Page 19 of It’s Me, but Different

“Perfect,” I assure her, though I'm convinced my heart has skipped several beats.

Despite the storm, the moonlight creates perhaps too intimate an atmosphere that makes everything seem like a dream. Or a nightmare, depending on how you look at it. I'm still not sure which of the two options I prefer.

I turn to the opposite side and give her my back. It's a pathetic defense, I know, but I need to put some kind of barrier between us. Even if it's something as fragile as changing position on a mattress that's barely three feet wide.

“Are you comfortable?” she murmurs while covering herself with the blanket too.

“Yes,” I lie. “I'm just very sleepy.”

Comfortable. Fuck, what a stupid word.

There's nothing comfortable about this situation. I'm lying next to the woman who broke my heart eleven years ago. We're alone in a restaurant on top of a mountain, surrounded by a fucking snowstorm. And worst of all is that every fiber of my being is screaming for me to turn around and bite her clothes off.

I listen as her breathing gradually becomes deeper, and the sound transports me to those college nights when we used to fall asleep next to each other after studying late. Those times when the world was ours and the future was nothing more than a promise waiting to be fulfilled.

Now, the future seems more like shit. At least for me. The twins will need more and more time and money. I know very hard years await me.

I close my eyes and try to concentrate on more neutral sounds. On the wind that still lashes the windows. The slight hum of the heating system. Anything other than Sloane's breathing or the way the mattress sinks slightly toward her side.

But then, my left foot accidentally brushes her calf.

The contact is minimal, almost imperceptible, though it makes me too nervous. I tense immediately and pretend to be deeply asleep while withdrawing my leg as if I'd been burned.

Her breathing doesn't change, still installed in that deep, slow rhythm of sleep, but now I'm even more aware ofevery small movement. Every time she turns slightly. Every time she sighs in her dreams. Every time the mattress creaks under her weight.

It's torture.

Exquisite torture, because my level of arousal is starting to go through the roof.

The hours pass slowly. Every time I'm about to fall asleep, some sound or movement reminds me I'm next to Sloane, on a mattress where we barely fit together and dressed only in underwear and a t-shirt.

At three in the morning, I surrender to insomnia and simply lie looking at the ceiling. And it's those moments of absolute stillness that terrify me. When my mind begins to wander into dangerous territories.

I turn my neck, and she looks so peaceful next to me that it makes me want to kiss her. Fuck, she's beautiful. Her lips slightly parted, her hair tousled on the improvised pillow we made with our jackets. She seems so different from the hyper-competitive woman I knew in college.

Would it have worked? If she had chosen differently eleven years ago, would we have lasted as a couple?

The question hurts. Part of me, one I've tried to silence for years, still believes yes. That what we had was real, that it would have been worth making any sacrifice to try.

But my life now is very different.

I'm a mother. I'm a widow. I have responsibilities that go far beyond my own desires. Ana Sofia and Theo have already lost their father. How would they react if suddenly a woman appeared in our lives? Would they see Sloane as someone trying to take Luis's place? Or worse yet, as someone coming to steal their mother's attention?

And then there's work. The offer to be a partner at the Denver firm is everything I've dreamed of for years: the opportunity to establish myself professionally, to give my children the financial stability they deserve.

Could I ask them to move to Montana? To leave behind their friends, their school, the few physical memories they preserve of their father? All for the possibility, not the certainty, of trying something with Sloane?

Something that might not work…

It's too much. Too many changes, too many risks, too many unknowns.

My heart says one thing. My head says something entirely different.

And in between is me, paralyzed by indecision, watching the woman who could have been the love of my life sleep if circumstances had presented themselves differently.

That morning, I wake up with the strange sensation that something has changed during the night.

With sleep, it takes me a few seconds to process what feels different, until I realize there's a body pressing againstmy back. An arm around my waist. A hand dangerously close to my breasts.