Page 155 of Arianna

I recall how she held me so strongly, as if I were but a dream to her. A dream she could wake up from any second and have slip from her fingers.

Then I see the way that fuck Peters looked at her, then the disgusting shit he spewed. I should’ve finished him off right there in the middle of the room while everyone else witnessed what would happen to any of them if they crossed a line with her.

Then the shouts and vile accusations from the paparazzi flash through my mind with the image of her vulnerable, being harassed to the point she tripped and hurt her head.

The blood.

The fucking blood on her head haunts me.

It triggered me, and everyone was a witness to it.

I let myself lose control, and I don’t regret it.

Not one bit.

Hugging her sleeping form closer, I look down at her.

Arianna Parisi.

You did the impossible.

You made me fall in love.

Madly and obsessively in love.

My first love.

The love between a man and a woman.

I knew it, but now the entire world will know it, too.

Only a man in love would have done what I did tonight.

Arianna stirs in her sleep, then mumbles incoherently and whispers something she has done every night she has shared a bed with me.

“I got you.” Kissing her forehead, I look at the window where the moon’s light shines brightly, just like the girl in my arms. “I got you, darling.”

BASTIAN

Hopes & Dreams

“If you love something let it go.

If it’s yours it’ll come back but if it doesn’t...then you’re fucked. — B.B

“No. No. Dis.” I follow the cheerful voice of my daughter to her room, where I find her playing dress up with Arianna.

I stand back in the doorway, quietly watching them in their little world. Ellaiza is dressed as princess Ana while Arianna is wearing a white-blond wig, as the ice queen does in the movie. I know that story by heart now with how many times I have been forced to watch it.

When I first found out Ellaiza was mine, I didn’t give much thought to the reality of her not having a maternal figure in her life. I thought I was enough and that my love and protection would fill the void of her mother’s abandonment.

I truly believed that until Arianna.

Watching her not only care but love and protect my daughter so fearlessly and how the love is reciprocated melted whatever icicles were left in my heart.

This girl, with so much baggage from her past, can love like no one I have ever met before.

She loves wholly, fully and fearlessly.

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