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 laughter. 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.