by Karina Halle
“I don’t know,” he said. “It is the right thing to do, yes? I just need…more time. To think.”
“About what?”
“About my new universe. I’ve never been one to jump into things without thinking it through. Even with you, I spent a month weighing the pros and cons.”
This was something new to me. “I see.”
“There were only two cons.”
I nodded to myself—I knew what they were. “Do you think she knows?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Things have been distant between us for a very long time. She goes out a lot to parties. Usually I go, but I have turned her down the other night. She didn’t like that. But no, I don’t think she suspects anything.”
I don’t think she suspects anything.
Shit just got real.
“Vera?”
“Yeah?” I whispered, feeling out of breath. “Sorry.”
“Is it getting too much?”
I rubbed my lips together. “Yes.”
“Don’t feel bad,” he said. “You are not the one married.” He sighed, silence wrapping the line for a few beats. “We are both adults. If I could have chosen it any other way, I would have. But…I love you. And I don’t want to deny myself, or yourself, of that, no matter how selfish that might be.”
“I know,” I said as the self-loathing tried to sink its dirty claws into me. He loved me. How could something so beautiful making me feel so ashamed?
“You are still my Estrella,” he said. “Aren’t you?”
“Yes.” I was. And like the stars, I was unreachable, untouchable, oh so far away.
At least, I thought.
“Vera,” he said. Sometimes I think he just liked to say my name for fun, letting it roll off his tongue. “When can I see you again?”
I nearly laughed. He said it as if we’d had our first date and were planning the next. “Mateo,” I said. “That’s not funny.”
“I am not trying to be funny. I’m serious.”
I had no idea what to say to that.
“How about next month?”
“As in August?” I asked, completely confused.
“Yes,” he said. “You have some time before school starts, don’t you?”
“With what money?”
“I will fly you here.”
“And where the hell would I stay?”
“You don’t need to get upset, Vera.”
“Well, I kind of am upset!” I said. “You’re being a tease.”
“I am not being a tease,” he said, his voice gruff. “I told you I was serious and I am. Do you not take me at my word?”
“And where would I stay?” I repeated. “In your house?”
“I would get you a hotel room.”
I laughed at the sincerity in his voice. “A hotel room. Perfect.”
“I do not understand…”
“I will not be your mistress, Mateo!” I shouted into the phone. “I’m not going to fly to Spain for a month and stay hidden in a hotel while you continuously cheat on your wife.”
“But in Las Palabras…”
“That was a different animal and you know it,” I maintained heatedly. “We knew better. What we did was wrong. What we did, I am sure will come back to haunt us in the end. But, please, I cannot willingly go and be your mistress. I can’t let you keep me hidden while you pretend to have this other life at the same time. I won’t do it.”
And now is when the silence felt awkward, but my heart was beating so loudly, the blood in my head so hot, that I barely noticed it. So much time passed that I thought he hung up on me until I heard a bird chirping in the background.
Finally he said softly, “I am sorry, Vera. Very sorry. You’re right, about all of it. I guess…I’m not thinking properly. No, I’m not at all. It is just that I am so…blind, without you. I just want to feel like I did before. I’m desperate for you and I’m not making the right decisions. I am being a total asshole. Forgive me, please.”
Ugh. I put my hand on my chest, pressing down. He sounded so fucking lost; he wasn’t like the Mateo I had known. Then again, I wasn’t the Vera I had known either.
“It’s okay,” I tried to reassure him. “I forgive you. I just don’t know what to do either.”
“I guess the only thing to do is….keep talking?”
I leaned over and turned out the light, settling back under the covers. “I would love that.”
“So,” he said after a pause. “What are you wearing?”
“Vete a la mierda,” I swore at him in my best Spanish accent.
“Go to the shit,” he commented happily. “I like that. I like your pronunciation, it is pretty good. How about saying it this way…”
And so, a week after Las Palabras, Mateo taught me how to swear properly in Spanish until five in the morning, when the stars in the sky started to fade.
Chapter Twenty
Compared to the previous month, the month of July crawled by at a sloth’s pace. In some ways this was good since every day that passed was a day that took me further and further from the Spain version of Vera. It made the memories harder to recreate in detail, it made me forget conversations, forget myself. Every day brought me closer and closer to becoming the old Vera Miles, the one I didn’t want to go back to, so the slower the month went, the better it was.
There was only one thing that kept me going throughout the days, and that was Mateo. Sure, I was enjoying the summer weather and the gorgeous beaches now that the rain had let up. I had gone to Calgary to see my father and Jude, and that was a nice little escape where my dad still spoiled me rotten. I got my job at Waves Coffee back, only I couldn’t get full-time, so I just picked up shifts when I could. I even briefly saw Jocelyn when she came to town, which ended up in a night of debauchery on Granville Street and me in tears because I’d had too much to drink. I couldn’t blame her for hurrying back to Saskatchewan after that.
But, even with all that, it was Mateo who got me up in the morning, looking forward to each day. He was a busy man, still looking into opening a restaurant in London thanks to his fancy English skills, so we didn’t talk on the phone every day. But we texted as much as we could, and sent emails when texting wasn’t good enough.
