by Karina Halle
“I would pay for your ticket, Vera,” she said. “It’s not a matter of punishment here, I just can’t swing it. Not with Mercy’s wedding.”
Of course. I rolled my eyes and yet still managed to ask my mom how the wedding was going. For some reason, I thought the wedding planning would have brought joy to my mother’s life, but she seemed perpetually annoyed about the whole thing. Perhaps Mercy and Charles were pissing her off too with their demands.
I told her not to worry about it, that I now had a way home and just had to pay my friend back. She sounded vaguely happy about that, which gave me a smidgen of hope for my return. Hope was a dangerous thing, I knew, but it didn’t stop your heart from latching on to it like a life raft.
Thursday night, however, the night before Claudia’s paycheck, my mother called me back.
“Vera?” she asked.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, panic never too far away from me. Did something happen to Josh? Dad? Mercy?
“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all. I just called to let you know that I bought you a ticket home.”
“What?” I asked, completely floored.
“It’s on Sunday at five p.m., a red-eye. Do you have a pen? I have a confirmation number for you here.”
I scrambled for a pen, totally blown away. I hated owing my mom, but I knew deep down she could afford it. Claudia couldn’t. She had signed up for a big favor by offering to lend me a thousand dollars for my flight home, and I would have been eaten by guilt until I paid her back, something that would have taken a long time.
My mother told me the number and I wrote it down with all the details. Five p.m., Air Canada, on Sunday. Stopover in Toronto with a four hour layover. It all sounded like hell, but I didn’t care at this point.
I thanked my mom profusely and hung up the phone.
“What is it?” Claudia asked, coming out of the kitchen with a bottle of wine for our girl’s night.
“My mom bought me a ticket. I leave for home on Sunday.”
Her face fell slightly as she placed the bottle of wine on the coffee table. “Oh.”
“What?” I asked. “I thought you’d be happy. I’m saving you money.”
“I know,” she said. “But…” She plopped down on the couch and brushed her hair out of her eyes. “I thought maybe I could have convinced you to stay.”
“Why would I stay?”
“Because you love it here.”
“Claudia,” I said, “I don’t love it here. I love you. Ricardo. Your cat. Okay, I do love Madrid, I do love Spain. But if I stay here, it will just remind me of why I came. It will remind me of Mateo.”
“Then go back to him,” she blurted out.
I frowned at her. Claudia had never given me any advice or any input into this whole thing. “What?”
She sighed and stared up at the ceiling. “I just think you are making a mistake if you get on that plane.”
“Why?”
“Because Mateo loves you and you love him, and while you think love doesn’t conquer all, I think it does. Vera, you need to go back to him.”
“I do not,” I said. “He hasn’t even tried to get in touch with me.” Except for that one text, I thought, the one I keep replaying in my head over and over again.
“Because he thinks that you’ve made your mind up, or maybe he even thinks you’re gone.”
I shook my head. “I made the right choice. I don’t need you to second guess me right now!”
“Just…” Claudia stammered, looking for words. “I don’t want you to go either. You need to stay here. This is where you belong.”
And then Claudia started crying.
My heart melted. She wasn’t a big crier and I didn’t want to leave her either.
“Claudia,” I said to her, bringing her into my arms. “This is still a happy ending.”
“How?” she sobbed. “You’re my friend and you’re leaving me. You’re Mateo’s love and you’re leaving him. You’re leaving the ones you care most about and the ones who care most about you.”
“But don’t the best stories, the best experiences, aren’t they about character growth and change?” I asked. “Aren’t they about sacrifice? This is just something I need to do. I’ll be happy again. So will you. So will Mateo.”
“You don’t need to justify your actions to yourself,” she said into my shoulder.
I pulled back and eyed her. “I’m justifying them to you.”
“No,” she said, meeting my gaze. “You’re not. You’ve been trying to explain everything away from the minute you called me up on the phone, telling me that you left Mateo. You keep repeating over and over again that you are doing the right thing, that you are doing what needs to be done for the greater good. Did you ever stop to think that you may not have a fucking clue what you are talking about?”
My mouth flapped open, slightly aghast. “I do know.”
“No, you don’t. You say you do and you don’t. You know nothing, Vera, nothing about Mateo and what he wants. He’s the one who is going through the divorce. He’s the one going through all of it, center stage. He is older, you know, he knows what is going on, he knows Isabel and his daughter. He is making the best decisions for everyone. You cannot make those decisions for him. You have no idea.”
A cold feeling came over me. “Has he talked to you?”
She looked away.
“Has he?!” I screeched, getting to my feet.
“He called me a few days ago,” she said. “He asked if I knew where you were. I told him you were still here and you hadn’t gone home yet. We were waiting for my paycheck. He asked me how you were doing.”
“And?!”
“And I told him what you’ve been saying for the last ten days.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said he loved you.”
“That’s it?”
“It’s not enough?”
The thing was, it was enough. Just not enough to keep me here.
