Harbinger Of Glory

The park still had a few kids running around despite the hour, their parents on benches watching with the patient exhaustion of people who had long since stopped trying to hurry children along.

Leo walked the outer path slowly, hands in his pockets, with the dinner he had had half an hour ago still settling in.

He’d been thinking about it since the table, when Mia and Sofia were still giving him looks and finally began pushing him to reach out.

He put himself in her position and held it there long enough to be honest about it.

Three messages.

A month and a half. No explanation.

If Vittoria or anyone else had done that to him, he’d have felt it, and he knew it, and that was enough.

He stopped walking a while later, found a bench to sit on and pulled his phone out before he typed a short hey.

He sent it before he could think too much about it, and stood there watching the screen like it owed him something.

Delivered.

That was all it showed. He stood there, close to a quarter of an hour before deciding that she must be busy, but just as he was about to push the phone back into his pocket, the little note which had shown delivered earlier,under his message turned to seen.

Then a green circle appeared beside her profile and vanished in the same second.

Vittoria sat on her bed in Turin and stared at the ceiling, and smacked herself lightly on the forehead.

She’d opened it without thinking.

A reflex moment, and now he knew.

She stayed completely still for a moment while her thoughts seemed to run amok.

”What is this?” she muttered.

Then she picked up her phone and looked at the message again and felt the irritation she’d been holding onto for six weeks start doing something inconvenient, which was softening at the edges.

”I can’t even get mad at him properly.”

She set the phone face down on the duvet.

Then face up.

In the next second, her screen lit up with a call, and she looked at it, and before she’d made any actual decision, her thumb had already moved and ended it.

The silence that followed was immediate.

”I’m not that mad at him,” she said, to nobody, which was the most annoying part.

She then grunted into her pillow before she heard another ding from her phone, another notification.

Please pickup?

She stared at the message for a while.

Then a video call started, and she stared at that too, long enough that she was almost impressed with herself.

Then she picked up, keeping the camera pointed at the ceiling so he got a view of her plaster cornice and nothing else.

Leo exhaled when the call connected.

The ceiling of wherever she was looked back at him from the screen, and he almost laughed before he composed himself, knowing the predicament he had put himself into.

”Hello?” he said, but no reply came.

His own face sat in the small corner box, looking exactly as uncertain as he felt as he cleared his throat.

”Okay. I’m sorry.” He said it straight, no preamble.

”I should know how to manage this better than I did. I wouldn’t want to be left unread for a month and a half with no reason, so I shouldn’t have done it to you.”

He paused.

”I wasn’t in a good place during the recovery. I kept thinking I’d reach out when things felt more settled, and then they never did, and I kept pushing it, and I never did even after I got a bit better.”

He stopped, hearing the shuffle of noise from the other side, before continuing when he realised that no voice was coming.

”That’s not an excuse. I’m just telling you what happened.”

The ceiling on her end said nothing.

He waited, almost for two minutes, but nothing still happened.

Just when he raised to speak again, that’s when her voice came through, quieter than he expected.

”That wasn’t nice of you.”

And he responded almost instantly in relief.

”I know.”

A beat before her voice came through again.

”I’ll accept the apology,” she said.

”But you’re not done yet.”

Leo laughed despite himself, but that was him just feeling relieved.

”You can still laugh,” she muttered, and he could hear something shifting on her end, fabric or cushions, and then a moment later, the camera moved, and her face appeared on the screen.

Dark hair loose around her shoulders.

Blue eyes that caught whatever light was in the room behind her and held it.

She was looking at him the way you look at someone you’re still deciding how annoyed to be with, which meant not very, and she seemed to know that too because there was something at the corner of her mouth that hadn’t committed to being a smile yet but was getting there.

Leo looked at the screen for a second before he said anything, but when he said it, Vittoria almost choked on air.

”Gosh, you’re beautiful!”

A loud cough came from Vittoria’s side, who pretended not to have heard to make it easy for Leo afterwards, since it seemed like the latter hadn’t been able to catch himself.

”Hi,” he said after recovering.

”Hi,” Vittoria said back as the two proceeded to stare back at each other, before Vittoria tore her eyes away and then looked around her room, avoiding Leo’s gaze for the better part of the half-minute that the two stared at each other, or Leo mainly stared.

”Why didn’t you reach out, though?” Vittoria said while Leo leaned against the park fence, with the last of the evening light doing what it could.

”Even after I did. Multiple times.”

Leo opened his mouth and then closed it.

”What do you mean, multiple times?”

She looked at him through the screen, then licked her lips like Leo had just called her dumb.

”Check your email.”

He frowned and switched apps without ending the call.

She gave Leo a date, or dates, after the latter couldn’t find it until only her emails showed when he decided to just search up her name to make things easy, and then, he could only stare at it.

”I didn’t even—” he started, but she didn’t let him finish.

”I know you didn’t.”

He switched back to the call where she was looking slightly away from the camera now, and her voice when it came again was a little quieter, more measured, like she was deciding how much to let through.

”It had me thinking I’d done something,” she said.

”Without realising. Like somewhere along the way I’d said something or—”

She seemed to catch herself and went still.

Leo watched her face on the screen and felt something tighten in his chest that he didn’t immediately have a name for, like she was still on the fence about letting certain things show, and he sat with it for a second.

Then he said, ”Can I tell you something?”

Vittoria looked back at the camera before she nodded, giving Leo the go-ahead.

”When we talked at the start of all this, right after the injury, and you—”

He paused, choosing it carefully.

”The way that felt. I didn’t like it.”

She said nothing, just watched him.

”Not you,” he added quickly.

”I mean the feeling. Needing it. I don’t really do that, and it caught me off guard, and I think I just.” He exhaled. ”Pulled back because of it.”

”I do not want to feel pity because it’s something I’ve had to live with and gotten tired of it.”

Vittoria was quiet for a moment while the light from the bedside lamp behind her flickered.

”Noted,” she said.

It was one word, but it tore down the tension as Leo chuckled at her secretary-like answer, causing her to also laugh.

Then he said, ”Thanks.”

Vittoria rolled her eyes, the smile still there whether she wanted it to be or not.

”We are not even yet,” she said, to which Leo nodded, accepting it.

”No, we are not!”