Sometimes we would talk for hours about everything under the rainbow. Other times we would watch a movie together, trying to get our DVDs on our computer to synch up. The other night we tried phone sex, which was an absolute first for me. I never asked where he was when we were talking dirty to each other, but I tried not to think about it too much. He would pleasure himself while talking wildly in Spanish, and that was such a fucking turn on that it only took me seconds before I was coming. My vibrators definitely got a work out, as did my voice control. No one wants to be a screamer when you live with your mom and brother.
We were pushing the limits with that and yet it only felt natural.
So, in some ways, I was satisfied. My sex life was healthy in its own fantastical way, I was able to keep in contact with him, to hear his voice, to talk and understand and enjoy each other. It was like part two of the relationship, a slower, distant version of what we had at Las Palabras.
But in other ways, I was absolutely miserable. There were only so many times I could hear him whisper that he was biting my nipples without needing him to physically be there biting my nipples. There were only so many times he could tell me he loved me and wanted to hold me without me feeling that hollow ache that he couldn’t hold me in his arms.
The only high point in my day was him, and after a while, that just wasn’t good enough anymore. That depression, that descent into Crazyville that happened right after I landed, that was coming back to me. To make matters worse, I had to start picking courses for the school year and concentrate on what my future would bring—a future that didn’t contain the man who had my heart.
On one extraordinarily hot and humid day, I felt pretty close to snapping. It didn’t help that Mateo and I had a fight of
sorts over the phone in the wee hours of the morning. It wasn’t even over anything in particular, I was just being super bitchy and snippy, and he didn’t take that attitude very well, so the angry Spanish stallion in him came out. I didn’t see that side of him very often, but it made me realize I couldn’t be a bitch for no reason and not get called out on it.
Sleep-deprived and even more pissed off because of our fight, I had spent the morning listening to angry music, which was Faith No More’s King for a Day album. I had it on repeat as I cleaned my room over and over again.
“All right, that’s it,” Josh boomed above the music, suddenly appearing in the doorway. He walked over to the iPod dock and pushed the volume slider down, then leaned against my desk and stared at me, arms folded across his chest. “This has got to stop.”
I spritzed Windex onto my window for the millionth time and frowned. “What?’
“This. Your angry music.”
“So? Don’t be a Patton hater.”
“I’m not a hater. But you’re fucking driving me crazy, Vera,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “To be honest with you, you’re worrying me a little bit.”
Now he had my attention. I turned around fully and faced him, putting the cleaner on the windowsill. “What are you talking about?” I asked, my heart picking up a beat.
He gestured to the music. “You’re playing your angry album every day. You’re cleaning and you never clean. I talk to you, and half the time you’re not even there. You’re just this ghost of who my sister used to be.”
That kind of hurt hearing it from him. Was I really that obvious? I opened my mouth to protest but he went on.
“Then later in the day, or sometimes in the morning, I don’t know anymore, you’re happy like a pig in shit. You’re all goofy, googly eyes, like a fucking muppet, and you’re smiling and it’s great. But you still don’t seem like you’re here. And then you descend into your daily bout of PMS again.” He threw his hands up. “Look, I know we don’t tell each other everything. I know you’re older and you’ve got your own problems and I get it. But, you know, just let me in a bit. It’s hard sometimes, just living life, you know? I feel like you never even came back from Spain at all.”
My throat hurt. My eyes stung. He was right. I hadn’t come back from Spain at all.
He reached over and shut the door. “You don’t have to tell me what happened over there, but…I think it might do us both some good.”
My brother was right. I hadn’t really told him anything. I told him I missed my friends and he knew what the trip had meant to me. But when it came to Mateo, I hadn’t uttered a word. Josh never even knew his name.
He was the only family I could truly trust, could truly count on. He’d been there for me when others hadn’t. I owed him the truth, as silly as it would probably seem in the end.
With a heavy sigh, I sat down on the bed and patted the spot beside me.
“Take a seat,” I said. “I’m about to go all Nicolas Sparks on your ass.”
He reluctantly took a seat, knowing full well how much I hated Nicolas Sparks’ books and movies. I launched into it, from the very moment I stepped on the bus in Madrid, to when I got in the cab and watched Mateo through the rear view mirror.
Josh was wide-eyed, speechless. I went and got myself a glass of water, my throat raw from talking, and then told him about the last month, about our phone calls and how it was all taking its toll on me.
“So,” I said, exhaling loudly. “That’s the whole story. That is the dirty, shameful truth. Do you hate me now?”
He frowned, giving me a puzzled look. “Why would I hate you?”
“Because,” I said. “I slept with a married man.”
“But you’re in love with him,” he said earnestly. “And I’ve never seen you like this before. You don’t do love, Vera. You keep everyone at a distance.”
“I do?”
He nodded. “You may not realize it, but you do. You’re just so wrapped up in your head sometimes, I think. All my girlfriends wouldn’t shut up over the slightest thing, but getting you to open up, it’s like pulling teeth. And this dude, this Mateo, if he can manage to get through to you…I don’t know. I think it’s a good thing.”
