Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 36268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 181(@200wpm)___ 145(@250wpm)___ 121(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 181(@200wpm)___ 145(@250wpm)___ 121(@300wpm)
Sienah
I KEEP WAITING FOR him to get tired of waiting.
Because it has to happen, right? One day he’ll finally accept it’s over and go back to his first love...racing. In the ten years we’ve been married, this is the longest he’s been away from his beloved work, and surely...surely he’s about to give up anytime soon.
Right?
Recently, he’s started doing this daily vigil of asking permission to see me, and waiting the whole day in case I change my mind.
I don’t.
Not because I’ve stopped loving him (I haven’t) or I want to punish him (I don’t).
But...it’s because Shayla was right.
God’s telling me to wait.
But what exactly I’m waiting for, I have no idea.
All I know is that I’ve been waiting since that first night I stayed with the Kontides. And even though it killed me to hear that he deliberately hired his ex to be his divorce lawyer, even then I was still waiting. And when that same woman spoke as if something’s happened between them while we were apart—
I never stopped waiting.
Never stopped praying.
Because I know, even though everything right now is painfully unclear...
I’ve started reading my Bible every day, and so I know I can place my hope in the Spirit. He’ll pray for me, and they’ll be the prayers that my mortal heart can’t find the right words for.
From my childhood bedroom window, I can see him through the lace curtains Nonna crocheted forty years ago. Today he’s wearing jeans.
Imagine that, the great Aivan Cannizzaro, who used to think of fashion simply in terms of sponsorship and how much it could contribute to his racing foundation...
Aivan in a faded pair of jeans, his white shirt damp with rain, is not just a portrait of atonement, and with unpredictable Sicilian weather representing God’s wrath. I wish I could unsee what my heart sees, but I can’t. Every little peek that I steal of him outside our house—it points out to an Aivan who’s changed. An Aivan who no longer puts racing above all else, even his wife.
So why, God?
Why does it feel like You’re asking me to wait for something else?
Please help me understand.
MORE TIME PASSES, AND I start hearing about Aivan being more involved in our local community. He’s helping out wherever he can, giving talks for free whenever invited (he used to say that he’d only do PR for a hundred thousand euros, minimum!), and attending church every Sunday.
We’d have long bumped into each other a lot earlier if not for Papa making sure we go to church at a different time, and honestly...
Aivan’s father is the other big reason I’ve yet to talk to him. Even though he’s never spoken to Shayla about it, Miguel Cannizzaro has basically asked for the same thing as well. The first day I arrived, he and Serena were in the living room, waiting for me, along with my mother. While I cried in Lynette’s arms, my in-laws gravely apologized on Aivan’s behalf, and after that, they asked quite humbly if I would allow them to give their son...a nudge.
That was all they were willing to say. They wanted to nudge Aivan into realizing certain things, but their plan would require time, patience, and trust.
And I said yes.
I agreed to go along with whatever my in-laws had planned, and while I’m sure they—my mother included—all think it’s because I’ve always been the obedient type, it’s not that at all. As painful and shameful as this is to admit...
There’s this part of me that’s waiting for something else.
It’s the smallest and darkest part of me that’s completely separated from the rest of my soul by a sea of despair and hopelessness.
This part of me completely given up on having my marriage to Aivan restored, and it’s also this part of me that I’ve been desperately praying for. It’s like having this unseen demon inside of me, lurking and prowling around, just waiting for the right moment to pounce and convince me to take a shortcut instead of having to live through the pain. Why bother trying when it’s so much easier to simply...give up?
I’VE DELIBERATELY AND consciously stopped myself from counting the days ever since I came here. And so I’m not quite sure if it’s just been weeks or months when the rest of the world started paying serious attention to Aivan’s continued absence in the world he used to dominate. Maybe he still did, but not for long, if the rumors are anything to go by.
“Sources close to the F1 paddock suggest Royal Contini Motors is ‘reassessing their options’ given Cannizzaro’s extended absence...”
“Companies endorsing Cannizzaro have been giving hints that they’d ‘welcome conversations’ with any available champion-caliber drivers...”
“How long can even friendship protect a three-hundred-million-euro investment?”
The headlines alone break my heart, but the comments that go along with them are what breaks my heart...because photos of him and Myca have suddenly resurfaced (leaked?), and now everyone thinks he’s out on a secret honeymoon after rekindling his romance with his ex. Everyone thinks they look good together, and that Myca is a much better wife for him because she has all the correct boxes ticked.