Page 24 of Vow of Desire

“Traffic,” I lie. “But I’m here now.” I press my fingers into the bowl of water and Josie gets to work like she always does.

I spend the next hour letting her do my nails – file and paint them – while I lie through my teeth when it comes to every question she asks me. I don’t tell her how I’m married now. I don’t tell her about how I’m failing as a wife. I don’t mention Matteo’s name once.

Given how much he has occupied my thoughts for the past month, it’s nice to not have him be a part of the conversation. I feel like I’m in my old life again.

Once I’m done getting my nails perfected, I head back out to the car. Only to find a man trying to break in through the driver’s door.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

The man looks at me and back to the car and knows he got busted. But instead of running away, he runs right at me. Before I know what’s happening, he punches me in the face and I fall to the ground. I can only watch in pain as he goes back to the car and continues to try and break into it.

My head is on fire. My face is throbbing. My entire body aches from the hard fall I took.

Two falls in two days cannot be good for a person.

I try sitting up but my head is woozy so all I can do is slump back down.

It’s then that I see a car pull up to the street. A man gets out. One I am very familiar with by now.

My husband.

He looks angry but then he sees me on the ground and rushes to my side. “Luciana? What happened?” There’s worry in his voice. Worry for me, I realize.

I point at the man still trying to break into the car. Matteo’s face is consumed by fury as he stands up and runs at the man. I watch as he tackles the man to the ground and punches him over and over and over again until the man doesn’t get back up.

All the commotion causes a scene and people finally come running over.

“What’s going on?” one woman asks.

“I’m calling the police,” a man says.

Matteo leaves the thief on the ground and returns to me. “Luciana.” He picks me up, bridal-style, and carries me over to his car. “What happened? Are you ok?”

“No,” I say before a sob hits me. My face hurts. My head hurts. Everything hurts. Even my soul.

Without hesitation, he gets me into the car and drives away from the crime scene, not even worrying about his other car. I don’t know where we’re going until we come upon a hospital.

Matteo picks me up again and brings me inside. “My wife was hurt. Punched, I believe.”

A female doctor immediately gets me into a wheelchair and takes me to a private room. Matteo tries explaining what happened but even he doesn’t know.

“What happened?” the doctor asks me. “Can you tell me?”

“I was punched in the face,” I mumble. “And I fell. A man was trying to break into my car.”

“All right. Let’s get you looked over.”

As the doctor checks on me, I can’t help but look at Matteo. My eyes flick down to his knuckles which are covered in blood from when he punched the thief. He didn’t hesitate to help save me.

“You took a hard fall to the ground,” the doctor says. “We should order you a CT scan to get your head looked at. It’s always good in cases like this. You could have a concussion. But we won’t know. Just stay put for now. I’ll be back later.”

She leaves me and Matteo alone in the room. Neither one of us speaks.

But I know I have to. “Thank –,” I start to say when Matteo cuts me off.

“What were you thinking?” he asks.

“What?”