I sank my face in the pillow and muffled a sob. How I regretted not doing things differently. I was a disaster… But the past can’t be changed, can it? All you can do is accept it and take the pain, even if your whole life’s been turned upside down. For a second time.
I gathered my strength and told myself I could do it. I’d gather my things and go. To where? I didn’t know. And I didn’t have the least idea what to do about everything else.
I was tired from all that thinking. I didn’t even know what time it was when I heard steps on the stairs and a key in the lock. Lucas’s door opening and closing. I closed my eyes tighter and curled up into a tiny ball, unable to stanch the tears that burned my cheeks.
I had nearly fallen asleep again when I heard the door to my room open. I held my breath and stared straight ahead as I felt his weight on the mattress, his body next to mine, the way it fit mine like a piece in a puzzle. He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me to him. His skin was hot, and he smelled of tobacco.
“You’re right. He looks a lot like you in the photos,” he whispered.
“I know.”
I could feel his breath on my neck as he whispered, “It’s not true what I said before. I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay.”
“And I want to stay.” My voice cracked, and he pressed his nose into my hair.
“Maya, I’m pissed.”
“I know.”
“All this has fucked me up bad.”
“I know.”
“And I want you to know I don’t agree with you. But I’m willing to respect you.”
A profound sense of gratitude overtook me. I grabbed his handand laced my fingers through his, feeling a little more whole, more me, truer, the way I always did with Lucas.
“So no one else knows about this?” he asked.
“No, only Matías.”
“Your family hasn’t gotten in touch since you left?”
“No, but I haven’t really pressed them either. I called my grandmother a few times to talk to Granddad, but she didn’t pick up.” I sniffled. “It’s OK, though, Lucas. It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters, Maya. Trust me, I know that better than anyone.”
He turned me around, and I tried to see his face in the dark.
“When I was little, I thought she loved me,” I said.
“Your grandmother or your mother?”
“I don’t know, both I guess. I thought they loved me and they always would. Because that’s how it’s supposed to be, right? Your family loves you. But it wasn’t that way, and there are times when I feel like I just wasn’t good enough.”
Lucas pressed his forehead to mine and rested a hand on my cheek as I stroked his face. “You don’t have to be good for someone to love you. You don’t have to do anything, so stop asking whether you deserve to be loved and let yourself be loved. Because there are people who love you, Maya.”
Surprised, I asked, “Do you think that? That I refuse to let people love me?”
“I think you’ve convinced yourself that it’s impossible that anyone would love you simply for who you are, and you somehow can’t see that everyone around you already does.”
They already do, I repeated to myself in my mind.
Lucas continued rubbing my cheek. We were so close, we were breathing the same air. One more millimeter, and I’d feel his lips. But that space between us, the space before a kiss, was so dense that I couldn’t yet pierce it. I needed to dissipate in that silence that said somuch more than words. In that longing that flew like a moth between his lips and mine.
One second. Two. Three…
How do you ignore what’s throbbing inside you? Answer: You can’t.
