Locked Fates

prologue | 03

JOANNA hadn't wanted to be the one to bring it up, but she needed to know. Why was he suddenly okay with being around her? Not that okay, because this Giuliano was definitely not the same Giuliano she had grown up with, but okay enough to spend the night with her and let her stay for breakfast.

'Why wouldn't I?' Was he serious?

'You were supposed to be my best friend,' Joanna exclaimed, raising her eyes to meet his. They glistened like sapphires, stealing her breath as the sunlight hit them. Joanna had never liked blue eyes, but Giuliano made them look beautiful.

'You could still come to me if you needed me, clearly, I'm here.'

'You go out of your way to not see me, but I'm supposed to think you're cool with me?'

'What did you want me to do? Stay and be your «best friend» while you're in a full fucking commited relationship? Is that what you wanted me to do?'

'You know it wasn't real.'

'Looked pretty fucking convincing to me,' he lost his cool. Giuliano took a deep breath before continuing, 'I needed to not be around you, Joanna. You needed to not be around me.'

'You were just being selfish.'

'You want to call me selfish, Joanna? Huh? That's what you wanna call me? When I at least had the decency to not dangle the people I'm fucking in front of your face-

'I never fucked any of them,' Joanna interjected, the thought of Giuliano made it impossible for her to even enjoy kissing someone who wasn't him.

'I don't care what you did. You're grown and you don't owe me anything.' Giuliano released a long breath. 'Let's not talk about this when my parents are in the next room.'

'Let's not talk again.' Joanna concluded the conversation, standing up to leave. She needed to move on, how stupid was it of her to be stuck on her first love.

'Joanna, sit back down.'

'Leave me alone, Giuliano, I'm over this.'

'You brought it up, so we're gonna talk about this, because despising each other doesn't help us at all.'

'Oh, so now you're saying you hate me,' Joanna said, so he could stop pretending everything was normal between them.

'You're not exactly my favourite person to be around right now, I admit, but I think,' Giuliano paused. 'With a bit of effort, from my part too, we can change that.'

Joanna raised her eyes to see Giuliano's face, realising how close they were to one another. With that realisation, she was suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of sadness that took over her body. They had been apart for so many years because they had too much pride to talk to one another.

'I hate you for taking my best friend from me. You could have just spoken to me, Jules. You ruined uni for me, you even ruined my graduation.'

Giuliano took her in his arms, burying his nose in her hair with a kiss. 'Can I make up for that during your gap year?'

'Yes, you loser. And many, many years after that.'

'I want to talk to you, Joanna, I always want to talk to you, but not now, not here. Do you want to come to Italy with me?'

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okay listen, we all know i never do what i say so when i said that i would post one chapter every week for the next three weeks.... this reintroduction of joanna and giuliano has come to an end! 😃 i will see you with Lise' short story and then joanna and giuliano's short story.

but because i'm a liar, i will also be back sooner rather than later with a mini sequel to Scattered Pearls (FIGA). i don't think you guys are ready for that one lmfao

thank you for reading this character introduction, what do we think of giuliano and joanna?

Do we like Joanna? If not, why?

Do we like Giuliano? If not, why?

If you already knew them from back in the day, does this evolution make sense?

If you've read Scattered Pearls, can you tell Giuliano is Rosalie and Stefano's son ?