EPILOGUE
A HEARTBROKEN ENZO IN VERONA
My world crasheddown when Elisabetta died. I lived in a haze for years until the moment I laid eyes on her. Mi Amelia. Mi princessa. I couldn’t let her leave Italy without seeing her one last time. As I walk up to the Tomba di Guiletta my stomach drops. I should have been here with her. Her love for Romeo and Juliet infectious. Her love for Dante: why I fell in love with her. The white plaque ahead of me reads, “in fair Verona, where we lay our scene, William Shakespeare.”
Has Amelia seen this very plaque? Has she walked through this very entryway?
I catch a short glimpse of a copper-skinned beauty with beautiful black curls across the courtyard. As I walk through the grass I see her beautiful red dress she got from Milan. Her face plain with no makeup. Her eyes red and swollen from crying. A little boy giggling runs past me that garners her attention so I jump behind a fountain so she can’t see me. A tired mother runs after him carrying a backpack as she struggles to catch up with him.
“Enzo get back here!” she yells.
The name makes Amelia wince. I can see the pain flash across her eyes. Pain I caused. The heartbreak I put there. As the woman catches up with the little boy, Amelia hangs her head down and walks away from them and down a set of hidden stairs next to the walls of the monastery. My bootsteps echoed down the stone steps straight down. The darkened room I walked into as dark as my soul. I have always been confined by the laws within the family. Until Amelia I never saw a way out. I never saw another way of living until her. I walked through the old brick hallway leading into a small tomb. I stood outside with my back against the wall, listening to the conversations between her and a small tour group.
“Juliet lay here,” a small German woman says in broken English amongst her small tour group of five people.
Amelia’s fingers graze across the smooth brick of the small tomb before touching the small square casket made of brick as tribute to Juliet. Her smile beams across her face but it quickly falls.
My broken Juliet.
“It is easy to muddle the line between reality and literature. Love is best in works of fiction. Love is a curse,” she says numbly, her voice muted and full of despair.
I shook her very foundation and belief in love.
After she left the tomb I followed closely behind through dark sunglasses as she walked across the cobbled streets of Verona.
Her friendly demeanor lost.
Her smile faded.
Her light blackened.
I stood off to the side behind the golden statue of Juliet, watching her walk inside the old brick building of Casa di Giuletta.
How I long for her history lessons now. She is here in Verona, and I see the shell of mi Amelia.
I could feel her close to me. My eyes pointed up to the balcony as she walks slowly onto the edge and leans over the thick railing. Her chin resting on her palm as she stared off pensively towards the golden statue I stood behind. I adjust my sunglasses again and hid further behind the shadows. Relying on the heavy crowd to hide me from her peridot gaze.
I want to touch her. I need to feel her. I can’t bear to see the hurt in her eyes.
My ring covered finger grazed against my lips. Yearning for her in her absence. She turns around and walks back into the home from the balcony. I come from around the pillar I hid behind looking for a sign of her. Within seconds she comes out from the open doorway and walks straight in my direction towards the statue of Juliet. Her fingers swirling in the water of the fountain before grazing her wet finger across her heart.
“Amore,” I whisper, taking a step towards her.
Tears flood her eyes that she quickly wipes away. I watch her look up to the statue of Juliet, before walking away and touching the rough brick wall leading to a large brick wall in front of her covered in letters and flowers. Her hand following across the cards left for Juliet before stopping and taking a small card out of her purse hanging loosely on her shoulder. She holds it tightly to her chest as the tears flow from her eyes freely. She places it on the wall amongst the other letters as her chest is racked with sobs.
Amore. She wrote a letter to Giuletta.
She watches the small yellow card hanging on the wall in front of her, crossing her arms defensively against her breasts. I start to take a step forward when sudden movement behind me runs past me.
“Goddess,” a deep voice with a heavy Irish accent running beside me.
I hide out of her line of sight as a heavy muscular blonde-haired man scoops Amelia into his arms, sobbing against his chest.
Finn.
He wraps his arms around her and holds her close to his chest before putting his hands on her cheeks. Their foreheads and noses touching. Her in another man’s arms made my blood boil. Her comforted by another man was my worst nightmare. Him repairing what I broke.
“I heard you cry, and I caught the first flight out, Goddess,” he breathes against her.
“I’m sorry,” she sobs.
“Don’t be sorry,” he says, pushing the hair away from her face.
“I’m so sorry baby, I’m so sorry,” she pleads, her voice cracking with heavy sobs.
Amelia.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Goddess,” he says.
I turn my head away from them so close together. He was so in love with her.
“I should never have come here. I should have never come to Italy,” she sobs.
“I love you,” he says, pressing his lips to her in a passionate kiss.
“I love you, Finn,” she whispers against his lips before kissing him back.
My deepest fears confirmed. Her love for Finn stronger than her hate for me.
He stops kissing her and holds her hand firmly in his before he pulls her in closer to him. My heart is telling me to run after her and take her away from him. My brain telling me that she is back where she belongs with him. Their retreating form walking down the cobbled street of Verona is my last image of mi Amelia before turning my attention to the little yellow card she placed on the wall. I look at the wall conflicted. All of these letters from men and women writing to Juliet in hopes of her to hear from their lost love. In one part of me her words need to stay for Juliet. On the other I yearned to hear her words. Even if it would break my heart further. I pulled the envelope from the wall and held it in my hands before opening the card to see Amelia’s perfect cursive writing in black ink. The yellow paper stained with tears.
Dear Juliet,
If anyone knows of the true heartbreak of love, it’s you. Only you can feel my plight. If anything, my trip around the world has taught me is that the only person I can trust is myself. My grandparents left for a reason. If they stayed who knows what kind of people that they would have become. They didn’t belong here. I don’t belong here. My grandparent’s love was so strong that they knew their families were a curse to one another. Our love wasn’t strong enough. Our love was a sleeping curse beneath hate between our families. A family they wiped out. This is not my home. Every square inch of every town reflects his presence in all of my senses. He lied to me, and I believed him. I trusted him and I fell in love with him. I see now that my love was misplaced idolization under a layer of hormonal addiction. It’s time for me to go home. Wherever home is.
Amelia
“Amelia,” I breathe, tears welling in my eyes.
I reach for a pen inside of my suit pants and press the card against the brick wall. If anything, I wanted her to know how much I loved her.
Dear Juliet,
Love has never been my strongest suit and something I feared I would never find again. The universe sent mi Amelia. I believed that the secrets I held were not as strong as our love. I was wrong. I could not show her the same love she deserves: a love without lies and pain. Amelia, I hope you will always feel for me. Even if you hate me, you feel. Truly and deeply mi Amelia.
Enzo
I back up away from the wall and close the card before placing it back onto the wall in its previous place. Solemnness and guilt took over every muscle and bone in my body as I walked away down those cobbled streets.
I was a curse to her. The Capettis are a plague.
THE END