Again, he looked at me with surprise mixed with disappointment. It was hard for him, learning he wasn’t the center of the universe. I’d always hated and loved that in him in equal measure.
“Why’d you go then?” he asked.
“Because…”
And without my thinking about them, the words flowed out of me, and he stood still, absorbing them as though he were afraid of ruining something if he spoke up. He gave me his full attention. I think it was the first time he truly ever listened to me. Tried to understand me. Took an interest in what I was saying. All things Lucas had done from the very beginning.
Lucas… The thought of him opened an enormous hole in me. I glanced at my phone and saw I had it on silent, so I’d missed several calls and messages. I wrote him quickly, and he responded immediately, letting me know he had left the hospital and was taking his mother home to get some documents he’d need the next day. He told me to enjoy my time with my friends, and that was the end of the conversation.
I stayed there another hour, then said goodbye to everyone and told Matías and Rodrigo we’d be in touch soon to hang out. Then I caught a taxi back to Lucas’s place.
As soon as I arrived, I showered and got into bed. The sheets were cold when they touched my skin. Autumn had brought with it a drop in temperature, but it was the absence of Lucas’s body that made me shiver.
He arrived maybe half an hour later. I heard him making a racket in the kitchen and then entering the bathroom, where the shower soon started hissing. Afterward, he opened the bedroom door. All he had on was a towel around his hips, and he dropped it on the floor before getting into bed. I didn’t move, even though I was dying to wrap myself around him and feel his warmth. I was angry. Very angry. Whether or not it made sense.
“I’m sorry,” Lucas said.
Hearing my pulse in my ears, I turned and saw him lying on his back looking over at me.
“Sorry for what?”
“Everything. Not being with you, leaving you alone, not having time for us… It’ll just be a few days, I promise. Dad’s getting better.”
He leaned over me, touched my cheek, touched his hot, damp lips to mine. I didn’t want to kiss back, but my will broke when I felt his tongue working its way into my mouth. I moaned: from love, from pain, from anger, from need. When I leaned back to look at him, he was gazing into me with such desire that I trembled. We were hungry for each other.
I shoved my fingers into his hair and trapped one of his lips between my teeth. I kissed him with rage. I needed to let lose everything that was burning inside me. All those feelings boiling up, setting me alight, feelings it was hard to distinguish, separate, name…feelings I myself didn’t understand. I felt and felt, and I didn’t knowhow to stop feeling, how to silence the voices in my head commanding me to say things I couldn’t.
Suddenly I found myself naked. I pushed his chest and forced him onto his back. He watched me as I climbed on top of him and slowly took him inside me. My muscles were tense. His fingers dug into my hips, guiding me. He clenched his teeth and held his breath as I moved back and forth on top of him. I did it for me, not for him. I needed this, and Lucas seemed to know, because he didn’t hesitate to let me take control. He opened up to me, gave himself to me with each and every gesture, molecule by molecule, until he was entirely mine, without the need for words.
I went faster, he thrust deeper, and amid the whirlwind, I found his lips. He groaned, a loud moan erupted from my throat; I shook, he shook too as I collapsed onto his chest.
We remained there, holding each other in silence as he drew shapes on my back with his fingers, making me shiver. I closed my eyes and dreamed that we were elsewhere, in another room, in another bed, where it smelled of lemon and salt.
52
Monica wrote me.
They’re here! Let me introduce you to Ezio and Velia. I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck, but when I look at them, I know I’d be happy to do it all over. Now you have to come back soon. There are two little people here dying to meet you. I miss you both.
I looked at the photo of the babies and had to blink over and over to clear the tears from my eyes. They were so precious, so little… I wished I’d been there. But I wasn’t, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever go back.
I sat on the sofa for hours.
And on the other side of the wall, the world kept turning. The days passed. Life passed me by.
53
Sometimes, life transforms into a big wave. All you see is water and foam, and you tell yourself not to be scared of them. That there’s nothing there that can hurt you. You feel confident. You stand on the shore, watching it come close.
But what’s actually approaching you is a solid, impenetrable wall, and you’ll never survive the impact. And that’s what life is like, right? Nothing lasts. Even the wave, big as it is, breaks on the shore and disappears. And it all happens in an instant.
54
I woke, and Lucas was already gone.
I stayed in bed, hugging the pillow and staring at the wall. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do. We’d been in Madrid two weeks, and the time was starting to weigh on me like a stone. The days passed, I did nothing, I just waited and waited, and there was nothing else for me but to try to be patient.
Supposedly it was temporary. Lucas’s father was much better. The doctors would send him home any day now. When that happened, Lucas and I would need to talk. About my options, his options, how compatible they were or weren’t. In the meantime, all I could do was think. Too much. And wait.
