Mateo’s apartment was on the first floor, which made it easy for us to get him there. Every so often he would try to walk on his left leg. He was able to do it for a few steps, which I think was a good sign, but then the pain came on too much and he started shaking.
Peter and I took him over to his couch and got him to lie down on it. Peter then grabbed a bunch of pillows and put it under his knee, telling us that the instructions from the school nurse were to keep it elevated above the heart, to not move around much, to apply ice packs and take the painkillers. He said he had to go help with dinner for the Anglos but he would be back later.
And just like that, Peter left, closing the door behind him. Mateo and I were alone, and I realized I’d never been in his apartment before, his space. Though he shared it with some Anglo from California called Mark or Marty or something and didn’t seem to be home, you could feel Mateo’s presence here, this sophisticated calm. As I stood above the couch, I let my eyes drink in all the things I thought could be attributed to him: a pair of silver cufflinks on the coffee table beside a National Geographic magazine, a monogrammed white robe I could see hanging just inside the bathroom, a fancy half-empty bottle of Scotch on the kitchen counter.
“Are you going to be my nurse, Estrella?” Mateo asked, looking up at me. His smile was a little lopsided but it was good to see him feeling better, at least with his spirits.
“Every male’s fantasy, of course,” I said, taking a seat in the armchair across from him.
“You are, yes,” he said, still smiling.
My stomach flipped a few times at that, warm and fluttery, even though I wasn’t sure if he knew what he was saying. I pulled the pills out of my pocket. “Oxycodone and acetaminophen,” I read out loud. “I used to take these in high school for fun. My mom takes Percocet for her migraines.” I grinned at him. Mateo was slowly getting high.
“The school nurse is a drug dealer, yes,” he said in mock seriousness. “Those poor children.”
With him acting this way, it was easy to forget he’d been in horrible, humiliating pain until a few moments ago. I leaned forward in my chair. “Can I get you anything? Water? Something to read? Do you need to call…someone?” Your doctor, perhaps your wife…
“No,” he said softly, licking his lips. “I just want you to stay here with me.”
I nodded, my heart feeling a bit tenderized at the tone of his voice, the sincerity of his words. It kind of ached. “I can stay.”
“You’ll miss dinner.”
“I can get it to go, I’m sure they’ll let me bring it here. You’ll miss your dinner,” I told him, feeling a bout of shame for him. “You guys won the game. Jerry said he is taking the Spaniards out tonight.”
His brows furrowed as he stared at me, eyes narrowing slightly at the corners. “Don’t look at me this way.”
I jerked my chin back into my neck. “In what way?”
“Like you are right now. With pity.”
I swallowed uneasily. “I’m sorry. I just…obviously I feel bad.”
He closed his eyes and turned his head away from me. “You shouldn’t. This was my fault. I wanted to prove I could still do it, that I could still play. You know? I wanted to be…the way I was. And, I suppose, I wanted to impress you very much.”
“Impress me?” A bit of Percocet in his system and suddenly the words were coming out, words I never thought he’d say. “Why would you want to impress me?”
And there went a question I never thought I’d have the nerve to ask. Maybe I was getting a residual high.
Though his eyes were still closed, I could see the corner of his lips quirk up into a soft smile. “Because you are my Estrella.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. The way he pronounced “my,” like I truly was his, was making me feel things I didn’t want to be feeling. Something felt like it was changing in the air between us, maybe because he was high on painkillers, or maybe it was just a matter of time. I didn’t know.
He seemed to notice it too because after a moment of silence, he opened his eyes and turned his head to look at me. There was a wash of sadness in them now. “Can I ask you that question I wanted to ask you?” His voice was low, a little hoarse.
Oh man. That question again. Now I wasn’t drunk but he more or less was.
“Sure,” I said, pretending I wasn’t a livewire of sizzling nerves on the inside. I held my breath, afraid to exhale.
“Are you happy?”
I exhaled. This wasn’t at all what I was expecting. “Am I happy?”
