We stay like this for a minute, then more. ‘I’m yours,’ he mouths. ‘No matter what. No matter how far you are. I’ll wait around.’
I swallow hard and manage a ‘yes’. The past few months are burned into my soul. I know that I am no different: that I’ll also be his, no matter how far away he is.
When we pull away, Darien takes my hand, my right, and holds it close to him. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a bracelet that shimmers so gold it’s almost yellow, a simplechain with two tiny macaws linked in the centre, beaks making a heart shape, and he clasps it around my wrist.
‘My mom’s.’ His voice is a quiet caress that just glances past my cheek as his fingers brush mine one last time.
I don’t require any explanation as I take in the bird on the bracelet, the macaws. The same as the ones on his helmet. I remember what Joel and Raya had been bickering about way back in January, before I’d left for Rio.
Macaws are resilient.
As much as they might endure, they always summon strength.
I’ve always envied how hard Darien Cardoso-Magalhãesdreams.But as I look down at the bracelet he’s given me, something tears at the strings of my heart. He said he’ll wait. But I worry I will never be able to come back, never see him again. I worry he’ll dream so hard that reality will become disappointing.
Before I can look into Darien’s eyes and feel regret so deep it hooks onto my feet and holds me in my place, I grab my bag and turn away, hoping he knows that I am doing this for both of us, that a long goodbye would screw us both over. I walk towards the security checkpoint, tears falling down my face as I do and, as much as I tell myself I shouldn’t, I turn and glance back at him.
I’ve never seen him cry this way. The tears form tracks that slide down his cheeks, mirroring mine. He lifts a hand in a little wave, and it feels like I’ve just been kicked in the chest. He’s crushing me, but I purse my lips, shut out the emotion, and wave back as I head for the gate, for the line that separates the dream I want to live in, and the reality I have no choice but to face.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Darien
She leaves as abruptly as she’d entered my life.
I don’t want to explain any of it to the guys when I get back, get ready to leave for Rio with Miguel. He’s bursting with excitement, since we’ll be reuniting with Henri and Peter to spend the lull in races together vacationing in Brazil, after which he’ll drop by Spain to see his family, and then it’s full circle, with the season picking back up in São Paulo – third to last race. He has so much –so many people– to look forward to. Yeah, I’m glad I’ll get some time with Mãe, get to catch up and kick back, but I don’t know how I can kick back right now.
‘Shantal already left?’ says Miguel with a yawn as we swing ourselves into the limo that will take us to the airport. ‘That early in the morning? God knows the girl can’t wake up before ten a.m. and expect to function.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. Easy, ambiguous. I don’t want him to have been right when he told me not to find out what was bothering Shantal after the last race, but he is. Part of me wishes I’d never asked. Igrab a bag of those dumb peanuts, popping one in my mouth. The memory of Shantal’s grumble when I’d hit her with one on the way to the airport in Rio comes on, harsh and unsolicited.
‘Yeah, she’s left?’
‘Yes, she left, Miguel!’ I shoot back with a bit too much force. ‘She left, okay? She’sgone.’
Miguel, normally one to engage in a fight if you pick one with him, doesn’t say anything, just lets this new bit of information process. He opens his mouth as if to say something, and then closes it before finally deciding what to say. ‘Why?’
‘It’s a really long story.’ I swallow hard, leaning back against the limo seat. ‘And it’s not mine to tell.’
‘She’s all right, though, isn’t she? Nothing bad happened to her?’ Miguel runs a hand through his hair nervously. ‘Dude, if something—’
‘Nothing happened.’ My voice threatens to give out as I hold in torrents of truth that yell at me to let them loose. ‘We’d better just leave well enough alone.’
‘What?’ He’s almost gone slack-jawed with surprise now. ‘Since when do you not push back?’
The breath I let out is heavier than I intend. ‘Since it’ll be her who decides if she’ll push back or not.’
I spend the days we have in Brazil in a haze. Miguel, Peter, Henri and I are off to Belo Horizonte. I should be taking in all the sights, including the Mineirão, the stadium where we once hosted a World Cup, one of my favourite parts of the country, if anyone were to ask me, but I see her everywhere.
I see her in the pairs of cleats that are displayed in the museum, in the Italian sodas we snag off a street vendor, in the Hokas on the feet of tourists.
Part of me wishes I could be more upset at her for makingthat decision so easily, for leaving so quickly; maybe that would make it easier to find somewhere to put my emotions. But I can’t. I know exactly what it feels like to have to keep moving forward because if you don’t, you could lose someone you hold dear, and for that, I can’t manage to push anger in her direction.
‘How are you holding up?’
Someone cuts into the moment I’m spending brooding in front of one of the two goals set up on opposite ends of the stadium. They’ve miraculously let us onto the Mineirão’s bright green field, which seems to have delighted Miguel, Peter and Henri, who’ve been kicking a ball around with cackles and whoops. It’s the last person I expect, out of the three of them, to meander over to me. It’s Henri, leaving the other two to their own devices at the other goal.
‘Holding up? I’m all right.’
