I Won't Bridge an Impossible Gap novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: A Week With a Lock on the Door

I did not wait for his answer.

I picked up my case, walked down the terrace steps past thirty silent faces, and went through the garden gate into the olive grove.

The grove was behind the villa, where the old trees grew in rows.

Under the oldest one, five years ago, Alessio and I had sat on a bench and carved two rings out of a fallen branch.

I stopped beside it.

My hands were stinging.

I looked down and saw that the case handle had cut both my palms open on the long walk uphill.

Footsteps came through the grass.

"Nina."

"You made me a deadline."

He stopped a few feet away.

"I did."

"Five years you said the town hall had to wait. The families weren't ready. The docks were unsettled." I laughed, and it came out ugly. "And then one Sunday you were suddenly ready, a week before your birthday."

"I should have told you the first day."

"Yes."

"I didn't want you to marry me thinking I needed a wife to save my docks."

"So you let me think you were slow instead."

He took it without flinching.

"Yes."

I had expected him to say something clever.

I had expected excuses, or a shout, or his famous silence.

Instead he said, "It was cowardice, and I'm sorry."

It was a very plain sentence, and it hit me harder than any speech would have.

"And last night," I said. "In the hall."

He looked at the ground.

"I told you to let it go."

"You told me that for five years."

"I thought if I didn't answer her, it would be over faster."

"Over for who?"

His jaw moved, and he gave me no answer.

I wiped my eyes with the back of my wrist, and it left a smear of blood on my cheek.

"Your hands," he said.

"It's nothing."

"Nina. Show me."

I did not move.

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