“I have it too here,” she replied with a shrug, “but I feel a bit more Italian than Spanish. I always spent more time in Genova than in Conil.” Then she grinned, mischievous. “Don’t tell my mom, she’ll cry.”
He chuckled. “Are you planning to let me meet your family one day?”
Sofia flushed. “Y-yeah. Why not?”
“I’m totally fine with it, habiba.I’ll just need to learn more Italian thanbuongiornoandgrazie mille.”
“You’ve got time,” she smiled. “You’re already good with languages.”
As they approached security, he grabbed her hand, then spun her into one last embrace.
“I hate this part,” he groaned, burying his face into her hair. “Text me when you land in Sydney, then Abu Dhabi, then Lisbon, and then when you have your glorious ass seated on your couch. Got it?”
“I got it,” she whispered, squeezing him. “Don’t worry.”
“I’m going to miss you,” he said, pressing a lingering kiss to her lips.
“And I’ll miss you,” she whispered back. “Thank you for waiting for me… for not giving up.”
He rested his forehead against hers. “I told you, I would’ve waited forever.”
She kissed him once more, soft and deep, and reluctantly turned away. He watched her walk toward security, her gaze never leaving his until the very last second.
He stayed there, hand shoved in his pocket, heart aching in that sharp, stupid way it always did after goodbyes.
Brazil. Portugal. Spain. Italy. Morocco. Wherever the hell life took them next, he wanted her in his. Always.
39
SOFIA
El Río – Paula Mattheus
Being back in Ericeira after everything that had happened in Australia felt different. She was different. Maybe the Sofia who had left had already been inching toward this version of herself, the one finally able to voice just how deeply she'd fallen for Ilias. He understood her. He made her laugh. He took care of her. And the sex? Gosh. The sex was on another level.
“What are you thinking about?” Elvira asked, breaking their quiet as they drifted in the middle of the Atlantic, listening to the songs of whales. They had come across a migrating group and had been recording them for the last two hours, to João’s absolute delight.
“Nothing,” Sofia lied.
“Here.” Elvira handed her one of Sofia’s journals. “Whatever’s going on in that big head of yours, you should write it down.”
Sitting with her back against the side of the boat, she began scribbling everything that had happened lately. She tried toexplain to the pages how Ilias’d slowly and steadily made a mark on her heart and how now, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She missed him. Terribly. And maybe she was getting cheesy, but she didn’t care. She hadn’t even said it aloud, but Alejandra kept texting her that Ilias was walking around with the face of a man who’d just lost a limb. Maybe she was exaggerating. Or maybe it was the truth. Maybe Ilias missed her just as much.
In her ears, the sound of the whales soothed her chaotic brain. Because even though Ilias was the highlight of her journaling, her brain kept spiraling back to her father’s health. According to her mother and sister, he looked fine, healthy even, but Sofia couldn’t quite believe it. Because as much as she was trying her best gifting him those soothing whale songs, she knew cancer wasn’t merciful, and that the diagnosis they had given him wasn’t anything close to good. And after another hour, more whale songs and more writing, to João’s happiness, they were satisfied enough to sail back to shore.
“You know,” Elvira said as they started packing up, “now that Sofi’s back, on these research expeditions, she can handle the boat, and you can stay home and binge-watch whatever it is old Portuguese men binge-watch.”
João waved her off.
“I like it,” he said. Or at least, that’s what Sofia thought he said through his thick, melodic Portuguese.
She spent the sail back chatting with him in broken phrases, letting him correct her gently, even though he claimed his Portuguese “wasn’t academic.”
She didn’t care. She’d grown up with grandparents who didn’t speak proper Italian or Spanish, surrounded by a mix of Ligurian dialect and Andalusian slang. Academia had always felt like it tried to strip those identities from her. Whenever she spoke in English, she felt too stiff, too polite, too far from the real version of herself. Maybe that was one of the reasons sheand Thomas had never truly connected, maybe the fact that he never bothered to learn even one of her languages had been the clearest sign of how little he cared.
With Ilias, though, they spoke a chaotic blend of all the languages they knew, though Spanish always slipped in as their anchor. His Andalusian accent, tinged with Moroccan expressions, felt closer to who she was than the polished English she’d been forced to use for years. It felt like a home she never realized she needed.
Once at port, as they unloaded the bags and gear, Elvira nudged her sharply with an elbow. “They’re back.”
