NOT GIVING UP ON FOREVER

Chapter 63

They rode in silence. Teo stared at the road, and Anna tried to control her thoughts, which seemed to move her from side to side with their amplitude. She wanted to scream, to cry, to laugh.

"Do you feel anything for me?" she blurted out, and Teo slowed down at the suddenness of her question.

"What?"

"Do you feel anything for me? You said you usually just sleep with girls, and you don't care."

"You think I've been lying to you all this time and just wished to sleep with you, Anna?" Teo looked at her, trying to read the emotions on her face.

"I don't know what to think. Though I still think that all of a sudden, you're not likely to fall in love with me."

Teo stopped the auto. Anna looked at him anxiously, expecting drama.

"Why did you stop?"

"We're here." He nodded toward the flashing 24 hours' cafe banner. It was still very early, but this cafe was always happy to serve customers. "I figured we need to eat something."

"Oh. Okay." She opened the car door to go outside, but Teo slammed the door shut.

"Wait," he said softly. "Anna. I didn't lie to you. Never. I know it all looks very fast. Believe me—it is for me, too. But this is my first time, so to say. I never liked any girl before I met you. So these feelings fell on me like a snowball, and I just couldn't keep quiet. I wanted you to know how I feel about you. I didn't lie to you about anything, Anna."

Anna looked into his eyes. Was he telling the truth? Did it matter whether or not he loved her? Anna admitted to herself feeling some relief when Teo assured her of his feelings. She was looking at him, and she didn't see Randall instead. She saw Teo.

"Turn around. Take me home, please."

"What? We came to the cafe, Anna."

"I throw the dice, as you advised me to do."

"Anna, God, I was furious, I was angry, that's why I..."

"I'm throwing the dice, Teo. I want this. Come what may. But now take me back home, I do not want to eat."

"Anna, you're so bewildering!"

"Teo! Let's go home!"

Teo froze, perplexed. He was so confused that he didn't even know how to act. He glanced at her again, then started the engine and turned toward the house.

***

He was not afraid she might leave him. He was afraid she seemed to be punishing herself for something. Was it because of sex? And she wanted to know if heaven would punish her by tying her to Teo? Would she just leave him because her relationship with him was a mistake?

He knew why she was with him. He saw what she was in this relationship for. He knew that he was only an instrument of her despair, of her attempts to reach Randall's heart. But he couldn't "turn on" pride and send her away with her selfishness.

He did love her with all his heart. She thinks he suddenly fell in love with her when she flew back to Milan, and it was impossibly fast, but she was wrong.

He loved her when Randall arrived once, to quarrel with him about tourists, saying that he was expecting a charming chick called Anna Ryans, and he desperately needed money and tourists, and he, Teo, was just the pig that made money hand over the glove, running the market like a monopolist. When Teo joked that if Randall would show how charming this Anna Ryans was, he'd give him and Bernardo a couple of groups of foreigners, but not anymore. And Randall, without a second thought, threw a phone with a girl's photo at Teo. And that was when Teo knew that Anna was the one for whom his heart beat.