Page 79 of Stronger Than Fate

“During these weeks we haven’t seen each other, have you missed me?”

“Yes, I have,” I affirmed, without hesitation.

“I’ve missed you... so much,” he said, and I noticed that he tried to move closer, but immediately regretted it and moved back to his place.

“I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?”

“We’re back to what I said before. How can you tell me you missed me when you were with a different woman every day?”

“Because I wanted to stop thinking about you,” he admitted.

The lump in my throat began to grow like a kind of pressure rising from my stomach to my throat and threatening to leave me speechless. I had to recover my voice. I didn’t know whether to drink the entire glass of wine at once, cough, or clear my throat, but I had to speak.

“Can you say something?” he said, a bit confused by my silence.

“Why did you want to stop thinking about me?”

“Because I’m confused, damn it! I know you must think I’m a mess and you must wonder how a man of my age and with so much experience comes to confess that he’s confused like some inexperienced kid, but it’s the truth.” He ran his hand through his hair, messing it up.

“Can you be clearer? What is confusing you?” I pressed.

“You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”

“We’re here to talk about what’s happening between us, so let’s be honest,” I stated.

“I’m confused about what you make me feel, I’ve never felt this and... and, I don’t know...” he said, desperately.

“What is ‘this,’ Henry?”

Seeing that he wasn’t willing to answer because he was looking at me terrified, I decided to help him.

“Do you want to know what’s happening to me?” I asked.

“Please.”

I inhaled deeply to gather courage and looked him in the eyes. I didn’t want to miss any detail of his face when I confessed my feelings. Would he look horrified and reject me? Would he smile? Would he run away? The only way to know was to say it once and for all and wait for the consequences of my confession.

“I fell in love with you, Henry Woollardy. I love you. I don’t know when it happened, but even though I’ve never been in love before, I know that what I feel for you is love, it can’t be anything else. As my friend Sean said, ‘you just feel it intensely’.”

There it was. I had said it, I had bared my soul and now I was sitting in front of him as he stared at me without blinking.

“You love me?” he asked, with disbelief.

I lowered my eyes and nodded, then looked back up at him. If I had come this far, it wasn’t the time to lose my courage.

“You love me,” and this time he stated it.

“Henry, I understand what you think about love and your freedom and, because I love you, I don’t expect you to change, that way of being and living is what makes you happy and I want you to be happy. The problem I face is that I see life differently than you do. It hurts me to lose you, but it would hurt me more to lose myself, to lose my principles, and that’s why…”

He quickly moved closer to me and placed a finger on my lips.

“Don’t speak for me, Dalina. I haven’t yet said what I want.” He removed his finger from my mouth and looked at me seriously. “I may be confused about what I feel, but I’m clear about what I want and I know I don’t want to be separated from you and I definitely don’t want you to be with anyone else. I feel like you’re mine and I don’t want anyone looking at you, much less touching you. When I saw you in that wedding dress and thought you were going to marry someone else, my world collapsed. I want you by my side, I want you in my bed.”

He slowly lowered his face to mine and pressed his lips softly against mine. When our lips made contact, we both let out a sigh of relief, as if that connection was essential for living.

He moved back slightly to look into my eyes and took my face in his hands.