I fill up the sink a few inches, put the stopper in it, and hold my hands out for the flowers which she is subtly sniffing.
“They’re nice,” she says as she hands them to me.
“Grateful for our long growing season here,” I say as I stick the roses in the sink. “You can use the pitcher as a vase, after we’ve drank everything.”
“Yeah, the apartment didn’t come with too much,” she says, looking around.
“You can always add your own touches, no?” I say. “Can’t say I see any of your personality in here.”
It’s true. It’s a nice place, warm sunny walls with dark wood furnishings, but other than a few stock framed photos of Madrid and a throw over the couch, it might as well be a hotel room.
“I don’t have the time,” she says somewhat defensively, slowly walking out to the middle of the room while I get started on the sangría, bringing out a small plastic cutting board from IKEA and some cheap knives.
I groan in disgust at how badly they cut, even through an orange. “And you don’t even have sharp knives. This is a mockery of a Spanish kitchen.” I glance at her curiously. “What was your other apartment like?”
She shrugs. “The same. I mean, this place is much better.”
“Did you have your own stuff?”
“Yeah, I had some furniture and things from the divorce.” You can tell she doesn’t want to talk about it.
But I can be pushy. “So, how come that stuff didn’t make its way here? I’m sure you had some personal items that you liked or that meant something to you.”
She gives me a small smile and plops down on the bar stool across from me. “You know what? I don’t know. I never really thought about it.”
“What did you do with them?”
“Gave them away. I donated everything. I guess…I just wanted a clean slate. I wanted to leave every bad part of me behind in Manchester and I wanted to start over.”
That sadness comes back into her eyes, the sadness that she’s been dancing with since the day I first saw her.
“Do you think you’re starting over?” I ask her as I put the chopped fruit into the pitcher. “Or do you feel like this is a temporary stop on your way to somewhere else?”
Her brows knit together as she stares absently at the fruit in the pitcher. “I…hope I’m starting over. I’m not so sure about temporary. What makes you ask that?”
“I just don’t get a feel for you in here. And I don’t get a feel for you in general.”
She looks annoyed. “All because I don’t have my own stuff here? As I said, I’m busy.”
“You work as much as I do, five days a week. If you wanted to, you could start making it like home. But instead you still have Manuel drive you everywhere and you’re still living in this apartment which the club found you. I don’t know, maybe they pay for it, too. They have the money.”
“Is this why you came here? To lecture me about how settled or not settled I am?”
“Maybe,” I tell her, measuring the brandy. “Would you rather that or that I came here because I wanted to fuck you?”
She presses her lips together, blinking.
“Thalia,” I say gently. “We’re just talking. I want to know you outside of work, so here we are. We’re having a conversation. And since I like you a lot, it concerns me if you were just thinking of Real Madrid as a stopping point to some place better.”
She shakes her head. “There aren’t many better places.” She pauses. “Barcelona, maybe.”
“Hey!’ I exclaim, but she’s smiling, knowing how much of a rival Barca is. I quickly do the sign of the cross, press my hands together, and stare at the ceiling, talking to Mary. “Por favor, she did not mean it.”
I pour in the wine and orange juice to mix with the fruit and brandy, mixing it around with a bent IKEA spoon. “I think I know what I’m getting you for Christmas.”
“What?”
“Better cutlery. At least spoons and forks. It’s bad luck to give someone knives, but just promise to stock this kitchen.”
She laughs. “I suppose you’re right. I used to cook a lot, back in England. Or just…before. Since coming here, I’ve just been eating at work and then maybe taking some extra home for dinner.”
“Like a squirrel.”
“Yes. Like a squirrel. Or I grab something to eat at the bar below me. I think I’ve eaten my weight in patatas bravas already. Those tiny potatoes are addicting.”
“Yes, but patatas bravas isn’t dinner.” I grab two wine glasses from her shelf. “What would be your favorite meal to cook? If you had the time?”
She thinks that over, tapping her finger against her lips as I pour the sangría from the pitcher. “I actually do a really good rack of lamb. With rosemary and this mint salsa as a garnish.”
“I’m impressed,” I tell her, sliding the sangría toward her. “Perhaps, one day, you can make it for me.”
“Perhaps,” she says as she picks up the glass. She takes a dainty sip and her eyes light up. “Oh my god. That’s good.”
“I told you.”
“What’s the secret?”
“Love,” I tease her.
She rolls her eyes. “Come on.”
“It’s this,” I tell her, holding up the bottle of Ginjinha. “It’s sour cherry liquor from Portugal. Luciano got me hooked on it.”
“Hooked on it,” she repeats, looking me over. A few seconds pass before she says, “You know, I knew a little bit about you from your games against Man United and the media and all that. I have to say, you’re nothing like I thought you were.”
“You say this after I’ve been inside you.”
She doesn’t blush easily, but her cheeks are going pink, matching the rose blooms in the sink.
“So go on. Tell me more wonderful things about myself,” I coax her.
She clears her throat and has another sip before she says, “I thought you were a hard-partying, screwing every woman, drunk all the time kind of player who didn’t take his job seriously.”
