Scarlett, who had been out of town all weekend for a meeting, called me thrice since Friday.
The first time she called, she asked me how I was doing. I told her that I was fine.
The second time, she told me that I can tell her anything that's on my mind and that I can vent to her. Again, I told her that I was fine, as you do.
The third time she called, I answered, and she said one thing: Isa. And I broke down.
I don't know for how long she listened to me crying.
When I finally stopped, she asked me whether I at least cried over the plants in my house because they definitely needed watering.
It made me laugh.
She told me that she told Rosalie, Jenna, Aiden and Elliot to let me be alone for a while.
They didn't listen.
Elliot sent me the funniest YouTube videos I've seen in a while.
Jenna sent me a recording of her neighbour playing the clarinet, which did sound completely like a dying asthmatic whale.
Rosalie and Aiden sent me a dozen doughnuts.
All of them did their best to keep me sane even though they never did anything to me in the first place and by Monday, I was feeling a lot better.
Only one person didn't contact me all weekend.
The person who caused all this.
The person who broke my heart.
The person that I've fallen in love with.
The last person I want to talk to right now.
The person who is now, seated on the floor, outside my door, blocking my way into my house.
It's too late to retreat.
My heels have already announced my arrival.
There's a split second before he looks at me.
There's no way I can leave.
And there's no way that I will leave.
Isabella Hammond doesn't run from things.
Marco follows the sound of my heels and finds me standing on the other end of the hallway. He looks at me for a few silent seconds before getting to his feet.
There's something different about him.
Marco, in the months that I've known him, has never been the stoic kind. He and Ace are complete opposites. Yet, there was something grim about the way he just was. Something rigid.
It's gone now.
He's lighter now, almost like there's an underlying smile in his expression at all times.
He looks like he's on the verge of breaking out into that grin of his.
His shoulders look like they aren't weighed down anymore.
I don't even realize that I'm walking in his direction until I'm about two feet away from him.
I rifle through my keys to find the one to the front door. "How did you even get up here?" I ask, walking around him to the door.
From behind me, he answers. "I've promised Max job security in the case of you getting him fired for letting me come up here."
There's a smile in his voice.
And the words that escape his mouth still touch every part of me, right down to my toes.
"Job security?" I ask, inserting the key into the lock.
I can almost hear his nod. "At one of Winston and Klein's most prestigious apartment complexes."
I push open the door and step in, flicking on the light in the entryway as I do. "I don't think the fact that he accepts bribes bodes well for his job as a security guard."
Turning, I face Marco.
He and I are standing on opposite sides of the doorway. Both his hands are clasped behind his back.
Marco raises one light shoulder. "It was also a sort of man-to-man favour."
"So, the Bro Code is above the apartment's Security Code?" I ask.
Marco looks appalled at the mere suggestion of otherwise. "The Bro Code is sacred."
I roll my eyes.
Marco cocks his head to a side. "Your hair," he says, "It's black. Completely black."
"What a keen eye, Sherlock," I compliment, "You get paid for that genius?"
Marco raises a brow. "For you, it's free."
I shake my head.
I'm gripping the edge of my door.
The conversation has ended.
Or at least, I let it.
"What are you doing here?"
He makes no movement to force himself in. It seems like he's going to wait for my approval.
"I'm here to apologize," he tells me, in a clear, serious tone. One that I've never heard him use. "I'm here to explain everything, the best I can. I'm here to ask for your forgiveness. I'm here to do what I should have done months ago. Tell you everything."
I raise an eyebrow.
A slow, mischievous grin crosses his face. "And in case that didn't help my case, I brought something that might help seal the deal."
From behind his back, he produces a large paper bag that I had somehow missed.
There's a familiar logo on it.
Al's.
I look from the bag to Marco and back to the bag.
"So, you're bribing me to get into my house?" I ask.
"Depends," he says, lowering the bag, "Did it work?"
I glance at the bag again. "What's in there?"
"Two large portions of cheesy fries and a sweet iced tea."
I sniff, dryly. "We'll start you off with fifteen minutes for that." Stepping to a side, I let him know that he can come in.
Marco looks at me. He takes a deep breath and gives me a small, true smile. "Thank you, Isa."
Unable to say anything, I just nod to him and let him walk in.
Marco only walks up to the living room.
I let him follow me into the kitchen.
He stands at the island counter while I wash my hands and pour myself a glass of water.
"You want one?" I ask, motioning the glass towards him.
He shakes his head.
I nod to the barstool closest to him. "Sit."
He sits.
He's looking at me.
I'm leaning against the kitchen counter and he's seated on the opposite side of the island.
I don't know if he wants me to say anything, but I can't think of anything that I want to say because I don't know where this is going. I gesture with my glass for him to go on.
