I really needed to stop letting Salvatore help me cope with my heartbreak or whatever the hell I was going through.
For the third or fourth time since the Illéans had arrived in Rome, I was drunk. Very drunk. Not so drunk that I'd recall nothing or that I wouldn't be able to control myself if need be, but drunk enough that my liver hurts just thinking about how much alcohol I'd had that night. I wish I could say that it helped or that at least I was enjoying myself or something, but honestly, I spent a good half of the time wishing I had something so I could do something drastic like, I don't know, bungee-jump off of the palace roof or something...which was why Salvatore hated bringing me up to the roof when I was drunk. Because drunk me liked the idea of jumping off of high things for literally no goddamn reason.
I'm not entirely sure why we decided to drink on the roof that night, but we did. Salvatore was more intoxicated than I was, likely a result of us learning that the Russians would be arriving the following day to spend three weeks with us, overlapping with the Illéans' stay for a week. We were both trying to drown our sorrows, and it hadn't worked.
We ended up leaving around one in the morning, and I walked Salvatore back to his room. He was swaying on his feet and insisting he was okay, but he hadn't slept in a day or two and hadn't eaten much at dinner, so I didn't think he could handle all of the vodka he'd had. Once I was certain that he was tucked in bed and unconscious (he'd fallen asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow), I shut him in his room and went to return to mine.
I stopped and tugged off my heels, choosing instead to carry them. My ankles and feet sighed in relief as they sank into the plush carpet, and I continued walking.
I didn't realize that my feet weren't carrying me to my room until I stopped in front of a door that wasn't mine and tiredly recognized it as a guest room. I had the weirdest sense that I understood exactly how he'd felt the times he'd visited me in my room, our roles reversed in the most unexpected way.
My hand was raised as if ready to knock on the door; if I were sober, I would've done exactly as I had done every time I picked up the phone to call him: stared at it for a moment, heart and stomach in my throat, before putting it down and walking away with the ghost of tears pricking at my eyes. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't sober, so I found myself knocking softly on the door. After a few moments, it cracked open. The room itself was dark, so I couldn't see anything, but the door shut and I heard the deadbolt slide away, and then it reopened.
Alexander blinked tiredly in the low light of the hall. His hair was messy, sticking up at odd angles, his pants hung low on his hips, and there were crease marks on his face and arms from the pillow and sheets. Even half-asleep, he looked better than me: my gown was rumpled from sitting on the roof, my hair was probably messy from the wind, my cheeks were colorless and my eyes were swollen from crying so much. I knew that I looked less awful than I did an hour ago, but I was sure that traces of it were still on my face. At least I hadn't been wearing makeup.
He rubbed at his eyes with one hand. "I'm not dreaming, am I? You're actually here right now?"
I laughed. "If this is the kind of dream you regularly have, you need a better imagination."
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug and when he looked at me again, he wasn't squinting. "Hard to come up with anything else when this is all I've wanted. To see you again." Well, that totally didn't hurt. "Why are you here?"
"I don't know," I said. Then, "I'm drunk."
He let out a small snort, already more awake than he had been. "That figures. I guess I'll only get to see you when you're drunk, then?" He shook his head and stepped back, motioning for me to enter. "Come on. I don't want my family to wake up."
I followed him into the dark room. He shut the door behind me and I heard him moving around more than saw him. The lamp beside his bed turned on, and he flipped the covers up and took a seat. He looked at me expectantly, and I hesitantly took a seat near him on the bed. It felt weirdly familiar.
"We've done this before," I said.
He nodded tiredly. "We have. What's going on, Cassiana? Why are you here?"
"You kissed me," I said stupidly.
"Yes, several times. Point?"
"The other night," I insisted. "Why did you kiss me? And why didn't you do it again? You're so confusing."
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You've made it clear that you want nothing to do with me. What do you want me to do?"
"I don't know," I sighed, exasperated. My vision was kind of funny and there was a stiff pressure in my head. "I'm so angry with you but you're so damn cute."