“Yes. Is Vera Miles happy?”
“Right here, right now or…?”
“In your life.”
I had to think about that. It wasn’t a simple question at all. Was I happy? I thought back to my day-to-day, my hopes and dreams—or, perhaps, the lack thereof.
It was hard for me to admit this because I liked to have people think I was happy-go-lucky, that I devoured life, that I got up every day feeling good and excited and hopeful. But I didn’t.
“No,” I told him, my gaze locking on his. “I am not happy.”
“Why?” he asked quietly.
“Because…” I looked down and started tracing the outline of my newest tattoo. “I am lonely.”
I’d never even admitted that to myself before. It felt bizarre. Surreal. Like I was suddenly realizing I wasn’t who I thought I was at all.
“You are lonely, but you say you like to be alone.”
I nodded. “I do. I prefer it. But…it doesn’t mean I don’t want someone to love me.” My eyes stung, as if tears were on their way. I bit my lip, debating if I should say more. “It doesn’t mean that I don’t have a lot of love in me to give someone.”
“Then why don’t you?” he asked keenly.
I shrugged. “It’s easier to not. It’s safer. I had a long-term boyfriend in high school. I know, it’s a long time ago but…I was in love with him, or so I thought. And he cheated on me. A lot. He was emotionally abusive too and made me think I deserved whatever he gave me. It really fucked me up. Fucked me up and broke me up. Bad enough that I had to go on medication.” To my surprise, I had to take in a deep breath. There was still a bit of a pinch with the memories. “I know it was just a right of passage, I guess, like what every girl goes through in high school but…the pain scared me. I’d already felt so alone because of my parents and sister that I put all my trust and heart in the wrong person and that just blew up in my face. It made me think that I’d never be loved and no one would ever want my love in return.”
My words sank into us. I felt completely raw, stripped to the bone. I’d never felt like that before, not even when naked and in a compromising position. I’d never been so honest with myself.
“You are wrong, you know,” Mateo finally said.
“About what?”
“That you will never be loved,” he said, voice slow and measured, “and that no one would want you to love them.”
I felt like there was a brick in my stomach. The charged way he was staring into me, the words he was saying…part of me wanted to run. Part of me wanted to absorb it deep inside, to hug it on nights I felt cold. Instead, I cleared my throat and asked, “Are you happy, Mateo?”
“No,” he gradually said, a delicate smile on his lips. “I am not happy, either.”
I was both surprised and not surprised at this admission. “But you have things. You have a career and a wife and a child. Money.”
“And yet, I am not happy.”
“I don’t understand.”
“And I hope you never will understand.” He sighed and stared at the ceiling. “I love Chloe Ann, she is the bright star in my universe. I love Isabel, but…not the way that I should. Sometimes I wonder if I ever did and that makes me sad, to think of all the years being…what is the word? Oblivious. I don’t like my job but I don’t know what to do with myself. I am too old, I mean look at me and my fucking knee, too old to go back to the game again.” He pressed his lips together for
a moment. “All I know is that something has to change. I have to do something.”
“What?” I whispered, finding myself leaning in closer to him.
His eyes slid to mine. “Create a new universe.” He licked his lips again. “You could do the same.”
My heart stilled. I opened my mouth to speak, then shut it again.
“It is scary, isn’t it?” he asked.
I nodded. When I found my voice I said, “I told you. I was scared of deep space.”
He grinned. “And I told you I was too. What can I say, Vera, you make me want to reach for the stars.”
“That’s almost cheesy,” I said, trying to make light of the situation even though it didn’t feel cheesy to me. It felt terrifyingly real.
“Yes. But it is true.” He exhaled. “And now that we’ve managed to make each other depressed, I promise I will ask you no more questions for the rest of our time together.”
For the rest of our time together. I didn’t like the finality of that, the recognition that what we had would end, and soon.
“But I like your questions, even the hard ones.”
I like that you seek me out, that you have an excuse to talk to me, I finished in my head.