Marco takes a deep breath. "Isa," he says, his voice become serious again, "I'm about to tell you something, the details of which, only Elliot really knows. It's been a long time coming. I haven't been able to do this before, but now – now I can."
He pauses.
I nod for him to go on.
Leaning his elbows on the counter, Marco takes another deep breath. "One day, in the first year of college, Elliot, Jesse and I were on the university field throwing around a football. I threw it too hard and it landed in the middle of the debate team. One of them, a girl, got up and walked in my direction to return it." – he raises his eyes to me – "It was Lily."
One of my arms wrapped around my torso, I raise my glass to my lips and Marco continues.
"I think I fell in love with her the moment I saw her. I couldn't explain it. She was beyond everything that I had imagined. I was so convinced that she was the one for me. I asked her out and we went on dates. We got to know each other and we had the best time. I was having the time of my life because I was so in love with her. One day, a few months into us dating, Lily told me that she was pregnant."
My breathing stops.
I say nothing.
"I was excited after we got over the initial shock. She moved in with me and we started becoming our own little family. I stopped playing tennis to have more time with her. I did extra credit to get into a program at Winston and Klein. I bought a house that they were going to demolish and built it up for us. I read books about parenting and birthing. I learned how to make bread."
Marco clasps his hands together, twiddling his thumbs. A crease forms between his eyebrows and he looks at the granite of the counter instead of looking at me. "The baby was born. A girl. The most precious thing that I've ever seen. She had dark, curly hair and green eyes. I definitely fell in love with her the moment that I saw her. She was definitely my everything."
I take another sip to down the lump in my throat.
When Marco raises his dark eyes to me, they are shining and not because that's how his eyes are. They are shining with the tears that have filled in them. "I was on cloud nine, Isa. That baby was my whole world. She and Lily. A few weeks after she was born, I took Lily to see the house that I built for us. It put my heart and soul into it. I took her into the nursery that I had designed for the daughter I named Lavender."
He looks at me for a reaction because of the name.
I don't know if he gets one because I don't know what my face does.
My stomach, however, tightens.
"That day, standing in the house that I built for her and that baby girl, Lily told me that the baby I looked after and loved from the moment I found out about her, wasn't mine."
My inhale is audible.
My free hand claps over my mouth and my eyes squeeze shut.
I don't know at which point tears formed in them, but they spill out.
I have to set my glass down on the counter.
When I manage to look at Marco, I see that he's looking back at me. His nose is reddening and there are tears shining on the back of his hand, giving away the fact that he wiped his face.
"Marco," I breathe, taking the two steps to stand on the opposite side of the island counter.
He shakes his head. "Let me finish."
I take a steadying breath and nod.
"She showed me a paternity test that she had done, telling me that I was not that girl's father. And that's how a life that I built came crashing down on me. After that, I left that house, and I never looked back. I never saw Lily or that baby again. Until yesterday."
A frown etches itself on to my face.
"Yesterday, Elliot flew me out to Westport. That's where she lives now, with her husband and her daughter named Delilah."
"Wait. Delilah?"
"I guess she didn't want a reminder of me."
I nod.
"It showed me that if after everything that Lily did to me, if she can be happy, I can, too."
Marco falls silent.
He's just looking at me.
I don't know if he wants me to say something, but I can't.
What do you say to someone who has shared the most intimate parts of their life with you?
Thank you?
I don't think that cuts it.
I don't think that there's anything that I can say because I have no idea what he's gone through.
Well, only a little.
My college boyfriend did what's pretty much the opposite of that to me.
It's such a coincidence, really.
Yes, I was cheated on, but I was never made to believe that a child who wasn't mine was, in fact my child.
Slowly, Marco reaches out his hand to me.
Just as slowly, I place mine in his.
He squeezes my fingers gently.
"Isa," he says, his voice soft, coaxing my gaze in his direction. I look into his eyes. "The person that Lily cheated on me with; the father of the baby who I thought was mine, was Tyler."
The air in the room stills.
My breathing stops.
My fingers tighten around Marco's.
My lips part.
I'm staring at him.
He's looking back at me with a sort of pained expression on his face, like he thinks he's responsible for the news he's giving me even though he's done absolutely nothing wrong, except for loving someone who cheated on him.
Something I can relate to.
I'm shaking my head. "No," I say, "No."
Even I don't believe myself.
Marco stands, still holding my hand and walks around the counter, closer to me. "Tyler Smith," he tells me softly, "He had green eyes and curly dark hair."
I'm still shaking my head despite the images of the person who fits that exact description are filling my mind.
"He was on the debate team at your university."
I take my hand out of Marco's and put both down on the counter. I'm breathing too deeply for my own liking.