He surprised me by laughing, and for a moment, I completely forgot about the pressure in my head and behind my eyes. The low light obscured all of the lines on his face and arms, and he looked as perfect as he always had. When he tipped his head just the right way, the light made his skin glow golden like he'd taken the last bits of a sunset and injected them into his veins. He was so beautiful it hurt, and I suddenly understood what it was to be stupidly, deliriously in love with someone. I'd spent two years lying to myself – I was as in love with Alexander as I had been that day in the cottage when I'd awoken in his arms and he'd kissed me. I'd never stopped loving him, I'd just gotten good at hardening my heart. It had been so easy when he was six-thousand miles away.
I'd been so busy watching him that I didn't notice he'd said something to me until I registered the expectant look on his face. "Hm?"
"I said that that's great coming from you. Have you seen yourself lately?"
I narrowed my eyes at him and ran my fingers through my tangled hair, trying to get it to lie flat. "Don't rub it in," I grumbled.
"I'm not," he said. "It wasn't me teasing you. You look as beautiful as ever. I'd forgotten how stunning you are in person." He swallowed hard and looked down at the bed. "Can I be honest?"
I shrugged. "If you want."
A smile tugged at his lips. "There hasn't been a second since we've met that I've ever felt anything other than love for you. Even when I thought that you and Salvatore had...well, you know, I'd still been madly in love with you. It was so stupid of me, but when you and him stormed into my office...you looked like an angel that had come to strike me down. You were so beautiful then it hurt, and I was so angry that I'd had to confront you like that because it made the accusation feel more real than it had when Celine had said it to me the night before your birthday. I hadn't been able to believe it until I was forced to confront you about it that day. I'd feared that it was true, but part of me couldn't fathom me loving you so much and you still being able to do that. The rest of me felt that that was only logical, that of course that would be how it was. I was too afraid of my feelings to believe you."
I didn't know what to say and thought that I would say nothing, but words came tumbling out. "I fell asleep holding that summons, you know." My voice was quiet. "I cried myself to sleep holding it. I didn't know what was happening. I didn't expect that kind of accusation. I'd thought that you were different. You weren't. You were just like everyone else." I met his eyes. "Do you have any idea how scary that was? I thought that I knew you so well. I thought that after suffering alone for so long, I'd finally found something that I'd always seen as a luxury."
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry can't fix that," I told him.
"I know," he said. "But I don't know what else to do. You hate me but you don't, you love me but you don't. I don't know what you want."
"And you think that I do?" The pressure expanded fractionally, pushing harder against my skull. I wasn't blinking, but my vision went black once or twice.
His lips twisted into a small, wry smile. "You never have been clear about what you want."
"Bullshit," I scoffed, voice soft. "I made it pretty damn clear that I wanted you."
His smile grew sad. "You did," he agreed, "I was just too stupid to see it."
"You were." We stared at each other for a few minutes. "Can you do me a favor?"
"What?"
"Kiss me."
The breath caught in his throat. He thought this over for a moment carefully before saying, "No."
"No?" I was a little hurt. "Why?"
"Because you're drunk," he said. "Ask me when you're sober and I'll gladly do it, but as of now, I can't."
"I'm not that drunk."
"I don't care. Not that drunk and sober are two very different things."
"You didn't have a problem with kissing me while I was drunk last time." I folded my arms over my chest.
"That was a mistake." He was talking slowly and patiently, like a teacher to a troublesome student. "If you're intoxicated, you're not thinking right. If you come to me tomorrow while you're sober and ask, I will gladly kiss you. But not now."
I didn't like this answer, but I grudgingly understood it and respected it. "Fine," I grumbled. With a sigh, and pushed myself from the bed. "I should be going. I need to be not-hungover for the Russians tomorrow."
"They're coming, then?"
I nodded. "Bright and early. Sleep well, Alexander." I swayed a little, and he stood and steadied me. He walked me to the door. "I can get back myself."
"I know." He smiled. "I'm just helping you get started. Be careful, will you?"
"Of course. I'm always careful." I smiled up at him. "Good night. Sleep well."
"You too." He pressed a fleeting kiss to my cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow, Cassiana."
I nodded in agreement and stepped into the hall, and he slowly shut the door behind me. I stumbled back to my room, half-drunk and half-asleep, and collapsed into my bed. I never even noticed that I'd forgotten my heels in his room.