“You’re only doing the right thing because you’re trying to get rid of your guilt,” she said to me. “But wouldn’t you rather have some guilt and be happy than be miserable and not feel guilty?”
“One way is selfish and the other way isn’t.”
“Vera,” she said patiently. “You are selfish by nature. So am I. So is Mateo. It’s why he left his wife, so that he could be happier. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be happy and believing you deserve to be happy.”
I shook my head, refusing to believe that.
She got up and put her hand on my shoulder. “Look, I don’t know who has been telling you over the years that you aren’t worthy of love and happiness, but they’re idiots. We all deserve it. And if people get hurt along the way, that’s life. We’ve all been hurt. Doesn’t that make love more crucial to our lives? Did you ever think that loving Mateo hasn’t been punishment for the wrong you’ve done but payment for the shit you’ve gone through? Vera Miles, you are a lovely, beautiful, funny, generous, great human being and I am honored to call you my friend. Don’t let anything else color that or rob you from the happiness that you do deserve. Tell those voices in your head to shut the fuck up.”
At that I burst out laughing. Crazy happy and sad tears that rocketed through me, turning me hysterical. I wanted to believe Claudia so badly. I really did. I wanted to say she was right and a small part of me knew she was right. The part that burned for Mateo, that still believed in us, that believed that everything would be okay.
But it was too late now.
I hugged her, bringing her close to me, wishing I didn’t have to let go.
Chapter Thirty-One
On Saturday night, my last night in Madrid, Claudia and Ricardo took me out to the bars. I hadn’t really left the apartment for two weeks, and definitely hadn’t gone back into the city, so I felt like I had to have the Madrid experience one last time.
We walked through cobblestone streets, the night soft on our shoulders, the air filled with laug
hter. I hung on to every single smell—garlic, chilies, fish—and on to every sound—the chatter of Spanish, the classical guitar that wafted out of the bars, the cries of people having a good time. I soaked up everything that assaulted my senses because I knew, I knew, it was my last time to ever experience this place.
I wanted to leave on a good note. I wanted Madrid to brand me, make one last mark on my soul that I wouldn’t forget.
And because of this openness, this willingness to take what I could get while I could get it, I kept thinking that maybe by luck, maybe by chance, maybe by the fate of those motherfucking stars, I would run into Mateo. Just to see him one last time.
What I wouldn’t give to see his beautiful face one last time.
My god I loved that man.
And that night, I allowed myself to feel every part of that love. Everything he had ever made me feel. I rolled in the memories, letting them scar my skin. I relived them, telling myself that I was lucky to have known him, to have been loved like that, to have loved like I did. I’d told myself that our love never had been free, but that was a lie. I had loved him freely, beyond restraint or constriction.
I had loved and always would love Mateo Casalles.
There was no one else.
Claudia, Ricardo, and I were winding down the night at some quiet bar when I got a call from Josh. I took the phone outside, staggering a bit thanks to the copious amounts of sangria.
“Hello?” I said into the phone as a bunch of drunk chicks stumbled past me.
“Vera,” Josh said. “Hey, you got a minute?” He was slurring a bit which made me think he was probably drunk.
“Kind of,” I said. “Just out in the city. Last night and everything.”
“Right. Good.”
“Josh.”
“Yes?”
“Why did you call?”
“There is something I’m not supposed to tell you.”
I pursed my lips for a moment. “Well, now you know you have to tell me, right?”
“Vera, Mom didn’t buy you that plane ticket.”
“Okay…”
“Mateo did.”
Stunned.
I was absolutely stunned.
“What?” I hissed into the phone. “Why? How?”
He sighed. “He called my cell the other day. I guess he knew the number for emergencies or whatever. He asked to speak to Mom.”
“I don’t understand.” My heart started pounding wildly in my throat, at just the thought of Mateo calling my brother, talking to my mom.
“Mom said he made her promise not to tell you. He had heard that you needed a way home. He offered to pay for your ticket. Mom said sure. He told her that you needed to be with people you loved. That he was sorry. That this was a gift. That you should have your family with you.”
I was utterly conflicted over this. Completely torn down the middle. One side of me appreciated the gesture, the generosity of Mateo that had never failed me so far. That he was mature enough to understand what I wanted, to want to help me even if it cost him.
The other side of me was splintering. Because he was telling me it was okay to leave. He was giving me his blessing. The flight was a parting gift. It was only fair—he flew me to Spain to begin with.
“Vera?” Josh asked.
“Yeah,” I said, rubbing the heel of my hand into my forehead, trying to put some sense in my brain.
“Are you okay?”
“I guess.”
“Should I have not told you?”
I thought about it. “I guess if you hadn’t…maybe I would have wondered if he hated me. But…now I know he doesn’t. He just finally agrees with me. That I did the right thing.”
“Yeah.” He breathed out. “I guess so. I’m sorry.”
I breathed out and looked up at the sky. “Yeah. Well, I guess I’ll see you in a couple days.”
“I have your info. Mom and I will see you at the airport.”
