Suddenly Mateo was behind Isabel, holding her arms down at her sides, preventing her from striking me again. But his gaze was focused on me as I held my throbbing cheek, his eyes blazing into mine. “Vera, this is the mother of my child,” he said to me, his voice dark, his brow furrowed. “Please show her some respect.”
My mouth dropped open, my cheek on fire. The fuck? Show her respect? She hit me!
He quickly turned Isabel around and she was back to yelling in Spanish, though now it sounded more like crying. He led her outside and disappeared into the night. Meanwhile I just stood there, dumbfounded and humiliated beyond repair. I felt utterly foolish at what had happened and so embarrassed by what Mateo had said to me that I wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere and never ever come out.
“I am sorry,” Lucia said, coming over to me. She put her arm around my shoulder and tucked a curl behind my ear. “I didn’t want any of this to happen. We were smoking outside and she started yelling at me about you. I knew she wouldn’t go away until she saw Mateo.”
“It’s okay,” I said absently, unable to tear my attention away from the pain in my heart.
“Mateo is trying hard to do what is best for Chloe Ann, you know this,” Lucia said. “And Isabel has not always been the best wife, so she cannot point the finger too much, but she is very proud. That magazine, what she read, she does not take that well. That damages her image.”
“I damaged her,” I said quietly. “I damaged Chloe Ann.”
“No,” she said. “Do not say these things. Isabel’s ego will return to normal one day and Chloe Ann is very strong. Things will be okay.”
I looked up at Lucia’s pretty eyes. She honestly believed what she was saying. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was lying to herself.
Things would never be okay.
Mateo never came home that night.
After the incident with Isabel in the lobby, Lucia and I went back upstairs. Even though I had never told anyone that the party was over, they all knew. When I walked in the door, they were all hanging around the kitchen and giving sympathetic smiles and sad eyes. I gave Claudia a look and she only shrugged apologetically.
They were good people though and they each gave me a heartfelt hug goodbye, promising to go out for dinner and drinks soon. Even Jerry mentioned a possible position at Las Palabras, if I was planning on staying in the city for a long time.
Funny how a few weeks ago I never would have questioned my permanency. Now, even with true friends who cared for me, I was prepared to be run out of town.
Claudia hugged me hard and said she would come and get me for lunch since it was the weekend. My heart swelled at how she was trying to distract me, to make me feel better. Lucia, too, was the same and told me to call her. I was so happy that I had her on my side, though now I wondered whose side Mateo was on.
I went to bed alone, those thoughts swirling around in my head. Why wasn’t Mateo back yet? What was he doing? Did I really anger him by calling Isabel a bitch? Did it not piss him off that Isabel had physically hurt me, that her insults were much more vile? Or did it not matter because I deserved it—because I had always had this coming.
I had no answers and no Mateo.
At four a.m., I got a text from him.
I’m staying the night at the old house, for Chloe Ann. I love you. I will call you tomorrow.
I was going to be sick again. He was staying at their old house? With Isabel? Oh god. I knew he had written that he loved me, and I knew he said he was staying for his daughter, but that didn’t make the sick, sticky feeling go away, the one that gripped my gut from the inside out, robbing me of breath. The feeling knotted itself until I had to roll over into the fetal position and pray for sleep to take me away.
When I woke up the next morning, the sun streaming in through the curtains I forgot to close, the feeling was still there. I couldn’t shake it. It was working its way through me and driving me mad.
Mateo had said we would be our own universe. He made me promise not to give up on us. He had given me so many reasons to believe that what we were doing was right, that love was good, that we could make it work, that the risks were worth taking, that it would be worth it in the end. And I just didn’t know if that was true anymore. And the more I thought about it, about us, the worse the pain inside me got. There were tiny strands of my brain that wanted to latch on to one thought, one thought that I was too afraid to look at clearly. The thought represented pain.
The thought was realizing that maybe this relationship wasn’t going to work.
That it would have to end.
That I would have to end it.
And that by doing so, I would lose everything I tried so hard to get—I would lose my life in Spain, my friends here, my new family, my chance at happiness. I would lose love. I would lose Mateo.
That thought broke me. It fucking broke me. So I dismissed it, I pushed it aside, because it was too great of a task to think about it, and it was too life-altering to even consider. I didn’t want to think about it and realize that it was true, because once I realized it was true, then I would have to do something about it.
I didn’t want to do something about it. I just wanted things back to the way they were.
But really, when was our love ever fucking free?
I didn’t know how long I lay in bed, waiting for Mateo to call me or come home. But after a while it was obvious that he wasn’t.
When the phone finally did ring, it was Claudia. She practically forced me to get dressed and go and meet her. She threatened bodily harm, which I didn’t find very funny considering my cheek was still a bit red from where Isabel had hit me. One of her rings had left a mark that I spent a long time trying to cover up with concealer. Unfortunately, it didn’t cover up the deep humiliation I felt.
The weather had started off sunny when I woke up, but by the time I was heading out the door to meet her, the clouds rolled in and there was a chill in the air. I held my jean jacket around me tight, sad to say goodbye to the hot summer, and hurried along the streets until I got to the Prado museum. Claudia thought the art would take my mind off of things.
It was only as I was running up to the entrance to meet her that I got a text from Mateo.
Where are you? I am on my way home now.
My heart leaped with uncertainty. I quickly texted back.
I just got to the Prado. Meeting Claudia here. Will be back later, going to look at some art.
I waited a few moments for the next text to come. By now Claudia had spotted me and joined my side, looking on curiously but not being nosy. She knew what was up.
He responded: Enjoy the museum, it is very important. See you when you get home. I love you.
I love you too, I texted back. I meant every single word of that. Despite that thought in my head, the one I didn’t want to touch, to feel, to look at, I knew without a doubt that I loved Mateo deeply and with every part of me. It was that love that made things hurt so much.
“What did he say?” Claudia asked.
I sighed. “Nothing really, just that he’s coming back home now.”
I stared at the grand entrance to the palace-like building. People of all ages were lining up to get in. Suddenly I knew that the last thing I wanted to be doing was staring at paintings and sculptures all while I was thinking about Mateo.
“Go,” Claudia said to me with a knowing smile. “We can always go to the museum another day. This will not take your mind off of Mateo if Mateo is in your home, waiting for you.”
“Are you sure?” I asked her.