She turns her head slightly, and Martina smiles in an intimate, more restrained gesture, as if she too were savoring this moment with the same sensations surrounding them. Her eyes shine in the silvery light, and in them Rebeca sees the reflection of the feelings coursing through her but which she cannot confess right now.
Rebeca feels the skin on her arms prickle again. She watches her for a moment and then speaks.
“This is crazy, did you know that?”
Her voice breaks the silence softly, like a small stone falling into a pond.
Martina turns her head toward her. Her fingers tighten a little more around Rebeca’s.
“Crazy because…?”
Rebeca takes a second to answer. During that moment, the sound of the sea fills the space between them once more, a murmur that seems to shield them from the world waiting just a few meters away.
“Because I know what I’m doing isn’t right.”
“I know that too,” Martina says.
Her voice holds no excuses. No justifications. Just an honesty that, for some reason, is harder to hear than anything else. Rebeca looks at her again. Martina pauses. The sand sinks slightly beneath her feet as she turns toward her. Her fingers slip out of Rebeca’s hand only to seek it out again immediately, this time trapping both of Rebeca’s hands between her own, as if she needs to make sure Rebeca isn’t going to suddenly disappear.
“But it’s just that… when I saw you…”
Martina falls silent for a moment, searching for the right words. Her eyes shine in the pale moonlight, and Rebeca sees in them a vulnerability she hadn’t expected.
“When I saw you in front of the house…” she continues after a couple of deep breaths, “the first thing I thought was that fate had given us a second chance.”
Rebeca feels something tighten inside her chest. Part of her wants to cling to those words, to let them wrap around her like a warm blanket, but the other part clearly wants to run away.
“But you realize that… are we going to hurt someone who doesn’t deserve it?” The words come out of Rebeca’s lips with amix of sadness that forces her to lower her gaze to the sand and slowly shake her head. Cold air fills her lungs. “Someone who was also caught up in all that.”
The mere idea of Julia suffering causes an uncomfortable pang to pierce Rebeca’s chest, though she takes a deep breath afterward. For years she had tried not to think too much about that part of the story, about the way everything ended up getting mixed up until it became unrecognizable. However, now it’s impossible to ignore.
Because deep inside her, a pang of jealousy stirs that she can’t help but feel either.
“Of all the people around us,” Rebeca says, “I never thought you’d end up marrying Julia.”
Martina looks down for a second. The wet sand reflects a strip of silvery light that shifts with the advancing waves.
“Maybe I didn’t either,” she replies. “But I already told you at the bar…” She looks up again. Her eyes seek Rebeca’s with an intensity that makes her take a mental step back. “My marriage isn’t as perfect as it seems. In fact… I don’t think it’s even a marriage anymore.”
The words hang between them. Rebeca perceives something in Martina’s face she hadn’t seen before that night. A crack. An emotion she’s trying to hide but that escapes through those beautiful, perfect blue eyes. Also in the way her fingers tighten slightly around Rebeca’s. In the way her breathing seems to lose its rhythm for a moment.
Martina looks away toward the horizon. The darkness of the sea seems to absorb her thoughts, and for a few seconds, she thinks she won’t say anything else.
“You know what the worst part is?” Martina murmurs, almost to herself. “That when I’m with you, no matter how brief the time… everything else disappears. Julia. Work. The past. Only you remain. Only we remain.”
Rebeca swallows hard. The lump in her throat tightens.
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” Martina turns her head back toward her. “It’s the truth. And I’m sick of lying to myself.”
Rebeca feels the ground shifting beneath her feet, even though the sand hasn’t moved a single centimeter.
“So what do you suggest we do?” Rebeca asks, unable to look her in the eye. “Do we keep pretending this never happened? Or…?”
Martina squeezes her hands tighter.
“I don’t know. But what I do know for sure is that I don’t want to lose you again.”
