Timeless love

by Priscila Serrano

“My father told me to come and talk to you. He said your feelings for Chloe are not clear. Is that true? You don’t know what you feel for her?” Elsa said all that without thinking, because if she had thought it through, she was sure she wouldn’t have talked.

  “You know what I feel.”

  “You don’t show it. Moreover, you seem happy with this decision. Maybe it’s true that you want to get married to her after all…”

  He approached her, not caring if they got discovered. Maybe Leonard would find them. He hugged her against his chest, pushing her deeply inside his soul, although she had never left that spot.

  Elsa was shaking like a leaf and felt she was falling in a vacuum.

  “Never again doubt what I feel for you, Elsa,” he whispered in her ear, provoking an array of feelings to explode in her chest, forcing her to open her mouth to inhale. She was feeling quite breathless. “I will wait for you in the basement tonight.”

  Not giving her any moment to reply, he pulled apart from her and got out of the kitchen.

  He wasn’t sure of what he was doing. She wasn’t sure of what would happen. Both of them were crazy… They both wished for darkness to fall over the house so nobody could see them. They loved each other so much that their lips longed to be together, showing thus that nothing would change and, if they really tried, their history would have a different ending.

  London. 2015

  Jealousy. Elsa felt that when she saw Chloe hugging him. He let her do that, although he never stopped looking at Elsa.

  Fear. She was so scared to lose that thread of hope he had shown when he asked her to meet in the basement. She feared it could possibly be a real goodbye, and not what Stefan pulled off when he came back from his trip. It could be guilt forcing him to act in that way instead of the love he felt for her. It could be the desire she felt, the one that was growing and getting stronger.

  Her chest went up and down so forcefully that she would need oxygen soon. Her heart was beating too strongly and she feared having to go the hospital with a heart attack.

  No. Definitely, she would have to wait until everybody was tired and went to sleep, so she could run into his arms before reality hit her in the face again.

  Chapter 19

  London. 2015

  Dinner was quite the ordeal. Alicia’s accusatory glances were harder and harder, and she was sure her father had noticed the change of attitude between them. They had always been very close and, supposedly, the trip should have made them feel even closer. But it did quite the contrary.

  Around eleven o’clock, they were in the living room. The “grown ups” were sipping wine while Elsa was sitting in a corner, looking out of the window like a little girl who waited for her parents to be tired so they could went to bed. That was how everybody was making her feel. Everybody, including Stefan. But of course she couldn’t get too close to him because his sister was keeping an eye on his every movement and every gesture dedicated to Elsa. It wasn’t easy to live like that, and they both knew everything would blow in their faces after a while.

  “Bored?”

  A voice at her right woke her up from her daydreaming. She looked up to see who it was, and she got surprised to see it was Chloe.

  “Can I sit down?” She pointed at the chair next to hers. Elsa nodded, unable to speak.

  They had always been nice to each other, since she wasn’t a bad person even if she didn’t like her for Stefan.

  A few seconds in silence were enough for Chloe to realize her relationship with Elsa was over, and it was impossible to fix it. She knew how important that teenager was for her fiancé; too important to her liking.

  “Are you okay? I haven’t seen you smile the whole evening,” she mentioned, having a sip of her drink under Elsa’s watchful glance.

  “I’m just tired. I was thinking of going to sleep now,” she said. “You know, I’m not old enough to have fun with the adults, and you will have more fun without little girls around.”

  Her sarcasm was too annoying and, at that moment, it was even more so. Chloe wasn’t stupid and knew exactly that Elsa’s mood swings had to do with her wedding. Now she had to find out what was behind all that. She pondered for a second if the truth was that Elsa was in love with Stefan. And then, did Stefan feel the same? It could be the reason why he cancelled their engagement previously.

  “Of course. I won’t keep you up. I understand you don’t have fun with us. I hope you are already over eighteen by the time of our wedding, so you can have a better time.”

  Chloe didn’t want to say that, but she did it anyways to see how Elsa would react. Elsa showed a fake smile while standing up and, leaving her hanging, she headed to the center of the living room, where everybody was talking animatedly.

  “Are you going to bed, honey?” Corina asked.

  “Yes, I’m too young to understand what you are talking about. Besides, I should go to bed soon, like a little girl.”

  Corina looked at her with wide eyes, lifting an eyebrow.

  Elsa turned around without waiting for anybody’s reply and headed to the stairs.

  “Elsa, wait!”

  His voice… He had followed her, worried and angry.

  “Stefan, leave her alone,” Chloe intervened, pissed off because she had less and less doubts about Stefan’s feelings.

  “No, she is right. We have behaved like total assholes and she felt excluded. She is not a girl anymore, for fuck’s sake.”

  Alicia and Corina exchanged a glance and looked down sheepishly. They were ashamed. They knew Stefan was right.

  “It’s true. Elsa is seventeen and we shouldn’t treat her as if she were thirteen,” Leonard stated, admitting that Stefan was right. “Go and talk to her, Stefan. She would listen to no one but you.”

  Stefan nodded and turned around to go upstairs.

  Elsa slammed her door closed when she got to her bedroom. She didn’t want to see anybody at that moment, and she didn’t want to see Stefan. The atmosphere was too tense as to face him right then.

