Chapter 10

The dark haired woman turned her face towards the salty breeze. She felt good, she felt alive.

All her life she had feared being without the people she had grown up with. Now she was alone and she realized that she need not be afraid. She hadn´t been here for long but it already felt a bit like home, a new home, but a home nonetheless.

Her first days on the new job had been reassuring. She could do it, she could handle her own life. The knowledge that she was able to earn her own living gave her a confidence she had never felt before.

As she watched the sun setting in the west her thoughts travelled far, far to the love she had left behind. The pain of losing that one man all over again had been almost too much. But it had also taught her to feel again after being dead inside for so many years.

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"Do I really have to stay here on my own?" Two days later Joe sat propped up against the backrest of his bed, his lower lip pouting, his eyes still a bit shiny with the lessening fever.

"Well, you´re not alone here, lots of nice nurses to take care of you." Levon tried to be light about the subject. He could see how depressed Joe was, yet he did not quite know why.

"But couldn´t you take me with you?" Joe tried again.

"No way, you are still way too sick. And when you are better, the docs want to do some surgery on your collarbone. It´s been out of place for too long, they say it won´t heal properly without the surgery."

Joe reclined, rolled his eyes and closed them with a deep sigh.

Levon studied his partner´s face. Joe still looked very pale and his cheeks were hollow. It would need a good deal of time to get the Italian back on his feet.

Levon needed to go back to Houston. He couldn´t stay away from the job any longer.

"Did you find out what happened to Julia?" Joe asked out of the blue. Neither of them had mentioned the woman who had been the reason for Joe´s journey and the subsequent events.

Levon shook his head. He was afraid of telling his partner that he suspected the woman to be dead, pumped off by one of Barberi´s thugs. But unlike Joe, Levon did not know that Julia had prepared her escape for a long time.

Yet there was one thing Levon still had to do. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the picture he had found on the cabin floor beside his unconscious partner. He handed it to Joe.

"Oh." Joe took it and looked at it with big eyes. "I thought…I…" he swallowed, a pained expression on his face.

"What did you think?"

"I thought she had really been there but I guess I must have been fantasizing." Joe turned the picture over.

Levon had read the words on the back but hadn´t been able to understand them. Though he knew it was an intimate message he couldn´t refrain from asking: "What does it mean?"

"Dio sol sa?"

"Yeah."

"Only God knows," Joe said in a voice hardly more than a whisper. When his eyes met Levon´s they were shiny with unshed tears.

In his pocket Levon was fingering the remains of the joint. He wanted to change the subject to one less painful for Joe. "I found a stump of a joint beside you in that cabin. It smelled of pot. Where did you get that?"

"Paolo gave it to me. He gave me three in fact. That must have been the last one. I wonder what became of the guy."

"He died in the blizzard. Why was he out there anyway?"

"He wanted to get help." Joe´s thoughts wandered back to the day they had parted. "First I thought he was the lucky one. I don´t know if I had survived without the pot. It was really generous of him to share it with me." For a moment he fell silent. "He wasn´t all bad, you know? He even reminded me of myself. He was just a guy who, at some point, made a different decision and paid a different price." Joe wondered who had paid the higher price? Had it really been worth it throwing away his one true love just to stay on the right side of the law?

As if to shake the thought he suddenly said: "I wished I had one of those joints right now."

"Joe!" Levon scrutinized his partner´s face. He knew Joe had never been a smoker. How much Marihuana did it take to establish a dependency?

Levon got up. "I gotta go, that plane won´t wait. You take care and get better, yah hear? I´ll come fetch you in about two weeks." He patted his partner´s shoulder.

Joe looked up and his eyes were profoundly sad. "Thanks, Levon, for coming after me."

Levon tipped the rim of his hat with his fingers. "My pleasure!" Then he was gone.

t.b.c.

There is a sequel available now with the title Out Of Touch

Author´s note:

The initial idea for this story popped up in my head when I listened to the song Who wants to live forever by Queen. The lyrics, which I could not use for copyright reasons and which I replaced by my own poem at the beginning of the story, describe a love story of truly tragic dimensions.

When I was in the process of writing I remembered my vacation in Tuscany, Italy. I stayed at a historic rural farm transformed into a charming holiday apartment complex – the Podere Campalfi – deep in the woods near the ancient city of Siena. On a walk along the river Merse I came across the tiny castle Balzetti, also known as the castle only God knows – il Castiglion che Dio Sol Sa. It is indeed situated in total isolation and can only be approached on foot. It was first mentioned in the year 1262.

The castle and especially its name has ever since fascinated me and I think, as it is Italian just like Joey´s ancestry, it is a perfect feature to use in the love story.

If you have enjoyed my writing I would very much like to hear from you, where ever you are out there in the Houston Kights´ Universe. Reviews would also be highly appreciated.