I cringe. “Well, that was me for a few years. I graduated from the youth academy and joined the first team at nineteen. The years nineteen to twenty-one were pretty fucked up. I guess…I mean, how do you get so rich and get so much fame and responsibility at such a young age without losing yourself? I lost myself in it. I made some mistakes. The biggest mistake was just getting that reputation. Not sure when I can shake it loose.”
“I’m not surprised that you went off the rails a bit. Especially since you lost your father.”
I take a big gulp of my sangría and make a noise of agreement.
She goes on, her voice gentle. “Is it true, what you said…that you never really talk about your father with anyone?”
I still, staring down into the glass for a second. Then I glance at her. “That was true. Everything I tell you is true.”
She nods slowly, looking at me with sweet eyes. Beautiful eyes. It fucking kills me to have a counter between us, that I can’t take her in my arms and ravage her, kiss her, flip her on the counter and slip inside her. But I made a promise to myself that I would control myself tonight.
I will follow her lead.
“I guess I never told you that…” she starts. “It really meant a lot to me that you told me that. That you trusted me.”
“Of course I trust you.”
“Only because I’m your therapist. And your health is in my hands. I’ve seen it happen before. Patients, they become dependent on you. They trick themselves into thinking you’re a savior, that you mean more to them than you really do.”
“No,” I say adamantly, my voice raising. “You think I feel this way about you because you’re my therapist? That isn’t it at all.”
Why is she trying to dismiss me so easily?
“Then what is it?”
“What is it?” I ask, shaking my head. “It has nothing to do with the work you’re doing for me. I trust you because I feel I know you. Even if you’re not quick to show y
ourself, I feel like we’re one and the same in so many ways. I feel like we both know loss. I feel like we’re both looking for a connection in this world and we may have found it in each other.”
She’s staring at me like she’s startled, the glass slightly shaking in her hands. She lowers it, self-conscious, and stares at the counter. “What makes you think I know loss?”
“Your eyes,” I tell her. “Because you seemed to sense my loss in some way, from the beginning.”
“My loss isn’t the same,” she says slowly. “I don’t…sometimes I wonder if it’s even loss.” She swallows. “You know how you mentioned a connection? Sometimes I don’t feel like I’m really participating in life. Like it’s just something that’s happening to me but I’m not happening to it. Like I’m a spectator. I felt like that before Stewart and I divorced. Before I found out about the other women.”
She gets up and walks over to the window, staring down at the street below, her face aglow from the streetlights.
I want to follow her, but I also want to give her space. So, I sit back and watch her, wondering if she’s going to start unraveling in front of me. I wonder if she’s going to give me a piece of herself.
“I had been trying to get pregnant for a long time,” she says, her voice subdued, almost dull. “It was never on my radar but Stewart really wanted kids. And I warmed up to the idea. Of course, by the time I was fully invested, I started having fertility troubles. We had tests, there was nothing wrong. It was just…the way it was.” She takes in a deep breath. “Then one day it…took. I got pregnant. I was over the moon with excitement. So was Stewart.”
Since Thalia doesn’t have kids, my heart is aching for her before she even has a chance to tell me what happened.
“I named her Grace,” she says, giving me a tragic smile. “After my grandmother who was my best friend growing up. We didn’t know the gender, of course, but I knew it was a girl. I really thought…and it sounds so stupid to say, God, but it was true. I really thought Grace was my purpose in life, my…connection to the world that I’ve always felt a little bit removed from.”
Her eyes close and she wraps her arms around herself. “Grace was never born. We only had her for three months. I never told my family because we wanted to make sure, you know, they tell you to wait because you could lose the pregnancy and…I lost the pregnancy. I know miscarriages are common. I know they happen to so many women, and mine happened early. But I felt…so alone. So at fault. Because it was my body that my baby was supposed to grow in, my body that was supposed to be a home, and it was my fault that it wasn’t good enough for Grace.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, getting to my feet. “I am so sorry.”
I gingerly walk over to her, stopping close enough to reach out and hold her hand. I give it a squeeze.
She wipes away a tear with her other hand and sniffs, staring out the window. “Stewart was never the same after. That’s where the rift began. I think, I know, he blames me, just as I blame myself. He would never say it but the look in his eyes changed. You know your partner well, and he just started viewing me as someone else entirely.” She lets out a caustic laugh. “Probably helped him justify the cheating. He could pretend I just wasn’t me. Meanwhile, I felt so lost and angry and sad. So fucking sad. And lonely. I had no one to talk to. I didn’t even tell my girlfriends; I don’t know why. I guess I felt ashamed.”
“But you’re telling me now,” I say. “Because you know I will listen to you. Because you know I won’t judge you. Because I can help carry your burdens alongside you.”
“I don’t need you to carry my burdens, Alejo,” she says, her voice cracking. “I just need…someone to…to....”
Another tear spills from her eyes and then she’s crying, breaking down in front of me.
I immediately pull her to me, wrap my arms around her, hold her head against my chest as she sobs. I stroke her hair. “I can be your someone.”
