Page 35 of We Shouldn’t Do This Again

She looks at me as if I were a stranger. And maybe I am. The Barbara who left years ago never would’ve stopped anyone like this. She never would’ve admitted that she still missed her and that her heart still hurt terribly. But this version of me—the one who’s spent two entire days with a knot in her stomach and a desperate need to see her—is capable of it.

“You can’t force me,” she says, tensing her arm beneath my hand.

“I’m not forcing you,” I reply, even though I know the line is thin. “I just… we can’t keep going like this for however long we’re here.”

Her eyes harden, but they also shine a little brighter, as if her emotions are close to spilling over.

“Always the same,” she whispers, hurt. “You always decide when to show up and when to disappear. You always set the rules.”

The words cut straight through me because she’s right. And because I don’t know how to explain that, after so much time away from her, I don’t want to disappear. That I’m terrified of everything waking up inside me.

“I’m not going to disappear,” I say softly.

“No,” she replies, her voice barely breaking. “You already did once before. And it hurt. A lot.”

The silence that follows is harsher, rawer, more real. I feel something crack inside my chest, but I don’t let go of her hand. I can’t. If I let go, she’ll leave. And I’m not ready to go through that again.

“Just…” I begin, searching for words that won’t come out awkwardly. “Just listen to me. Really. Give me one minute.”

She hesitates. I can see it in the way her gaze wavers, in how she presses her lips together as if trying to contain everything swirling inside her. I feel it in the slight relaxation of her arm beneath my fingers.

The wind picks up a little more, carrying the metallic scent of the approaching storm, ruffling her hair and pressing it against her cheek. She doesn’t pull away, she doesn’t let go, but she doesn’t say yes either. She just stands there, still, caught between the urge to stay and the fear of reopening the door she worked so hard to close on me.

CHAPTER 18

THE PLACE WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

Lidia

I don’t know at what point I stopped resisting her, this, us.

Maybe it happened the moment I heard that “one minute” laced with fear, as if Barbara was truly afraid I’d reject her and everything would fall apart again, even though there’s been nothing left for a long time. Or maybe it happened a little earlier, when our eyes met and I realized that, no matter how hard I try or how high I build my walls, I still need to be with her.

If Alex were here, he’d tell me I have to run away from situations like this that hurt me. And I don’t doubt he’d be right. Because yes, seeing her after everything that happened hurts me. I could just throw out one of those dry, cutting remarks I’ve become so good at lately, turn on my heel, and disappear among the resort’s paths like I’ve been doing these past two days. But I’ve missed her, I haven’t stopped thinking about her, and I can’t do it.

“Just a minute.”

Barbara nods and eases the pressure of her fingers on my skin a little, but she doesn’t let go of me completely. She does a moment later, carefully, as if she feared that the second she let go, I’d run off without looking back. And she’s right to fear it… though this time I’m not going to run away. I decide to walk without saying anything else, and she falls into step beside me in silence, matching her pace to mine with that natural ease we’ve always had and never lost, as if our bodies still remember each other despite everything.

The path of fine sand stretches out ahead, parallel to the shore, where the waves are now crashing harder than they were this morning, raising white foam the wind carries toward us in salty gusts. The sky has completely clouded over, a heavy gray mass that seems charged with electricity. I feel it on my skin, on the back of my neck, in my chest. Just as I feel everything that has to do with Barbara. The air smells of salt, dampness, and that perfume of hers I still recognize despite her trying to hide it.

For the first few minutes, we walk without saying a word. We just walk. Two women who could pass for strangers, sharing a stretch of beach by pure chance. We try to pretend we don’t know each other at all. But it’s useless. Her presence surrounds me. Every step we take seems synchronized by that chemistry neither of us has managed to break. I stare ahead, focusing on the constant roar of the sea, on the wind beginning to pick up and tangle my hair, on the seagulls gliding beneath the low clouds. On anything but her. But then she breaks the silence.

“Do you remember the day we met?” she asks gently, catching me off guard.

I blink, surprised by her choice of memory. But the answer rises to my throat without permission, clear and precise.

“I think I’ll remember it for the rest of my life,” I reply before I can bite my tongue.

I turn slightly toward her, just enough to see her eyes—those eyes that have always known how to read me better than anyone else.

“You were trying to convince the waiter that you were dying of thirst and needed water… as if your life depended on it. I remember you waving your hands around, your accent getting stronger the more nervous you became, and the poor guy not knowing whether to laugh or call a doctor.”

A slow, genuine smile spreads across her lips, and against all odds, I smile too. Then I let out a short but sincere laugh, the kind that starts deep in your stomach and that I haven’t felt in months.

“I was this close,” I explain, raising my hand and leaving barely a centimeter between my thumb and index finger, “to throwing the suitcase at your head. Seriously. The trip had been a disaster, the heat was killing me, and then you showed up acting like nothing was wrong, saving my life.”

“I know,” she replies softly. “I could see it in your eyes. You were about to explode.”