Isabella slipped a finger beneath the wrapping paper, her heart banging so loudly against her ribs she was sure it must be audible to everyone. Her fingers were shaking; she couldn’t say why, only it was making it difficult to open the present. Taking a deep breath, she concentrated on appearing as unaffected as possible, folding up one triangle of gift wrap before rotating the present and unsticking the next piece of tape, before opening it completely, her heart trebling in speed when saw what was contained within.
“It’s too much,” she shook her head. “I can’t accept this.” She was conscious of the others leaning forward, craning to get a look, but unless you had Isabella’s vantage point – and perhaps Gabe’s – it was difficult to discern the nature of the gift.
She looked up at Yaya, sitting as a Queen on a throne, comfortably ensconced in an armchair at the head of the circle.
“Nonsense,” Yaya waved her hand in a gesture that was already familiar to Isabella. “I want you to have it.”
Isabella turned her attention back to the book, a film of tears making it almost impossible to read the scratchy handwriting properly. Written on the front of the book’s brown cardboard cover was ‘Paula Vasannaki’. The Vasannaki had been crossed out at some point and replaced with ‘Montebello’. The first recipes were written in a child’s hand, then a more elegant script – all in Greek. Halfway through, the nature of the recipes changed, though they were still written in Greek. Every now and again, she came across a piece of paper torn from a magazine or recipe book and folded neatly into the margins.
“These are your recipes,” Isabella shook her head. “They should stay in the family.”
Yaya’s eyes narrowed, and the room paused, waiting for her to speak. “It felt right for you to have it. Please, cara. Accept the gift.”
Was it any surprise Isabella needed a moment to herself? So much kindness, happiness and love might have been normal for many people, but to Isabella – so used to being alone – it was thawing parts of her that she wasn’t sure she wanted thawed. After all, a defence mechanism served a valuable purpose and she wasn’t sure she should allow hers to quit so quickly.
And yet…she wanted to. She wanted to ignore her long-held sensibilities, her pragmatism and emotional caution and be a part of this group for as long as they’d have her. She wanted to be a part of Gabe’s life most of all. She wanted to wake up with him every morning, she wanted to share meals with him, to laugh with him, to see him coming back to life. She wanted all of him.
The realisation had her head dropping forward, panic and euphoria spreading like wildfire through her blood, so her skin felt blotchy and pink.
As soon as she could politely excuse herself, she slipped from the room and down the corridor, finding a quiet room, where she could lean against a wall, surrounded by darkness, only her rasping breaths punctuating the silence.
She loved him.
She loved him completely, with all of her heart. Relief exploded through her veins, as though her heart was rejoicing that her brain had finally caught up. She loved him! But she couldn’t love him! Not in the sense that ‘to love’ was a verb, an active, doing word, that implied a sense of ongoingness. The idea of being able to continue to love him every day, to wake up beside him, smile at his nearness, run her fingertips over his body as she’d done every morning for this last week – that’s what she wanted. But Gabe?
What did he want?
Her heart was running to a staccato beat now, doubts at war with hope, uncertainty plunging into a river of determination. Isabella didn’t know which way to go, nor what she should do, but she held her love deep in her heart, a touchstone to ground her for the rest of the night. In the morning, she would have to make a decision – to risk everything, and tell him how she felt? Or to ignore her heart’s wishes and accept that all good things really did, eventually come to an end? It was the lesson of her life, but maybe just this once she’d ignore it. Maybe just this once she’d hope for that thing other people seemed to effortlessly believe in: the everlastingness of love.
“Just, let it go,” Gabe muttered, the conversation the last thing he wanted to be having this early on Christmas morning. Thoughts of a quiet run in the gym had dissipated when he’d walked in to find Luca and Max side by side on the rowing machines. He’d nodded at them and jumped onto a treadmill, but Luca had stopped rowing and come to stand right in front of him, one arm leaned nonchalantly across the controls, making it impossible for Gabe to start his exercise.
“We will,” Luca grinned. “When you start making sense.”
Gabe expelled a sigh of irritation. “Cristo, Luca, what do you want me to say?”
“He wants you to say you’re madly in love, just like him,” Max teased.
Gabe swore, something like bright white light blinding him. “You’re ‘in love’ too and you’re not acting like a mad man.”
“I can see why you might think I’d have your back here, but I’m actually with Luca.”
Gabe glared at his cousins. “Why?”
“Because you obviously do love her.”
Gabe nudged Luca’s hand aside and pressed the ‘start’ button on the treadmill. Luca and Max shared a look; Gabe fought an urge to ask them to leave in the rudest terms at his disposal.
Instead, he dialled the speed of the treadmill up until he was running so fast