"Tyler," I manage to say. I turn to look at Marco. "Tyler?" I ask, more sure, "Tyler, my boyfriend? Tyler who cheated on me with a girl from your university and got her pregnant? Tyler who told me that he has a baby with someone else when he left to go see her? When he left because she called him and asked him to come see her one night?"
I watch Marco's face.
His brows are furrowed.
He looks sorry to be telling me this at all.
"I'm so sorry, Isa," he breathes, "I can't imagine what it must have been like for you."
Despite the ridiculousness of the situation, I laugh. Shaking my head, I laugh. "No, Marco. If there's anyone in the world who understands even a modicum of what I went through back then, it's you."
He gives me a weak smile.
"God." I lean my hip against the counter. "I hated Tyler for a long time before I" – I sigh – "Before I realized what an absolute dipshit he was."
"He was," Marco agrees, "I met him."
It makes me laugh a little.
"If I knew then that you were even real, Isa, I would have driven to you that night instead of driving home."
I look at him. "Jenna told me to look for the guy Lily cheated on." I have to laugh again. "I never bothered to. I didn't want to."
We share a smile.
There's a silence.
One I break by telling him, "I'm sorry, Marco, about what you went through."
He looks at me, studying my face for a while.
He takes a deep breath. "This pain consumed me, Isa. For too long. I let go of Lily when I walked out that door, but there were things that I couldn't get over."
He tells me the story of his parents; his father and his birth mother, who got a divorce because of her infidelity.
He tells me how heartbroken his father was after it.
He tells me about a girlfriend he had in high school who cheated on him.
He tells me about Lily and everything he tried to do for her before she told him that a baby, he loved wasn't his.
He tells me about how he was so consumed with the thought of broken relationships that he gave up.
He looks at me when he tells me that he stopped giving up.
I watch as his hand makes its way over to mine.
He squeezes my fingers gently before looking at me, again.
"On the twentieth of October each year, Elliot tries to make sure that he's around and I'm occupied because twentieth of October was the day that the baby was born." There's a look on his face and I know it pains him to think of her. "Every year, on the twentieth of October, I lose myself a little. Even though I'm over her mother, I don't know how to get over the loss of a child I thought was mine, Isa, and I need you to know that going forward."
He wipes his eyes and looks at me.
"But Isa, none of this is on you. None of this is your burden to take on. It's not even mine anymore. That chapter of my life is closed and all I care about is moving forward. With you."
I'm just staring at him, not knowing what in the world I can say.
The moment he touched me, my heart started racing, like it was the first time all over again.
I hate how much I can see that he's changed.
I hate how the anger I had dissipated.
His explanation still doesn't make up for what he did to me; the way he broke my heart.
Or does it?
I don't really have time to ponder on that because Marco speaks up again.
"Isa, I need you to know something: nothing about you reminds me of her. I never looked at you because you reminded me of her. You're so different to her, Isa. I knew that before you even opened your mouth. The day I drove you home from the Chateau, I had the best time I'd had in a long time, eating fries with you. When I walked you to your door that night, you don't know for how long I stood outside your door in the hallway because I just didn't want to leave. The way you made me feel, the way you made me laugh, the way you still make me feel, I didn't want it to end. I stood, staring at your door, wondering where the hell you had been."
He lowers his head to be eye-level with me.
"When you're around, Isa, I can't think of anyone or anything else. When I touch you, I feel you, Isa, more than you know." His eyes fall to my lips. "When I kiss you, I kiss you. And I enjoy it way more than I probably should. Sometimes, I go up to the rooftop of Ace's building to see the city, but I mostly go up there because every time I'm there, I smile. I remember our first kiss and I smile. I can't tell you how many times I've been up there since then."
"I know," I confess, "Scarlett told me."
Marco looks bewildered. "What?"
"She asked me if there's any reason you keep going up there."
"And what did you tell her?" he asks, with a small smile.
I give him the answer I gave her: a shrug.
Marco chuckles softly.
He reaches up and twirls a strand of my hair between two of his fingers. "I felt like I hadn't seen the real you because I'd never seen your real hair, Isa. That's why I kept asking about it. I think this, the actual version of it, is my favourite. Not that it matters, but that's what it is. And your smell. I want your smell because I love it. So much, Isa. My Mom will peel an orange and I'll be smiling like a Goddamn idiot because you're in my mind. Nothing about you is like anyone else, Isa. You're exactly you and I love you for it."
"Oh." The word leaves me in a breath before I can stop it.
Marco's smile widens as he realizes that I understood what he said. "From the day I met you, Isa, I knew that you would be Trouble. Right now, you have no idea how freaking glad I am that you were as much trouble as you were. Every day, with everything you and I did, you made it better, Isa. I kept holding on to a past because I'd gotten so used to doing for the past seven years."
