel them!"

"That's not how this works!" I shake my head. "You have some notion in your head, this notion that I'm going to change, that I'm going to one day feel better about all of this shit, and it's just not going to happen. It isn't!"

He exhales, holding out his hands in front of him, steeling himself. "That isn't true–"

"You can't save me from this, Giovanni!"

He comes back at me with the same amount of heat, his eyes widening. "No, you have to do that for yourself, Scarlett! I told you once that I wasn't here to save you, that I want to see you overcome your own demons. I do; I want to see that. I'd be privileged to see that. And what's more is that I fucking know you're strong enough to fuck it all." He breathes in. "And I know none of this is easy. To move on from something you've struggled with your entire life is nearly asking the impossible, but for us to move forward, you have to try, Scarlett. If you don't, we'll never last. We won't make it."

My mouth feels glued together. I don't think my eyes could extend any further. My hands rest against my hips, my chest barely moving. I watch him wrestle with his frustrations, his unhinged emotions, his own fear from afar. He runs a hand through his hair and approaches me.

"I know I put too much on you."

I smile, so infuriated with myself that stupid tears fill my eyes. "That's the funny part. You didn't. You introduced me to a loving, wonderful family, Giovanni. A family that loves you unconditionally, a family that always will. It was beautiful to see you with them. I should have been happy to... to see that..."