safe in the wrong arms

The city of Barcelona moved up and about in the middle of night. The night's cool breeze making the night even more ordinary, unspecial for most people. But not for Isabella. she was sitting with her back against the door, knees drawn to her chest, phone face-down on the floor beside her because she already knew she wouldn't be able to stop checking it otherwise. Just waiting. Her features weaker than they normally are. She looked pale. Her eyes fixed at the door. The locksmith had come that afternoon while she was at work — a small, ordinary transaction, forty minutes and a new key, the kind of thing anyone could do. It shouldn't have felt like defusing a bomb. She told herself this wasn't about keeping him out. It was about proving she could. The apartment was quiet in the particular way it was only quiet when she was bracing for it not to stay that way. She listened to the traffic outside, the hum of the refrigerator, her own breathing evening out and then catching again every time a car slowed anywhere near her street. He would come. He always came. That wasn't a fear so much as a fact of weather, the way you didn't fear rain so much as plan around it. She heard footsteps coming from the corridor. All her senses because active especially her ears. Her heart skipped a beat. And her chest raise faster than usual. Her eyes widened and she dug her nails in her palms. The door nob turned and a gentle push was heard from the door but it didn't budge. Few seconds passed before a key was inserted into the key hole but refused to turn. The man on the other side realizing the situation at hand . Took a deep breath in and rested his forehead on the door. Isabella just sat there watching the scene unfold. Knock* knock* Isabella got startled by the knock and gasped. " Ella baby" his voice was calm and gentle. "Open the door" Hearing his voice Isabella got up preparing to unlock the door but midway she remembered what she was doing this for. Freedom. And Luca won't get the message unless she does something. She slid down until she sat on the floor with her back against the wall again. This time she closed her ears as tears flow down her cheeks. "Ella baby, I know you are in there please just let me in and we can talk about this. Let me fix this don't shut me out." His voice was still calm but more desperate. Isabella internally spoke. "He told you he was fire and falling for him is like playing with fire and people who play with fire get burnt. " Why did I fall for him was he the only boy left on this earth for me to be madly in love with. "How could I be this stupid. How. How." Now she was clearly sobbing while hitting her forehead with her palm. Luca heard the movement from the other side of the door. "Ella baby, please don't punish yourself for my mistakes. Baby that let me inside and I would comfort you. Let me take away the pain you are feeling now. Just let me take care of you. Let me in. " His desperation was clearly heard but his calm composed tone still carried the statement. "Luca go away please, leave me alone for a sec. Please." "Baby I won't leave you in this state, so open up." "I don't want you in here go away." She covered her face with her hands and rested in on this knees. The silence stretched on for a minute with no one saying a thing. She than heard footsteps moving away from the door. She raised her head all glossy and tear stained. "Luca." She whispered the name like someone scared he would just pop up from nowhere. But there was no reply. She tried three more times but same response. She realized he gave up and she won. She waited for the joy of winning to come but it never come. The peace she so longed for , never come. What come instead was pain and questions. "Did Luca just give up , is this all it took. " Is he ever coming back or is this the end of our relationship. " She started regretting locking the door. "Did I go to far." But she forced herself to go to bed and tried to convince herself it's a good thing he left and didn't fight it. She turned and tossed around the bed. With every turn the cold empty realization that Luca is not sleeping with her hit her hard. She started counting sheeps. On her 200 hundredth sheep she heard sounds coming from the balcony but didn't pay attention to them and continued trying to count sheeps. A cool breeze of a air made it's way inside along with that a familiar scent of cologne graced her nose. Her mouth carved upwards but didn't open her eyes or check what was going on. She heard the movement of someone who knew this apartment like the back of his hand. The click of his watch. The shuffling of clothes. Than the mattress dipped behind her and an arm was already around her waist, pulling her back into a body radiating the so familiar heat. He didn't say anything. That was almost worse than if he had. No apology, no explanation, no acknowledgment that he'd just climbed three floors and let himself in through a window like something out of a story where the monster doesn't need an invitation. He just held on. Tight — tighter than comfortable, tight in the specific, trembling way of someone who'd spent the walk over convincing himself of a worst case and hadn't fully let it go yet. His face pressed into the curve of her neck. She felt him breathe her in like he was checking something against memory, like some part of him hadn't quite believed she'd still be there. She should have fought him off. She wasn't surprised she knew something like this would happen she had hoped for at least a day or two to celebrate the short earned victory. She wanted to tell him to leave. That he doesn't get to just by pass a locked door just as he likes. That she changed the locks for a reason. every word of it sat useless in her throat while his arms tightened around her like he was afraid that letting go, even an inch, would make her disappear. "You know," he said finally, voice low, muffled against her skin, doing that thing where humor rode just on top of something much less funny, "I've decided I like this whole 'woman of the house' thing you've got going. Very domestic of you. Very my apartment, my rules." A pause, his mouth curving against her shoulder. "But sweetheart — you don't get to change the locks on me and not tell me. No matter how angry you are." She almost laughed. She hated that she almost laughed. He kissed the skin behind her ear. "Where is my spare key." He asked like it was something he misplaced and Isabella as his woman knows where it is. Isabella hesitated before stretching her hand out to get the keys from the drawer but the distance to the drawer was to far to reach for her short arms. Causing her to pull away from Luca. But Luca pulled her back. "You can give me tomorrow." She felt his hand find hers in the dark, felt him waiting, patient in the particular way of a man who had all the time in the world because he'd already decided how this ended. "I love you," he said. No lead-up. No performance in it, which was somehow the most frightening version of the sentence he could have chosen. She didn't say anything. The silence stretched a beat too long — long enough that his hand at her waist tightened, not painfully, just enough to be a hand asking a question with its grip instead of its voice. A reminder that he was still there, still waiting, and that some silences he wasn't going to let her keep. "I love you too," she said, and hated how easily it came out. How true it sounded, even to her. He exhaled against her neck — something that wasn't quite relief, because Luca never fully relaxed, but was maybe the closest thing to it she'd ever felt out of him. His hold loosened, just slightly, resettling around her like he was rearranging himself to fit better against her back, and she felt herself shift too, without deciding to, easing back into the heat of him the way you lean into a fire even knowing exactly what fire does. She hated how good it felt. She hated that some nights, hating it wasn't enough to stop wanting it. And here she was. Cuffed loosely in his arms, breathing in time with him, feeling something that had no business calling itself safe. Feeling it anyway. Somewhere outside, a car alarm went off and stopped. The refrigerator hummed. Luca's thumb moved slow along her knuckles, absent, like he wasn't even aware he was doing it, and Isabella closed her eyes against the dark and let herself have this — whatever this was — for just one more night.