His fingers tighten around mine. Moisture fills his eyes. "No one pushed as hard as you and I let myself be because I thought it was better that way. But you, Isa. Seeing the fact that I hurt you shook me. But I still held on to the past because it's all I knew to do. With everything you did, you saved me, Isa. From myself; from the self-destruction that I had set for myself."
He raises my hand and presses his lips desperately to my knuckles, his eyes squeezing shut. Warm tears trickle down his cheeks and on to my hand. "I don't know how to thank you for what you've done for me, Isa. I don't know how to even begin to ask you for your forgiveness for all the hurt I caused over the past few months because of the shit that I couldn't put past me."
He opens his dark, shining eyes. Eyes that captivated me from the moment I looked into them. "I don't want to win, Isa. I don't want to win because it's not me. I don't win. You do. With all my heart, Isabella, you win. You did something that no one did for seven years and you win, Isa. You saved me and for that, I will let you win, whatever you want, for the rest of my life."
He presses my hand against his chest.
"I can't tell you that I'm over losing that baby because I don't think I am. All I know is that you make it bearable. The twentieth of October will be a difficult day for me for now, Isa, and I need you to know that. But I know that it doesn't consume me anymore. The only thing that consumes me anymore is how much I love you."
Marco places his own hand over mine.
"All I know is that months ago, I walked into the Chateau with an old friend of mine, ready to rekindle friendships and make new ones and there was a girl there, who spoke of medieval torture and then, made me try the worst combination of food I ever have since Jesse made me dip a pickle in Nutella when we were in college and from that moment on, she has lived in my heart. A heart that I didn't even think was capable of much anymore."
He smiles at me; the one he has reserved for the real moments.
"She has chipped away at my heart and made home there, and my God, Bonnie, I never want you to leave. I want you to set up shop there. I want you to build an old French castle there and I want you to stay because, Isabella, I love you more than I ever thought I could love someone again."
He grips my hand with both of his.
"I'm so sorry that it took me so long to realize it, but you win, Isabella. And I have never been happier to lose before."
Marco cups my face with his hands.
"I love you, Isa."
He stares into my eyes for a long time, as I stare back.
Softly, he says, "Please let me kiss you now."
I crinkle my nose. "I don't know," I say, trying to tease him, despite the tears that are streaming down my face, "I don't really like kissing losers."
His forehead pressed against mine, Marco laughs. "God, I've missed you and your vicious tongue."
"Marco."
"I know," he interrupts, "I know that you'll still have questions. And I'll answer all of them. Anything you want to know about me, I'll tell you, Isa." Marco holds my head in his hands, looking me in the eyes. "My past is yours. Ask me anything you want. My present is yours. I will be in the moment with you. My future is all you, Isabella. And I intend to build something that lasts. I went through hell to find my way to you, Isa, and you have no idea how glad I am to be here right now."
Slowly, I reach up on my toes and gently, softly press my lips to Marco's.
I almost want to see if it's the same.
The moment our lips touch, Marco relinquishes any control he had over himself. He grips me so tightly and kisses me with a kind of abandon that he never had before.
He only kisses me.
When he pulls away, he wipes the tears off my cheeks with his thumbs. "We started this in the middle, Isa and I fully intend to do it the right way. You deserve nothing less than that."
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"It means that whenever you want to complain about the grumpy old men who boss you around all day, I'll be glad to listen. It means that whenever you want a ride home from anywhere, whether it's at three in the afternoon or three in the morning, I will be there, with my car, that smells like a fresh forest. Whenever you want the naked truth, I'll tell it to you. Whenever you want cheesy fries, I'll fill up on the quarters to play Patsy Cline again and we can dance right there, in the middle of Al's. And whenever you want someone to kiss, I will definitely be there. I'm not just here for when you're healthy or well, Isa. I'm here, always."
The smile that etches itself across my face is unstoppable. "Why?" I ask, teasingly.
Marco smiles. "Because I love you, Isabella. More than you love bread and telling people what to do."
I throw my head back and laugh.
When I look at him again, he's smiling at me, like there's nowhere he'd rather be.
"You look like you fell in love with me, Marco."
"It was about time."
I lean against the island counter.
"I don't think I should forgive you this easily," I tell him.
Marco puts an arm around my waist and pulls me towards him, his dark grin on his face. He gently kisses my forehead before pressing his forehead against mine. "It's okay. Just promise me a lifetime of making it up to you."
You guys! They did it!
They might have just found their way back to each other.
Don't forget to vote and comment to let me know what you think.
We're almost at the end!
Stay tuned for the epilogue of Isa and Marco's story.
And after a short break, I will be back with Elliot's story. Let me know your predictions for that story and things you'd like to see. :)
Much love!
Stay safe!