Page 110 of Blue in the Deep Blue Sea

Sobs tore free, my whole body jerking as I cried out, “No, no, no.” My voice cracked. “God, please don’t let it be him. Anyone but him.”

I buried my face back into my knees.

“Why? Why? Why?”

I hit myself on the head.

“Olly, you promised you would stay,” I whispered. “You promised.”

I stared towards the horizon. The line that had once filled me with fear was calm now, as if it already knew he belonged there.

My whole life I’d lived in fear. Fear of the dark. Fear of the deep ocean. Fear of people. Fear of losing them. Fear of loving someone with my whole soul. And now, with every one of those fears coming true, my mind went blank. Nothing could ever be worse than losing the person you love. The person I’d hated for thirteen years and loved for even more.

I heard footsteps closing in behind me, but I didn’t fight back. I just stayed there.

I turned my head, trying to make peace with the fact that I might die too.

Instead, I saw Luca.

He pressed a finger to his lips, telling me to stay quiet, then showed me his badge.

All along, he had been an undercover cop.

“We have to go,” he said.

“No.” I shook my head. “I want to stay here with Olly and Isa.”

“Gabriella, there’s no one here anymore.” His voice was gentle. “You can’t stay here.”

“No.” Quiet sobs escaped me. “I’m not leaving him.”

My lower lip trembled, my heart breaking all over again as the words rolled off my tongue.

“I didn’t say goodbye.” My voice cracked. “He didn’t kiss me one more time. He has to come back. He promised he would, okay?”

I looked up at Luca, sobbing, saying all these words to a stranger that just stared at me.

“This is my home now. My home is where he is.”

Luca crouched beside me and offered me a tissue from his pocket.

“We sacrificed his life so you could be safe. You owe it to him to go… and live.”

“What if I don’t want to?” I cried. “I have no reason to.”

“You can live for him,” he said. “People forget that. Everyone says you have to live for yourself, but when the loss is this deep, sometimes the only way to keep going is to live for the person who meant life to you.”

I looked at him, my eyes red and swollen, tears still streaming down my face.

He held out his hand again.

“You can always come back here,” he said. “Your father left Li Galli to you.”

I looked at him, still shaking. “Gianni faked all the letters. He never contacted him, but he wrote to you.”

He pulled the letter from his black shirt. “He died two years ago. In the winter.”

Courage was the last thing I had, but I still opened the letter and read.