“That’s a good thing, right?” I asked.
“Yeah. I guess so.”
He hugged me and kissed my forehead. It was warm, nice; hisheartbeat was slow beneath my hand. I closed my eyes again as I heard him confess, “I saw Claudia. She came by the hospital.”
Those words were like a kick to the stomach, and I shivered, unsure how to respond in the silence that followed, unsure if I should say anything. Lucas added, “It was super uncomfortable. She started crying and asking me to forgive her in front of everybody. All I could do was drag her out in the hall so she’d stop bothering everyone. But even there, she kept putting on a show and I finally had to promise her we’d talk.”
“Are you going to do it?”
“I said I needed time.”
That was a yes. Lucas had only told me about his ex once, on a July afternoon, when we were sitting in a tub of cold water trying to keep cool. It was a short tale, brusque, but enough to know she had manipulated him as long as she’d known him. She’d played with his feelings, taken advantage of him, left him a shell of a person. And then he’d had to put himself back together all on his own.
And there she was, two years later, putting on an act, and that was all it took to bend him to her will. I was shaken by how easily she’d done it. “If that’s what you want…”
“It’s the last thing I want, Maya, but maybe my sister’s right, maybe I really do owe it to her.”
Another light went off in my head. “Your sister told you that?”
“She says Claudia and I never truly broke up because I refused to see her after I found out the kid wasn’t mine, and then I left. She thinks we need to get closure on that. Maybe she’s right. Maybe now’s the time.”
I was nearly hyperventilating. The possibility that I might lose Lucas was suddenly becoming real, and I was panicking because that brought home how much he mattered to me.
“I guess…” I said.
“What do you really think?”
“I mean, if she just wants to say she’s sorry, maybe you can listen to her, maybe it will reassure you that you did make the right choice two years ago. Maybe it will make you feel better. She doesn’t matter to you anymore, does she?”
“No, Maya, of course not. I never had any doubt about leaving her, and I have even less now that I’ve seen her again. I don’t feel anything for her. Nothing at all.”
“Nothing?”
He smiled and pulled me in to him, and I curled up into a little ball and let him run his fingers through my hair.
“Unless you count anger and resentment… But even those I don’t feel the way I did before. And maybe forgiving her will help me shed those bad feelings too. And once that’s done, the whole thing will be over forever.”
I wanted to believe him, I really did. I wanted to believe it was as simple as it seemed to him. But a little voice in my head was whispering things I didn’t want to hear.
“I’m so glad you came with me,” he said a few seconds later, sounding like he was about to fall asleep.
“I couldn’t abandon a friend like that,” I said on purpose, throwing an obstacle in his path to see if he’d stumble or skip past it. Because I didn’t know what I was to him, what I meant, and I was too much of a coward to just ask him. If I did, his answer might be the end of me, and I’d have to tell him how I really felt—and the mere idea of doing that paralyzed me.
“Friend,” he said, and patted me on the head.
Disappointment ate into me like acid. I felt love. Pain. Anxiety. Insecurity. Loneliness that wouldn’t end.
Lucas started breathing deeper, and his hands went limp on my body. Mine, though, were holding onto his like a lifeline. And that’s how I fell asleep.
48
Fifteen minutes passed as I tried to decide whether or not to look at Monica’s message. I was scared of what I might find there. The guilt and remorse didn’t help. The realization that I’d screwed up. And that I might have screwed things up for Giulio and Dante, too. I’d run away from everything and everyone, and I hadn’t even bothered looking back.
What did that say about me?That you’re human, Lucas told me every time I brought it up.
But that was no consolation. Life had put me to the test, and I’d failed. And then I hadn’t bothered to face the consequences, even though I knew people were hurting because of what I’d said and what I’d decided not to say. But was I going to keep sticking my head in the sand? Avoiding things had gotten me into this, so I decided to open the message.
It stirred me deep inside. All I found were words of care, a friend concerned about Lucas and me, someone who just wanted everything to be resolved as quickly as possible so we could come home soon.