I hung up the phone and stared out at the plaza across from me, at the people enjoying the Saturday night, the vibrancy in the air. I always felt like I belonged here. Even with the shit Mateo and I had gone through, I still felt like Madrid was my home. Hell, I felt Mateo was my home too. There had never been a moment that I thought I didn’t belong here.
I was going to miss this place, the way it made me move, made me dance, made me love, made me live. And now I was leaving. I could only hope that the Vera that returned to Canada could manage to hold on to Spain somewhere deep inside her soul.
I had lost it once before. I didn’t want to lose it again.
The next morning, I woke up slightly hung over—it was a fitting goodbye to Spain. After Josh’s call, I went back inside the bar and decided to keep drinking and dancing my face off. Eventually I told Claudia about Mateo’s purchase. She was actually upset, not understanding why Mateo would send me off without a fight. It didn’t seem like him.
“Maybe he’s going to be at the airport,” Ricardo spoke up from the backseat as Claudia drove me to the airport.
I would be totally fucking lying if I hadn’t been secretly wishing for that the whole entire time. What woman didn’t want the dramatic airport reunion scene, the guy running up to her gate at the last minute? I had hoped that maybe that was Mateo’s plan. Seemed I wasn’t the only one.
“That would be more like Mateo,” Claudia said. She gave me a quick look. “But if that doesn’t happen, are you going to be okay? You’re going to need to be okay if he doesn’t show up.”
I sucked in a breath and stared out the window at the Spanish landscape as it flew by. Of course it was nice and hot on the day I left. It would probably be raining when I got home. And would I be okay? Would I be okay with Mateo never showing up, with going back to Canada as planned, alone, on my own, with a scattered life to return to?
Would I be okay?
No.
I wouldn’t be.
Not at first.
But in time, somewhere, deep inside I knew I would be. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not a week from now, maybe not a year. But at some point in time, in this universe and among these stars, I was going to be okay just being me. Just being Vera Miles.
With that strengthening thought, we arrived at the airport. I hugged Claudia and Ricardo at the curb, not wanting to delay our goodbye any longer.
Claudia held me tight, crying into my hair. “I promise to come to Vancouver. Ricardo and I. We’ll do it as soon as we save up. Maybe in the winter for skiing? You could take us to Whistler Mountain.”
“Absolutely,” I said, hoping that Claudia would stay true to her word, that she wouldn’t forget about me over time, forget about what she meant to me. I wanted her as a friend for life, someone to overcome distance and cultures. I think we could make it last.
At least I had that.
I dried away stray tears with my knuckles, trying not to smudge my makeup. I smiled at the two of them, putting on my brave face. “Well,” I said. “Adios.”
Claudia and Ricardo both waved at me sadly. I pulled my bags toward the checkout counter and turned back to see them one last time. Claudia was crying into Ricardo’s shoulder and he was leading her back to the car. I felt my throat pinch again, the sobs wanting to escape. I took in a deep breath and sucked it down.
I went to the Air Canada counter and put on a fake smile that I could barely wear, getting my tickets and checking my bags. All the while I kept looking over my shoulder and searching for Mateo. Was he going to come? Would he show up? Dammit, he had to do it soon. He knew what flight I was on and what time, he bought the damn ticket.
“Are you traveling alone?” the desk agent asked me, noticing my wandering eye. “Or waiting for someone else?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I’m alone.”
She must have caught the sorrow in my voice because she gave me a soft smile. “I like flying alone. It’s one of the few times where you have to pay attention to yourself.”
I nearly sobbed at that. I gave her
a tight smile, my eyes welling up. I thanked her, got my tickets, and took off for the security checkpoint.
I wanted to stall on my way through there, knowing that Mateo couldn’t go through without a ticket. I wanted him to catch up with me and take me in his arms and tell me he loved me and that everything was going to be okay. I wanted him to be my home again.
I wanted him in every way I could.
But he never came.
After security, I headed to my gate, still harboring the tiniest seed of hope that he would still somehow come through. Maybe he was on my plane, as ridiculous of a notion as that was.
I was such a dreamer. A romantic deep down inside. After everything I pushed away, I still believed in that great big love, the one that you would create stars and galaxies and universes for.
When the plane boarded, I got to my seat—window, my favorite—buckled up my seatbelt and curled up into a ball, leaning against the window and trying to shield my eyes from the passengers who were still getting on. I felt the people sit down beside me but I didn’t dare look at them. I didn’t dare make a sound. I just let the tears stream down my face as I stared at my last view of Spain. I sobbed silently during take-off. I tried to compose myself as we hit cruising altitude. This was a private moment for me. This was me saying goodbye to Spain.
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine all my best memories, Mateo’s wonderful face, his hands on my body, the feel of being in his arms, Claudia’s smile, the late nights, the sunshine, the feel of the air, the taste of the wine. If I tried hard enough, I could even smell Mateo’s cologne, ocean fresh. It brought me the smallest bit of comfort.
I had to be okay.
As the country of Spain became a distant land below me, as the clouds formed over Portugal, as the continent of Europe carved out its name into the Atlantic, I had to be okay.