No one will know | 18+

Chapter 34

With red cheeks (how was it possible that he still had that effect on me?), I took a few steps back, observing him from above the cup. "Do I have something on my face?"

"Just beauty."

I burst out laughing. A laugh full of joy and lightheartedness.

Was that the most cheesy response a human being could ever think of? Yes. But coming from his lips and at that moment it just made me feel good.

Love was supposed to be like that: the feeling of peace and happiness that was dancing inside me.

He drank the remaining coffee in one last gulp. His eyes closed for a few seconds and when he opened them again they didn't return to me. He faced the counter to set the cup in the sink. I hurried to finish my coffee, adding my cup next to his.

His face lingered towards the kitchen, but his mind was elsewhere. "We need to talk."

I stopped smiling abruptly and my stomach twisted in fear. "We do?" A vain attempt to postpone that moment.

Serious eyes locked on mine, making me shiver. "After last night," he continued, "I think it's clear that the feeling we have is mutual."

Call it by its name, I wanted to tell him. Say it's love.

"But-"

I immediately interrupted him: "Don't do it. Don't break my heart".

His expression changed, becoming sad and pained. "I have to do it, Alessia." He backed away, putting at least a meter of space between us. I looked at the chasm he was creating, unable to move and fill it.

We were becoming two distant coasts crossed by an ocean.

"Whatever is between us," he waved a hand over the abyss, "is wrong."

"It is not true!" I snapped, stepping forward. He made two backs, stopping me with a raised hand.

"You are nineteen and I am thirty-one. Don't you understand it?" He frowned. "I had ten years of life available to ask myself questions and find the answers on my own. If we got together, I'd deprive you of all this! I would deprive you of your twenties!"

"I don't care." Mine was a weak objection.

He clenched his fist and brought it to his forehead. "I care. If I force you to stay with me, I'll only hurt you."

"I wouldn't be forced to stay with you," I insisted. "I really like you."

He looked away, blinking quickly. His mouth remained open and no sound came out, letting me know that he was desperately looking for a reason not to be with me. "Next year you will go to study elsewhere."

I knew he had just used the final argument, one that I would not be able to counter.

"It would be a long-distance relationship," he continued, taking a step toward me and becoming serious again. "And I don't want to have a long-distance relationship."

I parted my lips to try to argue.

"But I don't want to stop you from making your own choices." He advanced again, but the breach was not closed. On the contrary, it had only gotten deeper. He put his hands on my shoulders. "You must go and study there. You have to enjoy your youth and you have every right to do so without having a weight anchoring you here."

I placed a hand on his, begging him to reconsider. "You wouldn't be a weight."

He stroked my cheek. "You're still very young, Alessia," he said. "And there are many things you don't know yet, experiences you have to live. I don't want to be with you if it means becoming a hindrance to the future that awaits you."