Hmmm. The things you find out about yourself.
“That said, I don’t envy you, like, at all.” He got up and stretched his arms above his head. “Because if the two of you are ever going to be together again, even if you just keep doing what you’re doing and talking on the phone like you are, there are going to be consequences. At some point, shit will hit the fan. It always does.”
“Like dad and Jude,” I said sadly, looking down at the fleur-de-lis pattern on my comforter, my fingers absently tracing the lines.
“Yeah,” Josh said grimly. “Like dad and Jude.” His tone lifted. “But that’s an extreme case. Dad and Jude were carrying on for years. He was just stringing mom along, even though I’m sure they weren’t even in love anymore. All I remember were the fights, like mom and dad had always hated each other and were only staying together because of us. But yeah, eventually she found out, and well…we know the rest.”
I couldn’t pretend that I wasn’t thinking about that every time my heart leaped for joy. It was like I hadn’t allowed myself to be happy this whole time because I knew that the happiness was coming from the potential misery of someone else.
“I have to say though,” he continued, “and I’m not excusing Dad because he was being a real dickhead. Totally. But…I see how happy he and Jude are, and part of me understands it. They went about it the wrong way. He should have broken it off with Mom the minute he was attracted to Jude…or at least, you know…I don’t want to get any visuals, but you get what I’m saying. There were always going to be consequences for what they did, but they could have saved a lot of extra heartache by not keeping it such a secret.”
I looked up at him, surprised to see my brother being so insightful and serious for once. Maybe we’d all grown up recently. “I just don’t understand how something like love can be wrong.”
He shrugged. “I don’t think it can be wrong if it comes from a pure place. I suppose you could be like one of those chicks who just keep it all inside and secretly pine for someone for their whole life until it kills them. But you’re not. What you feel isn’t wrong, Vera…it’s not black and white like that.” He cleared his throat. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go get high and purge this estrogen from my system.” He gave me a wink before he left.
With the door closed, leaving me to get back to my thoughts, I felt a little better having confided in Josh. It made me feel like I wasn’t so alone anymore. Unfortunately, talking about it hadn’t solved the problem. I couldn’t really go on like this, every day a battle between my heart and mind, between right and wrong, between the dreams and the reality.
I had to start getting over him.
I started by not answering his phone call later that night.
Then the next.
And the next.
It had been three days since I last talked to Mateo, since I had the talk with my brother. I had hoped, foolishly, that by ignoring his calls, his texts, his emails, that I could pretend he didn’t exist. It wasn’t really working. I was a wreck. I even took after Isabel and mentally began to put my chaos and heartache into tiny little boxes, but I wasn’t sure how long they would hold. I wasn’t as strong as Mateo had been.
On the third night, Josh, sick and tired of my moping, invited me out with his friends again. This time we were going to the Cambie, which was one of my favorite bars. It was situated beneath a somewhat scummy-looking backpacker hostel, and had really cheap pitchers of beer. There were large picnic tables for seating, so you often shared a table with a whole bunch of people you didn’t know. The food wasn’t too bad and there were pool tables and arcade games. The bathrooms were always disgusting though, with stall doors that barely covered you from view and rarely locked. Apparently in the men’s bathroom, you
all had to pee into a long trough.
Still, I loved it. It was cheap and relaxed, with no pretension, and at least one fight every night. Plus in the summer, there was a large patio area where you could sit and drink and ignore the junkies who would pester you for money.
Unfortunately, the patio was full by the time we got there, and we barely managed to snag the end of a picnic table inside. The other half of it had been taken over by a bridal party, the bride wearing bunny ears and a veil and looking totally shit faced. It made me cringe internally. Not that they were drunk and having fun, but that she was getting married to someone—someone wealthy, by the look of the rock on her finger—and despite her drunken antics, she looked completely happy and in love.
I was jealous. I wasn’t completely happy, I was only in love.
I knew it was going to be a weird night. I started drinking my beer fast, going through the pitcher I was sharing with Josh in just ten minutes. Every time the bridal chick mentioned her fiancé, I felt my heart turn black and cold. Meanwhile, I had Adam sitting next to me, who kept rapping his hands on the table and wiping his nose. He’d obviously been doing lines in the bathroom, and I watched Josh carefully to see if he’d been doing the same. We’d both left cocaine behind in high school, though I knew he still did it on occasion.
It just wasn’t for me anymore, so I just got myself another pitcher and proceeded to drink the night away. Soon the pitchers were starting to pile up on the table, and I found myself leaning into Adam, almost like I was flirting with him. I suppose I really was becoming Old Vera again.
I bummed a cigarette from Josh’s friend Brad and staggered out into the warm night air. I felt like I was losing myself, very slowly, draining away like the empty glasses. I had no idea what I was doing, I just needed something, anything to mend my heart, to distract me from the cave inside my chest, to make it all go away. All I could think about was Mateo and where he was, and if he was with his wife. Was he in bed with her? Was he kissing her? Was he falling back in love with her? Each thought was another dagger to my gut, the feelings so physical that my shoulders were curling over as I stood there on the street, enveloped in cigarette smoke.