The pain she’s feeling is so visceral, I feel it in my gut like a sharp, sticky pain that gets deeper and deeper, emptier and emptier. The pain reminds me of my father. It reminds me of those years after where it felt impossible to move on and yet everyone around me already had.
I know how it feels to grieve when the loss becomes a phantom, just thin wisps of smoke trailing to the sky. I don’t think you’ll ever feel as alone as you do when you’re alone with grief.
Thalia holds on tight, her hands clutching the back of my t-shirt, and I hold her right back, kissing the top of her head, reassuring her that it’s going to be okay because it has to be okay.
“I don’t know if I ever will be okay,” she mumbles into my chest and then raises her chin to stare up at me, her eyes full of tears. “This pain I carry, it’s the coldest pain.”
My throat feels too thick to swallow.
I know that cold pain too well.
And I know there’s nothing to say to make that go away.
I hold her for a long time. Or maybe it’s just minutes. Time doesn’t seem to live here. She brings her head back and then rests it in the crook of my arm. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“Don’t be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry about.”
She takes in a deep shaking breath and I hold her tighter.
“I’ve got snot all over you,” she says. “You came over here trying to woo me and instead you got snot.”
“It’s an honor to have your snot.”
She lets out a laugh that’s still a little sad, still a little broken, but at least it’s a laugh.
I cup her face in my hands, feeling the warmth of her soft skin against my palms, and wipe her tears away with my thumbs. “Thank you,” I tell her emphatically.
“For what?” Her eyes search mine.
“For telling me your truth. The truth that hurts the most is the truth that needs to be told.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you’re awfully wise for your age?”
“Well, I do turn twenty-four next week.”
“Is that so?” she says, and then her face grows serious as she blinks up at me. “Can you…will you stay with me for a little while?”
The fact that she asked me that makes me feel like the sun is rising in my heart. “Of course I will.”
She frowns. “I don’t mean…I just don’t want to be alone.”
“You won’t be. We can drink more sangría. Watch something stupid on TV. Do whatever you want.”
“I think I’d like that.”
Chapter 15
Thalia
My plans for the evening included Netflix and literally chilling.
By myself.
They didn’t include Netflix and chilling with Alejo and sangría.
And they especially didn’t include conjuring up old pain that still feels like fresh pain and reliving it in front of the man you just let screw you, the man you can’t stay away from, the man you shouldn’t have.
But they say life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans, and if that’s true then life is definitely having its way with me right now.
We’re both sitting on the couch.
His arm is around me.
I’m snuggled up to his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his strong heart.
Happy Gilmore is on Netflix and Alejo is laughing his ass off, even though he’s also quoting every line verbatim. I can’t imagine how many times he’s seen it.
The sangría is all gone, so now we’re sipping the cherry liquor straight out of the bottle, since my woefully equipped apartment doesn’t have shot glasses.
I should be surprised at how perceptive Alejo is, but I’m not. He was in here for a few seconds before he noticed how unlived in this place is. The funny thing is, it’s not like I’m never here. If I’m not at work, or jogging, or eating at the bar downstairs, I’m right here on this couch. It’s all I really have in this city.
And he’s right, I’ve been treating it like a hotel. I dipped my toe into the waters of permanence by attemp
ting to learn Spanish (and look where that got me), but I have yet to buy a car and drive myself to work, or buy new things for the apartment, things that are sorely needed. It’s like I’ve come to Madrid and this job with one foot out the door.
To where, I don’t know.
All I could think about when I was applying for jobs was just getting out of Manchester, getting away from Stewart and the humiliation and the pain. I just wanted to be gone.
And now I’m here. I have a job that’s challenging but I’m rising to the challenges (getting Alejo back to the game will be considered my first success), it’s prestigious, I like the environment (despite the losses), and I really like the people.
Alejo excluded. What I feel for him is more complicated than that.
I need to stop thinking that Madrid is another stop to somewhere else. This is the somewhere else. This is my new life. Maybe it’s a result of being divorced, but there’s a part of me that feels seriously unmoored, like a boat bobbing along in a grey sea, storm clouds in the distance. Like I’ve found a pocket in the weather, a refuge, and I’m just waiting for it to get worse.
Whatever it is, having Alejo here and pointing it out to me is sobering.
First thing tomorrow, I’m going to look into leasing a car.
Give poor Manuel a break.
“You okay?” Alejo asks me softly. I haven’t been paying attention but we’re at the part of the movie where he’s about to punch Bob Barker in the face.
“I’m good,” I tell him. I crane my neck to look up at him. “Muy bien.”
“Muy bien,” he says proudly. He lets his fingers run through my hair, and I close my eyes to his touch.
Honestly, as much as my body is a livewire, wanting and needing him in some dark and desperate, totally forbidden way, I’m also craving this kind of contact. Just to be held. Just to have a warm body to curl up against and pretend it’s sheltering me from the storm of my own life.
“So, is it really your birthday next week?” I ask him.
“Mmhmm,” he says. “Catching up to you.”
The Younger Man: A Novel Page 18