I don’t know how I had the strength to move the armoire, but no one’s getting in until I move it again. It’s turned the long way so that it’s wedged between the door and the wall of the front closet.
My prison.
This shower. This suite. This building.
My prison is only a prison because I believe I’m married, which I’m not.
Without the marriage, the suite is a residence and the building is a shelter. Dario can hold my body, but my heart and mind are free.
But… no. I keep thinking with the facts of the past. There are new facts now.
He has no claim to my body. He belongs to a woman with an aura of conviction and a voice that can’t possibly waver or sound unsure.
Of course, he married her out of choice. Who wouldn’t? She’s magnificent. Confident. Whole. Unbroken. She exudes a kind of competence that I’ve associated with men. I can’t compete with someone so beautiful and strong. I’m her exact opposite. Weak. Ignorant. Compliant.
Under lukewarm water, with my clothes sticking to me, Dario feels like the source of my terror. I’ve been deeply betrayed by someone I’m sure I love. I am torn to pieces, set on fire, ashes blown to the winds.
What’s left?
Dario.
I can smell him on my skin. It’s a scorched memory of his touch. I hear his voice. Feel that first kiss. His smile, so elusive and hard-won. His story—not the events, but the telling of it on a trip to the south and east.
I want him so badly it hurts. Another minute of thinking of his sweet cruelty and I’ll crack. But what will I do to stay whole? What’s the story of the next hours? The coming days? How long can I guard my heart?
Can I imagine a future without him?
I can’t, but that’s because I was never allowed to imagine a future for myself.
I don’t want to be Schiava, or principessa. I don’t want to be a Colonia or a Lucari.
I want to choose and be chosen.
I want to be Willa.
The ash of who I was may be in the wind, but Dario Lucari is still deep inside me. All the water in the world won’t wash him off.
Willa is the best thing that could have happened to me. If she’s his wife, then I’m just a woman.
Just a woman.
Not the princess of Colonia—an asset to trade for territory. I am not hindered, owned, promised, or betrothed.
I get out of his shower, dry off with his towel, dress in the clothes he chose for me, and sit on the bed he bought for the women he valued.
The wood box of art supplies sits on my dresser. Did I almost forget it? He got it to please me—and that makes it the only thing I own that’s truly mine.
I am not his. I never was. It was always all a lie.
And since I’m not Dario’s wife, I have no obligation to him. I do not have to please him, or obey him, or split my loyalties. There are no more rules. No more boundaries. No more husband.
I’m just me, alone, floating unanchored in a nameless void. The feeling of being his wife was terrifying. Not being connected to him is scary, but something in me has changed. Under the fear is a current of possibility. Hope. But for what?
At the kitchen counter, I eat with the art box at my side and a pencil in my hand. I draw landscapes and skylines. What’s in the window and what I imagine beyond it. The boundaries of the copy paper frustrate the expanse of what’s in my mind.
Dario’s in my mind.
I can’t see past him. He’s too close to me and this paper is too small to contain him.
Asking for something bigger is out of the question. Everything I need is right here, and when it’s not—when this space runs out of necessities—I’ll have to leave knowing who I am or die like a branch cut from a tree.
So I move the couch away from the wall, revealing a lighter space. I move the end tables away, leaving one close enough to hold my supplies… and I draw.
Mountains. Seas. Boats. Clouds full of rain and lined in silver. My arms are too short for a single line, so I walk along the wall. I stand on a chair to find the upper edges of my dreams.
They’re not defined in words, but I find them—and yet I find myself lost in small things.
His chin and lips at a mountain’s peak.
His hand on me.
The outer edge of his eye.
What I see when I kiss him. His sliced-off ear, the back curve of his neck.
I love this shape. This scar.
No. I won’t break for him again.
But what will I do instead of crack? What’s the story of the next hours? The coming days? How long can I stay in this suite?
Can I imagine a future without him?
I can’t, but that’s because I was never allowed to imagine a future for myself.
He’s lied to me and betrayed me. He’s worse in my eyes today than he was the first time he pointed a gun at me. I thought more of him when he put dirt in a water glass and made me drink it.
All that disdain will go away in time, and I’ll fold under the pressure of his touch. I’ll forgive him and I’ll come out… maybe in that order… or maybe not. But I’ll make peace with him on my terms, in my time.
These are my choices to make, and I won’t be rushed.