  She walked to her bathroom and started getting undressed so she could take a relaxing shower. While she was under the warm stream of water, lots of nonsensical ideas filled her mind. One of them was running away without looking back so she could live her life in a place away from him. Seeing him on a daily basis was a torture she wouldn’t be able to handle over time. She knew that everybody would know about them sooner or later and it would be the end of a happy family who didn’t seem to have any secrets. They were all wrong, even her father. He was the one who knew the least about the situation, although it was safer to say he didn’t know anything at all. If he had any suspicions, he wouldn’t have asked Stefan to go after his daughter.

  She got out of the shower. She covered her body with a tiny towel, since she couldn’t find a different one. She then left the bathroom with her hair dripping wet and her body practically naked. Then she felt burning in an instant, turning into hot lava after receiving his roaming look all over her body.

  “What are you doing here? Nobody ever told you that you have to knock before entering a room? Because of that annoying habit of yours we are in this situation. If you hadn’t entered my room that morning, none of this…”

  He approached her and, after cupping her cheeks, kissed her with that powerful desire he was having trouble to control it. He couldn’t wait any longer. He needed her. She needed him.

  He couldn’t stop. That mouth of hers made him crazy. Those lips were making him lose sight of his life’s purpose.

  His hands descended from his cheeks to her hips, where he squeezed her slowly, making himself moan because she drove him crazy. If he thought he would go mad when he heard her moan, then he was absolutely crazy. Overall, he was fucked.

  “We can’t. Not here,” she muttered, unable to pull apart from him.

  Stefan had slipped his hands inside her towel, touching that soft skin he loved so much. He was dying to kiss her and touch her with care and time, using all the time in the
world. So what happened when time was an obstacle between them?

  “I need you, Elsa… I love you,” he said, stunned, making a huge effort not to kiss her again.

  He was forbidding his mind to host any thought leading him to lose his head completely and make love to her right there, not caring about the consequences of his acts.

  And those acts were the ones leading him to an abyss he wouldn’t be able to escape. If it was dangerous that Corina and Alicia knew about them, now Chloe knew too, her suspicions confirmed. She knew eavesdropping behind Elsa’s door hadn’t been a good idea, and her heart was aware of that.

  But she wouldn’t say anything. She wasn’t ready to lose the man she loved, let alone for a whim, because she was sure that was what Stefan felt for Elsa. Although that didn’t mean she didn’t feel repulsed when she heard them. Tired and feeling like crap, she turned around and stomped going downstairs, so they would realize there was someone nearby. She wasn’t sure whether she had done it so they would stop doing what they were doing, or to warn them so nobody would catch them.

  When she got downstairs, she left the house without saying goodbye. She didn’t feel like partying, and her tears were so visible that everybody would notice them and she would have to explain herself.

  Elsa and Stefan, after hearing the footsteps, pulled apart immediately and then they could breathe normally. She went to the window.

  “I think it was Chloe,” Elsa mentioned, turning to him again. “She just left.”

  “Good. In that way she will call the wedding off.”

  “If you don’t want to marry her, why are you doing it? You mustn’t let anybody manipulate you,” she said, grabbing a pair of shorts from her desk chair and putting them on in front of him.

  She also grabbed a t-shirt and looked at Stefan with a raised eyebrow.

  “Can you turn around, please?”

  “Oh, come on. I have already seen you.” Elsa made a spinning gesture with her index finger. “Okay then,” he said with a smile that made him look younger.

  It had been too long since the last time she had seen him smiling. That smile repaired the piece of her heart that had broken when she knew he was going to get married.

  She removed the towel and put on the t-shirt after drying herself off. When she finished, she went to the bathroom in search of a dry towel to dry her hair, which was still dripping wet. When she came out, Stefan was still giving her his back, so Elsa could look at him at will. She hugged him from behind, making him shiver. Stefan covered her hands with his and lifted them so he could kiss her knuckles. He was dying to kiss her again, so he turned around to do what he really needed.

  He kissed her with so much love that stupid tears filled her eyes.

  It was so nice to feel such a strong love that she was afraid to lose it. Elsa couldn’t stop thinking about getting away so she wouldn’t hurt anyone. But maybe they loved each other so much that distance would shake with fear. Because that was what they needed, they needed to get away from each other so they could forget about the other. Moving on to the next stage of their lives without fear to be discovered for having fallen in love with the wrong person. Because fear was a horrible feeling that could make you drown, and that love was so big that didn’t deserve to be hurt by fear.

  London. 2016

  Maybe living without him was the solution? She had kicked him out of her life just like that. She would regret it for good. But nothing she could do or think would make him come back. Time couldn’t go back so they wouldn’t commit the same mistakes. Time was something that kept moving forward, caring very little about what got lost in the way or got destroyed during the fight.

  Sitting at the desk in her bedroom the night before starting college and moving out, as she so wanted to do, she started to write. It was a habit she had acquired some time ago when she felt blocked or cornered. It was the only way for her to pour the feelings bottling up in her chest, leaving her breathless. Lately, that happened to her a lot. Mainly since he wasn’t there.

