I started to forgive my mother on that beach, at the same time as I realized something important. She didn’t know how to be my mother. But I didn’t know how to be her daughter, either. I had never been a daughter. But still, we could be something. Something different. Something new. Something that was real and truly mattered.
69
My mother asked me to stay with her. At least until I could figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I accepted. I didn’t have anywhere else to go. But what mattered more than that was my desire to get to know her, to learn who she really was. To find out if we were similar or completely different. If we liked the same things.
I wasn’t scared anymore to make things up as I went along. I wasn’t so afraid to go with the flow. I didn’t need to control every last detail. I didn’t need to know where I’d be in a week or a month or a year to feel secure.
I could move on if I chose to. I knew that now.
I wasn’t scared to be alone anymore if that solitude would make me the owner of my own life. If it would help me love myself and be the person I really was. We have this absurd belief that it’s other people who make us complete, but there’s no one who’s been put on this earth for the sake of our happiness or fulfillment. That responsibility is too big for any other person to take on.
I had held on to Lucas as though my whole world would crumble if I didn’t have him. I had been waiting for him to walk in step with me. And while I was waiting, I’d almost disappeared.
Love doesn’t justify everything, and it isn’t always enough. It isn’ta sufficient reason for two people to be together. Loving sometimes means letting the other person go before you hurt them more. Love can mean distancing yourself and choosing yourself above others.
Even if it hurts.
Even if it seems like you won’t be able to take the absence.
I could hardly think of Lucas without breaking down. A week after I’d left him at the station, I could feel the emptiness where he used to be like alcohol in a wound. It got worse every day, and I kept asking myself when it would finally stop hurting. When I would stop loving him.
And the answer was always the same.
When there were no more stars left to count.
70
Guille lifted another shell he’d found and I smiled at him. We had been on the beach for a while, playing in the sand and splashing on the shore. I liked watching him, and it was a big help to his parents, since Alexis and my mother both worked from home.
A few years before, Daria had started making necklaces and bracelets with beads and charms as a hobby, and now she had a little online store that made her enough money to pay the bills. That surprised me. I could never have imagined her doing something like that. Alexis was a freelance translator for book publishers. They were doing well, and they seemed satisfied with the calm, simple life they had created.
I looked at the sea and held my phone close to my ear, listening to Matías’s detailed account of the pros and cons of moving in with Rubén.
“I think you’re starting to lose it,” I said with a laugh.
“I just want to really think it over. It’s a big step, and I don’t want to rush it.”
“You can make twenty lists and go through a thousand scenarios, but the only way to know if it will work is to try.”
He sighed. “You’re right.”
“I know I’m right,” I said, looking over at Guille. “You just haveto be honest with yourself, OK? Do you want to live with Rubén? If it’s a yes, then dive in headfirst. If it’s a no, don’t. Rubén’s a good guy, he’ll understand.”
“What if he thinks me not wanting to is me having doubts about him?”
“You adore him. Everybody knows that.”
I walked over to the water’s edge and let the waves tickle my feet.
Matías changed the subject and asked me how I was.
“Good,” I responded. The breeze blew my hair in my face, and I pushed it aside. “I felt out of place the first few days, but now it’s like I’ve lived here my whole life.”
“So everything’s better with your mom?”
“More or less. Let’s say we’ve started from zero. We’re trying to be friends.”
“Is that enough for you?”