“Then perhaps I will surprise you with another someday. For now though, I think I need to take a siesta. Will you take one with me?”
I looked over to the clock on the microwave. “Dinner is in an hour.”
“Then sleep with me until dinner.”
I raised my brow. “Do you know how that sounds?”
He nodded. “Of course, it is why I said it.”
But where would I sleep? There was barely any room on the couch. I would be pressed up against him while he was in an extremely vulnerable state. I couldn’t do that, get that close to him. I didn’t trust myself.
I got to my feet. “It’s not the same unless we are under a tree,” I told him. “I need to go do a few things, take a shower and get out of these gross clothes. I’ll come back with dinner.”
“Leaving me so soon,” he said dramatically.
I laughed and walked over to the door. “Hasta la vista, baby.”
“No Spanish,” he muttered from the couch.
I stepped outside and closed his apartment door behind me. It was only then that I felt like I could truly breathe. I stood there for a few moments, getting all the air in and out of my chest. I took off for my place, rubbing my hands up and down my arms as if the temperature suddenly dropped. It wasn’t that, of course, but that some of my layers had started to peel away.
Later that night I went back to Mateo with dinner, a bundle of nerves as I held the plates of food. I didn’t know what was happening between us, or if he was still going to be in an emotional and truth-telling mood or if he was back to his carefree self.
A self that might have been a lie.
But I didn’t need to worry about that at all. When I came back with the food, Jerry was in there talking to him, as well as Marty or Mark. Mateo insisted that I stay with him and have dinner, so I did, but after that was done and Jerry started asking him about his time on Atletico, something that Mateo didn’t seem to mind talking about when he was on drugs, I decided to leave them all be.
Mateo had asked me just as I was leaving if I’d go with him to the doctor in Salamanca in a few days but before I could say yes or no, Jerry reminded him that I needed to work and do my job and that Peter would be happy to take him.
I couldn’t say I wasn’t relieved.
Chapter 14
It took three days for Mateo to be able to walk again without needing a person or a crutch to lean on, and another two days for him to be able to do it with less of a limp. The tear in his knee was a grade one, which meant his recovery would be fast, and it was amazing to see him go from on the ground, writhing in pain, to walking slowly, but easily, everywhere in a matter of five days. He told me the doctor said it was because he kept himself in great shape and was still “young,” something that pleased Mateo quite a bit.
Because he was stationary for a lot of the time, he was often parked out by the reception patio in the wicker chairs, and while I had a session or a chance to talk to him every day, we weren’t going off on our long walks down country lanes or chatting on my balcony. There were always people around, which was fine…nothing to hide here. And yet I felt like we were hiding.
The weather had also turned to shit for most of the days, pounding the area with torrential rain which flowed down the hill in rivers and made a mess of everyone’s shoes. Jerry said that once it stopped, it wouldn’t rain for the rest of the summer.
I was holed up in Claudia’s apartment on the night the rain stopped, lazing around on the couch with Polly and Beatriz as we drank wine and looked over women’s magazines. I had brought a whole bunch with me from home and from London, and earlier in the day had done a one-on-one session with Eduardo that consisted of doing all the quizzes. Turns out that, according to Cosmo UK, Eduardo is an “attention slut.”
“I can’t believe we won’t be here next week,” Polly moaned despondently as she tossed a Glamour magazine at Beatriz. Beatriz was so enamoured with her Spanish gossip magazine, Diez Minutos, that she didn’t even look up when it hit her.
It took me a second to realize what Polly said. “Wait, what?”
She brushed back her bangs and gave me a lazy-eyed look. “Yeah. Think about it. This time next week, we’ll all be home.”
“Wow, time has really flown fast,” Claudia commented. She looked around her at all of us, her lips twisting wistfully. “I am going to miss you guys.”