  I wish one day you look back without feeling sorry for leaving something unfinished

  I wish your next step makes you live truly

  I wish you can look ahead without fearing to fail

  I wish your world keep on breathing.

  Chapter 20

  London. 2015

  Stefan paced his room, lost in his thoughts. Everything was starting to fall apart and it would drag them down.

  Now Chloe knew it too; she had told him in a text message, including a few choice words she couldn’t avoid adding. His soul bled for having hurt a woman who gave him all her love, everything about her. The problem was that what Chloe gave him wasn’t enough. Elsa had shown him that.

  Chloe was asking him to stop, but he couldn’t do it. How did one do that? It was impossible when Elsa had burrowed her way so deeply inside his heart. If she had been able to make him forget everything going on around him, then she would manage to make him lose his mind.

  He needed her the most at that moment. He was looking forward to everybody going to sleep, so he could escape to the basement and hide in her arms. Elsa was feeling anxious for the same reason. They were so connected that it would be quite difficult to get away from the other.

  At two in the morning, tired of waiting, he left his bedroom with the clear intention of doing what he most wanted. He walked slowly so nobody could hear there was someone in the hallway. It was the only way of meeting.

  When he arrived to the basement, he was surprised to see Elsa was already waiting for him, sitting on the old sofa. She was staring in front of her while he approached to her stealthily. He didn’t want to bother her; he just wanted to watch her. But she felt his presence before he could get to her and turned her head. After seeing him, their eyes locked, entering a different world to the one they lived in. Hidden under that blue iris that provoked storms.

  “Hi,” he muttered, sitting next to her.

  “Hi,” she replied, staring in front again.

  They had gone through a lot of things together, and yet, they found extremely difficult to behave normal when being in private. They knew the moment one of them took the first step, it would be mayhem and they would lose control.

  “Chloe knows,” he said all of a sudden, making Elsa feel nervous. “I don’t know what she will do now…”

  “Is the wedding still going to happen?” she interrupted, asking him the only thing that was really important to her.

  “That’s not the important thing right now, Elsa. If your father knew…” Stefan sighed. “I don’t know what he would do to you.”

  “He won’t do anything to me, Stefan. At most, he would ground me as if I were a little girl, because that’s what I am in the end.”

  For an instant, their conversation was going the wrong path. The topic of her age was something that worried her too much. She was in love with a man who was eight years her senior, and that made her feel inferior to the rest of the women who had been involved with Stefan. Because she thought she would never be enough woman for him and that, as much as she tried to deny it, was what hurt her the most.

  “I don’t consider you as a little girl, Elsa. And of course I don’t care about our age difference,” he explained, remembering for a second his own thoughts when everything started.

  If they looked back, they would remember how Stefan had thought the same as the rest at the beginning, but his feelings existed, they were there, hibernating, waiting for him to open his eyes and accept that love.

  “But I am, and that’s something that will never change.” Elsa got up. “Stefan.” She pronounced his name in a whisper he could hardly hear. “I love you more than my own life and I think I will never feel this love for anybody else, but…”

  “Don’t say that now, Elsa. Not when we love each other so much. Not when the only thing I need is to have you in my arms, kissing you for hours, days… for my whole fucking life. Do you understand? I won’t let anything or anybody to pull us apart.�
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  He hugged her tenderly, kissing her softly, and an involuntary moan escaped from her throat when Stefan’s tongue entered her mouth. That unleashed all the craziness and made him wish to see her naked body so he could caress every corner of her slim body. Elsa wasn’t short, so her legs were a mile long and he longed to kiss her slowly, enjoying her skin.

  On the sofa, she was trapped by his body while their hands travelled all over their skins, taking off every clothing item as if they were about to burn. It was exactly that somehow.

  “Make me yours, Stefan. Do it at once,” she begged.

  He stared into her eyes, afraid of how much hurt he could inflict on her. Elsa was so wonderful and important to him that it was no wonder he felt as if it was his first time as well. What he wished the most was making love to her. And he couldn’t even dream with that moment because he couldn’t conceive that a girl like her could ever notice him.

  He didn’t answer. Then Elsa took control of the situation and kissed his lips with passion, teasing him, looking for the man who desired her body, the man who looked for the way not to drown in his own life full of lies. She wanted the same thing. She wanted to save herself from that whirlwind that dragged her down even more. If he were the first one, nothing else would matter. She let herself go to be fully absorbed by his lips, his hands, under his naked and warm body. Both of them were naked already, fully exposed.

  After rolling a condom over his length, he entered her slowly while his lips kissed as many parts of her body as he could. Stefan kissed her lips and kept descending down her chin, lingering in her neck.

  “I love you, Elsa,” he declared while taking possession of her body, since her soul already belonged to him.

  Stefan made love to her slowly and with all his heart. He was giving her everything he hid inside him at that moment.

  Hours passed by at such a speed that made it impossible to escape. As usual, they had to blame time for pulling them apart until their next meeting. It was clear that, from that moment on, they wouldn’t miss any chance of feeling each other’s skins. Such a strong love shouldn’t be destroyed. With that thought, Elsa fell asleep in his arms.