Italian’s Christmas Acquisition

Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

E VERYTHI NG WAS TERRIBLE . The worst that it had ever been. He was alone. Alone, alone, and the space closed in around him like an oppressive fog. It was unbearable. Unmanageable.

He missed her. He needed her. He had failed her.

You have to get back.

No. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want to go back to that dark place. But you’re already there.

That was how he found himself going out to the old house. Going through those old gates. The property was overgrown. It was awful. It was untouched, he knew. A monument to his mother’s insanity. Why did you keep it?

That question echoed inside of him, as he took a key and turned it in the lock, opened the door for the first time in so many years. His palms were sweating, his heart beating far too fast. Why did you keep it?

If you’re so ashamed of it, why did you keep this monument to it?

Because he hadn’t figured out how to let it go yet. And so it stood. A monument to all they were. To his loneliness. The smell was terrible. It was also home. He hated that truth.

He walked through the dark rooms, filled with piles, filled with shame.

His heart rate quickened, and his own fear started to mount. And suddenly, he saw each and every object in the house for what it was. Fear.

It was her grasping at anything, everything.

Fear that blocked her from giving him the love that he needed. Fear that left him alone, locked in his room.

Because that was what a need for this level of control was. And for her, as chaotic as it looked, it was control.

Just like for him... For him pushing her away had been control.

Fear directly blocked love. And as he stood there, looking at all of it, at his mother’s humanity, he felt something shift within him.

He saw his mother differently.

Not her failure, but simply struggles in herself that she could not figure out how to overcome, he wanted to overcome his.

A lump was in his throat, and he walked up the stairs, to his bedroom.

He reached out and turned the doorknob. It was locked.

Locked because he had locked himself in it. Locked because he never left through that door. Because he had been afraid. Afraid, afraid, afraid.

His whole life was marked by fear.

“Enough,” he said to the closed door. To the little boy that, in his mind, was still behind it. “Enough.” He turned and slammed his shoulder violently against the door.

“Unlock the door,” he said. “Open this door right now.” He threw his body against it again, and again. And then, with one final, brutal blow, he kicked it open. And inside was nothing.

That boy wasn’t there.

He was just inside of him.

It was clean. So much space around that bed.

Empty.

He was just so tired of empty space.

He kept it empty because he was scared.

He didn’t want to be afraid anymore.

He wanted Noelle. He wanted the chaotic, intense feelings that she created inside of him. The feelings that he couldn’t control.

But he would learn to make them better. He wouldn’t lock her away.

Because he didn’t want to be ruled by fear anymore. He just wanted her love.

“I love you,” he said to the room.

Maybe to Noelle. Maybe to his mother.

Perhaps to the boy that had once sat in here alone. Who had wanted to be cared for more than anything in the world, but hadn’t been.

But she does.

He wanted her to. He wanted her to care for him. And he didn’t want to be afraid of how much he wanted it. Not anymore. He was ready to let all this go.

So that he could embrace her.

Noelle loved Christmas in Snowflake Falls. It was always hard after Christmas. When the lights were gone, and you were left with nothing but the gray persistence of January, February, March. As winter dragged on in Wyoming, far longer than in many other states.

She felt caught in that gray haze now.

She had been right about this. That home wouldn’t quite feel like home, because part of her heart was somewhere else.

Part of her heart was with him.

So when she looked up, on the much less crowded streets of Snowflake Falls, and saw him standing there, in black, severe clothes, she thought she might’ve hallucinated him.

“Rocco?” She said his name, as if to test her own sanity, as much as anything else.

“Yes,” he said.

“What are you doing here?”

“I am here because... Because I’ve changed. You told me that people changed when they were in love.”

Her throat went tight, tears immediately stinging her eyes. “I did tell you that.”

“Well, I have changed. Because I love you. But I had... Work to do. Before I could understand it. I do now. I went back to my home. And I saw it all. All of it for what it was. My mother seeking to control everything in the house, me seeking to control everything behind that door. Both of us held captive by fear. I saw that I am like her. I am. And... I am sorry. That I’m... Like that. That I have such a strong need to control everything that... I created so much space around me I didn’t have room for you. And you were all I wanted. But that space was made out of fear. I just wanted to not be so afraid. But the fear was what was holding me back from love, all this time. And I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

“Oh, Rocco.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, not caring who saw them. She kissed him, right there in the middle of town, and she knew that there would be talk. But that was fine.

“I wanted easy. I thought my childhood was easy and perfect, and that recreating it would... Give me that same peace that I had. I talked with my mom. She made me realize we do hurt people we love sometimes, and it doesn’t mean we don’t love them. And... I don’t need simple. But I do need you. That is what I need to be happy. It could be here...it could be in New York...”

“It will be in both places. Because this place is you.”

“But you hate it,” she said.

He laughed, and the sound filled her with glory.

“I do. But I love you. And so it is an easy answer to a very easy question. I don’t need control over my surroundings. I need you.”

“Let’s go up to Holiday House,” he said.

“Okay,” she said.

“You think we’ll get snowed in?”

“I don’t think so.”

“That is a shame. Because I love being snowed in with you.”