Page 8 of Reaching Hearts

His voice is filled with pain as he says on a tired whisper, almost to himself, “How can I hold onto a bird?”

Oh God, it kills me when he says things like that. He’s so poetic, my Christiano. Why don’t I run to him and forget all about this stupid need to stand on my own? I go to the safe to do what I came here to. “I feel like my heart is pulled in two directions, but my soul in only one. I have to try. I'm sorry. I so appreciate your giving me the space. And please, I know you’ve said you don’t want to, but…”

“Don’t,” he interrupts. “Don't say it, Bella,”

It takes me two times to get the code right, I’m so overwhelmed. “What?”

“Do not say for me to see other people again. I don’t want to hear it!”

My hand is shaking as I slip the bank’s canvas lock bag into my purse. “Okay.”

“I should come to San Francisco.”

“You can’t leave work, baby. Am I scared? Yes! Do I want your help? Yes! But don’t you see, that’s exactly why I can’t take it!”

“No. I don’t see.”

“I know. And that’s been our biggest problem.”

A long sigh comes through the phone. “I am going back to sleep.”

“Okay. I’ll call you later.” The phone goes dead. I stare at the calendar on the wall, thinking, that’s the first time we didn’t say, I love you. Staring back at me is a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge, its base surrounded in fog. The fog makes me think of last night. I’m drowning in uneasiness. It takes too long to find the doorknob. The door feels heavier than it was. I want to rejoin them, but I’m walking slowly. The phone is hanging from my hand. My bag, filled with too much money for all the wrong reasons, is hanging off my limp shoulder.

“I’m not going to the hospital. I need to go home and make some calls to repair this window.” Standing in the center of the room, I’m staring at my phone, seeing me dialing 911 with it. Running to him. Scraping my knees as I slid to the floor. There’s Christiano’s face also and he’s yelling, a memory of a dozen arguments always over the same thing. “I need to call the insurance company,” I mumble, swaying to my right towards a table. Something. I need something solid to hold on to.

“Annie?” someone says.

I whisper, “Plus, I think I need to sleep.”

Color trails sweep in drug-like zigzags.

The room spins.

Finally… darkness. Sweet, forgiving, darkness.

For a flash of a moment, faces are above me. A mask is on my face. My body sways. The roof of an ambulance.

Darkness again.

Then there is nothing. Not even a dream.

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