LUCA {Full Book}

51

I was just as lifeless as my parents were all those years ago, on the floor just below me. Except I knew my heart was still beating because the machine reading it was thumping at my side.

"Mr. Romano, you're really tense, it's not going to help your test. I need to you to relax so I can get a better image of your heart."

Like I gave a fuck. I wasn't supposed to drink but I'd drunk myself to sleep last night, waking up on the fucking couch because my bed was filled with her. Every inch of my fucking bedroom smelled like her.

I wasn't supposed to be stressed but I'd shattered my phone when I chucked it against the wall, two minutes before I put my fist through it.

I was supposed to be here to see if my heart was getting any stronger, but I already knew it wasn't because I had fucking broken it.

"Your heart is beating rather fast, is this normal?"

I tried to push Crystal's face out of my fucking head, but then I saw theirs, cold and bloodied. The sheet being pulled from over the faces, eyes closed, cut up skin, coroner waving over their dead bodies. 'Can you positively identify these persons?'

I had to get the fuck out of here! I couldn't fucking do this right now. "Stop."

"I have to finish checking your..."

I opened my eyes, meeting the techs' as I pushed myself up. "You don't tell what to fucking do- I'm the one paying you."

"But your doctor..."

"I'll do it- just not now." I grabbed the towel, wiping my chest before hopping off the table.

I had to get the fuck out of here before I had another heart attack. I hated this fucking place, it stole my parents- you came to this place to die.

I charged down the hall, trying not to focus on the white fucking walls, the walls that were closing in on me.

"Ms. Mancini."

My feet stopped before my body, jerking me back. Of all the fucking names I could hear, it had to be hers.

It wasn't her of course and even though I knew it wasn't my feet were still backtracking, reversing me back down the hall and turning towards another, following that voice to the neighboring wing.

But it was her. Fuck. No. My heart had finally given out. I was delusional, seeing her one last time before the devil sucked me under.

She stood from the waiting room chair, grabbing up her bag. She knew. How the fuck did she know I was here... no, who the fuck told her.

This would cement her leaving, after dealing with the asshole I was last night and then now, knowing I wasn't as strong, wasn't the man she thought I was. No woman wanted a weak fucking man.

She turned back, stilling, stunned, eyes bugging out of her fucking head as she noticed me. "Luca? What... what are you doing here?"

"Me?" I thought... I dropped my eyes to her hands that were suddenly fidgeting, seeing the hospital bracelet around her wrist. "What's going on?"

She took a few steps towards me, her usual sassy ass smile replaced by something else. "I'm sick."

I felt my heart drop, racing beats to barely thumping. "Flu?"

"I've been trying to... meaning to... figuring out how to tell you about this."

This... what the fuck was 'this.'

"Ms. Mancini the treatment room's ready for you."

I flashed my eyes to the woman calling her, the nurse waving her over. Treatment room... I looked up, reading the sign right above my fucking head. 'Outpatient Chemotherapy.'

"Crystal..." I followed the walls down to the matching rooms and the patients inside them. What... what was happening. What.. what the fuck was going on!

"This is why I've been busy," she shrugged, like this what some sort of fucking explanation- like it wasn't a big fucking deal.

"And you didn't think to fucking mention this?"

"It's not something you just mention and we were nothing and then everything so quickly."

Sick. Treatment. Chemotherapy. I felt off balance, the alcohol hitting my system all these hours later, the hall was tightening, getting hotter, squeezing me in, burning me alive.

Everything was becoming a fucking blur, the colors melting together until they were gray, and then everything went black. I couldn't even see her, she was just a blur like the rest of it.

"Luca, I never expected to meet you at the bar that night, or run into you time and time again. I... I was just diagnosed a few months ago, I met you a minute too late."

I threw my hands up, palms pushing her away, barricading myself behind them as I took a step back. "You needed a fun distraction. That's right you told me I was just a fucking distraction! You were using me."

"No! Of course not! Yes, at first you were just for fun... but then I..I fell in.."

I took another step back, arms growing heavier as they pushed her further away. "You lied to me! You made me think we were something, you made me feel like this was fucking different!"

"We are! This is!"

"You made me.." ...love you... "fuck, this whole time I was just a distraction. A fucking distraction! You tricked me!"

Every muscle I had was throbbing, clenching, needing to fucking pummel something. My breathing was so hard it hurt, and the venom inside me fucking deadly.

"I've been trying. I was just... selfish.. wanting to hold on to you a little bit longer."

A little bit longer. I thought we were... I did everything.. how could she do this to me... after everything I did for her... she was right, she was fucking selfish.

"You made me get fucking tested, when you were the one diseased!"

Her eyes went wide, sunken, looking at me before darting back and forth around us and she reached her hand for mine but I wasn't getting fucking close to her.

I was losing her and I couldn't fucking control it, I couldn't fix it. Here she was, steps above where my parents lied. Now I saw her face with theirs.

But she didn't love me anyways, she didn't even fucking want me. Didn't want to move in because I was nothing. A distraction, a quick amusement, a quick fuck. She was the fucking devil, taking everything from me, shit I didn't even know I still had.

I couldn't fucking breathe, I couldn't fucking see, I felt my feet moving but had no fucking idea where they were going.

All I knew was she destroyed me, killed me. "Lose my number because as of this fucking moment you are nothing more than another faceless bitch."

I was gone, out the door, broad daylight turned to a black fog, following me home, tempting me to react. I was hungry for blood, for tears, for pain. I couldn't feel a thing, not a single fucking thing.

"Line em up!" I was at a bar, didn't seem familiar, didn't fucking care.

The bartender lined up four shot glasses, he poured, I pounded, I demanded more. And when the burn was gone, I demanded stronger.

"What's under the bar?"

"Nothing now man. I usually don't get much till later in the evening. Just booze for now."

It wasn't enough. "More."

"More shots? This shit's strong as hell, I'm surprised you're still talking."

"I don't want to be- line em up."