now and I knew tears were streaming down my face too.
“I thought I’d messed up your job, Julia. I thought I had wrecked your program. That you’d hate me for it.”
She came closer, her eyes widening in confusion like she had no idea what I was talking about.
“Rocco.” She stopped after one word, her chest moving up and down, gasping for breath. “I am not better off without you.”
“I didn’t want to be selfish.” I was barely keeping it together. My voice gave out in the last word and that was when she finally came to me. She put both arms around my neck and pushed up, pressing her lips to mine. How could I ever think I’d be okay without her?
She was holding on so tightly to me. I knew like me she was still struggling with how close we’d come to losing this. How my baggage and my issues almost threw it all away. I licked into her mouth and it tasted like her tears. They tasted like my future.
“You stubborn man. Don’t ever do this again. It will never be better for me without you.”
I finally let myself hear that. Let myself believe it.
“I don’t know if I can be enough, Julia.”
She looked up and her eyes flashed, furious, and I felt everything in my body align. She shook her head as she hugged me. “You’re better than enough. You’re mine.”
I turned to look at the couple of boxes of books and things I’d accumulated since I’d been here. Julia turned to look at them and sighed. Neither of us wanted to be the first to say it. I pushed our foreheads together and spoke in a low voice. “I have to go.”
She nodded and pressed herself against me again. “I know, but you don’t have to be on your own anymore. We’ll figure it out.”
I thought about the mess I’d have to deal with back in New York, about needing a new job, about Sofia and Blue, and I almost caved from the weight of it all. But she was here and I would figure out how to make my way here too. This place and her had become my home.
And I had people. I didn’t have to do any of it on my own. “I want to make this work. I want to find a way to come back here.” Sofia had said she would too, so maybe there was a chance. Maybe...
She grabbed my hand and pulled me to the couch with her. We walked by Pulga, who was busy inspecting all her new toys.
I closed my eyes, remembering the mess my parents had made of Sofia’s life, again.
“I think we would all be better off here. Blue and Sofia too. I just can’t make any decisions until a few things are clearer.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
The way she looked at me, with such certainty. I felt like I could trust it was true.
“I know,” I said, smiling at her. “We just need to get through the next few months. I’m out of a job and need to get Sofia away from my parents once and for all. But before we get into all that, I owe you something.”
My heart started racing thinking of all the things that were up in the air, but I had to say it before any of it could really start. “I love you.”
She smiled that smile that only happened for me and she leaned in close, so much that our foreheads smashed together. “I know. I love you too.”
I closed my eyes, breathing out some of the tension of the last two days. “It’s going to be hard, but we can do this.”
Julia nodded and brought her hands to either side of my face. “You have me now, baby. Even if we can’t see each other until you figure things out with your sister. I’ll be here waiting. We’re doing this, right?”
I nodded, feeling grateful and overwhelmed, hoping we could figure things out. “I hope I can come back here to you, that I can bring Sofia too. All of us together.”
There was not much that was certain right now, but for the first time I felt like I had something solid. I was grounded in the people in my life, in my friends, in Julia.
As her lips touched mine, I felt like the entirety of my life was centering on this moment, on sealing this promise we were making. It’d been so long since I’d touched her, since