“I know, it’s just better this way. For me. I’m in a really good place right now with my career and I just want to focus on that.”
She laughed at me. “My dear friend. It’s so scary how much you remind me of me.”
“I’m very honoured that you think that. In fact that’s the best thing I’ve ever heard.” I chuckled.
“Don’t be, I’m a fool.” Her words surprised me.
I blinked several times, not understanding. “Why would you say that?”
“Eduardo Vamiros.” The way her eyes brightened up as she spoke told me the owner of that name was important to her, special.
“Who is Eduardo Vamiros?” I asked offering a gentle smile.
“I met him when I was eighteen. He was a reporter for ESPN at the time. He lived in LA but moved back to Spain when a job came up. We dated for over a year and he asked me to marry him. Of course I said no because I had a career to focus on. That never stopped us from seeing each other, but then it came to a head and neither of us could continue because we each wanted different things. We broke up, got back together, and broke up again because I was still the problem.” Her eyes became glassy as she spoke.
I thought back to all I’d heard and read about her. There had never been any mention of him anywhere. I wouldn’t have missed something so significant. She must have done all she could to keep him out of the media.
“Anyway, just after I got sick, I saw him again. We’d been broken up for years. We’d each seen other people, but no one else came close to him for me—nobody. That man waited until I was at my worst, until I was bald and frail before he came to me and asked me to marry him again.”
My heart squeezed and swelled. “What did you say?” Foolishly, I scanned her fingers for a ring. It was foolish because I’d been here for over two months and hadn’t seen one.
“I told him if I made it through, I’d think about it. That was two years ago. I was about to give him an answer when I got sick again. I restored my health and got all ready to accept then I got sick and told him it would be best if we waited.”
“So he’s still waiting for an answer?”
She nodded slowly. “Brooke, the thing is, it’s not the fact that I made him wait—it’s the worry that I may get sick again and I might not make it back next time. I don’t want to put him through that. I never wanted to put him through that. The first times I said no were definitely idiotic, but after…I felt I loved him too much to have him watch me suffer the way I have, but the joke’s on me.”
“Why?” I understood exactly what she was saying because I would have done the same thing; I just didn’t understand why she thought the joke was on her.
“He doesn’t care about that. All that stuff doesn’t matter. What matters is being together in love, in sickness and in health. All those years wasted, all those years I focused on my career, and look at me. I’m grateful I did so much, but I feel like I have nothing. The joke’s on me because I’m damn certain I could have done all of that with my man right beside me. I could have excelled with him right next to me.”
Her words gripped me, gripped and grasped something inside my soul.
“Will you say yes?”
She nodded and smiled. “I’m going to see him for Christmas. We’ll stay in Spain until the marathon in January and then we’ll take it from there. If I decide to do the next Olympics then that will be it for me. I’ll retire.”
I nodded, liking that plan.
She reached out and covered my hands with hers. “Don’t make the same mistakes I did, Brooke. I think I can consider myself to be your mentor. It was you who christened me as such. Promise me you won’t become like me. If you meet someone give them a chance.”
Her words actually terrified me because that would mean opening my heart up again.
“Love is the only thing I can’t control. I could really do with not being hurt that way again. It’s hard to feel like you’re nothing.” That was it. Craig made me feel like nothing when he cheated on me. I’d worked hard to not feel that way after Mom left and Dad stepped up even in his own depressive state. It didn’t compensate though for the fact that she saw Jayce and I as nothing. Most people at least thought of what they would do about their kids if they split from their partners. She just left us all.
It was that feeling of nothingness, that was why I saw the two incidents as the same. It made me wish I’d taken more care of myself when I was with Craig , and not be so naïve.
“Brooke, everyone is different. That difference is what attracted you in the first place and what makes love wonderful. Learn from the past, but don’t allow it to be the only thing you use to shape your future, or else you could end of lonely, like me. Of course I may get to enjoy the rest of my life with Eddy, but when I look back all I see is wasted years. We could have had children, I could have had him to hold my hand when I was scared and thought I was going to die. I could have had him to love me. All my reasons for not having him in my life were just bullshit. I know our situations are different, but I don’t think there’s any harm in me telling you I want happiness for you.” She nodded and gave me a smile filled with adoration.
“Thank you.” I was grateful to hear that. She was right though. Our situations were different. However, I didn’t miss the similarities and I didn’t miss the sadness in her voice.
I didn’t want to look back on my life and see wasted years with me lonely, but the truth was I was too scared open my heart to the risk of it breaking again.
“You can’t control love to some extent, but what people forget is that you actually can. It’s what we do that counts. Better to love and lose than not love at all. Nothing is truer.”
My heart sparked and I started thinking about Ryan. The man I agreed to have a no strings attached relationship with.
Ryan was the kind of guy anyone could love.
Anyone?
Me.
I meant me.
He was the kind of guy I could love and that was a scary thought.
