"But it hurt when I did it?"
She hesitates. "I'm not sure."
My brow furrows. How can she not be sure?
Almost like she can read my mind, she sighs and shrugs. "I mean, yeah, it hurt, but it's hard to remember if it was more pain or fear, so I don't know if you actually hurt me or if I was just terrified you might."
"I don't do it to hurt you."
She tilts her head, looking back at me. "Why do you do it?"
Heavy question.
I'm not entirely sure how to answer.
"You like it, don't you?" I ask. "The high's like nothing else."
I've seen the way her body convulses, the pleasure so overwhelming she sometimes starts to cry. I can only imagine the intensity.
"For me, maybe, but what about you?" she asks. "What do you get out of it?"
An even heavier question.
I don't want to answer this one.
But she's looking at me, so vulnerable and open, it all laid out for me to see. She may hate me sometimes, but it hasn't stopped her from letting me back in. I owe her that much in return, even if the reality of what she'll see isn't pretty.
It's ugly.
Fucking wretched.
Just like me.
"My wife died."
"I know she did."
"So you know," I continue, "that I watched her die. That I held her, and stared down at her, watching as she took her last breath."
"Yes."
"There was nothing I could do for her... no way to save her... no way to make her breathe again. I was dying myself, but I didn't care, didn't care if I bled out right there just as long as I could keep her breathing. Nothing worked, though."
She says nothing as I look at her, thumb still gently stroking the discolored spot on her neck.
"So what do I get out of it, Karissa? I get to watch you inhale. I get to make you breathe. It's like you're coming back from death, and it's a goddamn beautiful thing to see. And maybe that's sick. Hell, I know I'm sick. But it gives me a high, too."
"It's not sick," she says, looking away to settle in my arms again. "It makes more sense than most things you do."
I laugh. "Everything I do makes sense."
"Yeah? So why are you with me?"
"Why—?"
"Not," she cuts me off before I can finish. "Why not? That's your answer every time, you know. Every single time. But it's not an answer, and it doesn't make any damn sense."
I have no other answer.
She doesn't press for one.
Instead she sighs, closing her eyes, and drifts off to sleep in my arms. I rest my cheek against her head, staring out at the glowing city as she starts to snore.
I get no sleep myself.
Why am I with her? I don't know. I really don't.
I'm with her simply because I want to be. Because I need to be. Because she needs me, I think, and if I'm being honest, I need her just as much.
"Italy." Her voice is a stunned exhale, the word accompanied by an edge of laughter. "Fucking Italy."
At first, I think she's on the phone, that she called somebody back home, but I see her cracked iPhone with the pink case lying on the center of the bed, while she stands out on the balcony. Water drips down my chest, my hair still soaked from the shower, as I stand in the room and pull on a pair of boxers.
Quietly, I step toward the doors leading outside, catching sight of her leaning against the wall and staring down at the city. It's just after dawn. Rome's coming alive again as tourists start to swam the area, cars packing the streets. She's in her pajamas, hair a tangled mess. She just crawled out of bed.
"I can't believe it," she says quietly, and I realize she's talking to herself. "I'm really in fucking Italy."
"You are."
She jumps, startled by my voice, and clutches her chest as she swings around. Her face is flushed, a smile flickering the corner of her lips as she gazes at me. It doesn't escape my notice that her eyes trail the length of me, lingering on my bare stomach leading down into my boxers.
"I didn't hear you."
She never seems to.
I step out onto the balcony with her, running my hands through my wet hair. "Yeah, you were in the middle of what sounded like an interesting conversation."
Her flush grows as she averts her eyes, biting her bottom lip before turning back away from me to look at the city once more. "It's just… unbelievable. I never thought I'd actually be standing in Italy. I've always wanted to come here." She cuts her eyes at me as I pause beside her. "Which, somehow, you already knew."
I offer her a smile in place of a response. Before that afternoon in Vegas, I wasn't aware she wanted to come here. I had no way of knowing. As much as I know about the woman—her mannerisms, her past—her deepest desires are still secret from me.
I'd been lost in my head, sitting at that table in the courtyard, the ring box heavy in the breast pocket of my coat, mulling over whether or not I was making the right choice proposing to her. Years ago, I had everything figured out, my entire future drawn before me, a picture-perfect life that went up in flames, a story ending in the middle of a book, the rest of the pages left blank, wiped clean by the harsh reality that I was all alone now and I always would be.
Or I thought I would be…
I kept going through it again and again. I loved her, I wanted to keep her, but I knew doing so would be an injustice. Something I wanted to make right was so fucking wrong; something that made me feel whole would fracture her. I'm not an idiot. I'm not a fool. I knew what the truth would do to Karissa, and proposing to her would only make that worse.
I almost didn't do it. Almost backed out. Don't tie her to you, I thought. Don't lock her in a cage. Thoughts of Maria kept infiltrating the moment, memories of what happened to her, thoughts of the woman she'd never get to be, the life she'd never get to live with me. I couldn't do that to Karissa, could strap her to someone she didn't even know, drag her deeper into a world she didn't realize wanted to swallow her whole. Maria never got to be a mother. She barely got to be my wife. I never took her on our honeymoon.
'I've always dreamed about going to Italy.'
'I know.'
I answered quietly, absent-mindedly, not even realizing what I was doing until I turned my head and looked at Karissa, drawing me back into the moment, out of a past that ended prematurely.
At the end, I ultimately pulled out the ring, ignoring everything that stood against me because of something Karissa said: 'I don't want to walk away from you. I'm never going to.'
She swore she meant it.
I'm still trying to take her at her word.