I gave her an absent nod and murmured the same, but even though I really was going to miss them, miss everything about this place, I couldn’t quite handle the idea that I wouldn’t see Mateo again. This time next week, I would be on a plane back home. Home. I’d be back with my mom and Josh and Mercy and back to my own cold, dead universe, and I wouldn’t have Mateo to make me feel alive.
My chest constricted painfully. Just the thought of not seeing him ever again, not having this world that I clung to, was heartbreaking. All this time I had been keeping my distance because I didn’t want to get hurt, but it was already happening. The heart had no regard for time, no regard for pain.
I felt like I had to cling to every moment, every second, make it count. I feared it was already too late.
A gasp from Beatriz brought me out of my funk. I glanced over at her to see her reading her magazine with her mouth open. Her eyes immediately darted over to me.
“What?” I asked.
She made a clucking sound and showed whatever was in the magazine to Claudia and then to Polly. Polly made a little squeal but Claudia grimaced and then covered it up with an awkward smile.
“What is it?!” I asked again, louder. I started to reach across to snatch it from her but she handed it to me.
I took it in my hands, the front half of the magazine folded behind it, and stared. At first all I saw was a bunch of gibberish (aka Spanish) and a picture of pretty, smiling women eating food. But when my eyes fell to the bottom half of the page, I may have gasped too.
I may have nearly choked.
It was a picture of Mateo, taken at night with a flash. He was walking, an insincere smile on his startlingly clean-shaven face, wearing a slim silver-grey suit and tie. He was holding the hand of a woman. She was wearing a black sparkly shift dress that looked very expensive, had a wide toothy smile, great eyebrows, dark eyes, and short blonde hair.
Below them I recognized the word Mateo and Isabel Casalles and Sin Horquillas, which I knew was the name of his restaurant.
Just…holy shit. Kill me fucking now.
Not only was his wife very pretty, almost Scandinavian looking with her Mia Farrow haircut and high cheekbones, but…she really existed. She now had a face. She was real.
I was in love with her husband. The same man who had told me that he wasn’t in love with her.
The man who would be just a memory in less
than a week.
“Are you okay?” Polly asked, sounding genuinely concerned. “You did know he was married, didn’t you?”
I stared blankly at her and managed to nod. I looked to Beatriz. “Why the picture? What is the article about?”
Beatriz took the magazine back. I was glad. I never wanted to see it again.
She scanned it. “Nothing much. Just that his Barcelona restaurant celebrated a two-year anniversary last month and there was a big party. This magazine reports on everyone, especially old football stars. Plus Isabel comes from royalty.”
“What the fuck?” I exclaimed.
“Holyyyyy,” Polly said breathily.
A sly smile came across Beatriz’s face. “You don’t really talk about her very much, do you?”
“Mateo doesn’t like to.”
“Well, I don’t blame him,” she said.
I gave her a sharp look. “Why? Is she a bitch?” And suddenly I was super hopeful that she was some raging psycho bitch so that I’d feel better about having feelings for her husband.
“Not really,” Beatriz said carefully. “People say she is quite nice and pleasant. Polite. Though she probably wouldn’t be with you. Understandably.”
Damn. “So she’s royalty?”
“More or less,” Beatriz said with a one-shouldered shrug. “Isabel’s mother, Paloma, was in line to be heir or something, but then Paloma’s mother, Penelope, renounced her claim to the Spanish throne. I can’t remember why. Something political at the time. I do think her grandmother is still called a Duchess though, but it probably is just a formality.”
“Wow,” I said. Great. So she’s pretty, polite, and quasi-royalty? I could never, ever compete with that.
“Yes,” she said, studying me. “But there have always been rumors and talk about those two.”
I didn’t want to ask but my eyes did it for me.
Beatriz went on. “You see, Isabel is very nice and pretty, but she is not perfect. The rumor, according to Atletico’s owner, was that Mateo was fine to return to play. He was only thirty at the time—he was in great shape, at his peak, as you say. The tear wasn’t all that bad, the one in his knee. But Isabel convinced him to give it all up. To get away from the lifestyle she considered too wild.”
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