Page 108 of That Last Summer

“I know it doesn’t make sense! I know! So what? Is that not allowed? No?” When he doesn’t answer me, I keep going. “And you know what? I don’t care. I don’t care at all! Sue me! Burn me at the stake! Lock me up if you want! Nothing can make me not loathe forever the woman who slept with my husband when I was still married to him. Nothing!”

“And why don’t you loathe him? Why the hell not? Don’t you remember how you felt the day you found out? Don’t you remember how it tore you apart? Because I do. Mostly because that same night you got on a plane to Boston with a one way ticket.”

“Of course I remember!”

“So? What about him?”

“It’s been four damn years!”

“No, Pris! It’s not a matter of time. You just told me that you’ll loathe her forever. Do you need me to remind you?”

“I know what I said, I don’t need a reminder.”

“I told you that you don’t listen to reason when it comes to her, and you told me that it’s true, that you don’t, and that nothing can stop you from rejecting her forever. And then—”

“I said I don’t need a reminder!”

“Then tell me why the fuck there’s a difference?! Why don’t you hate Alex too?”

“It’s not the same.”

“Of course it’s not the same! It’s worse!”

“No! It’s not! It’s not!

“Why? Why?

“Because I love him!”

I cover my mouth as soon as those four words come out of it. As soon as that truth slips out of my guts. Adrián is startled too. He even takes a shocked step back.

“Fuck,” he exclaims.

I rub my face and let it all out. “I’m in love with him, Adrián. I don’t think I’ve ever stopped being in love with him. It’s stupid to keep denying it. It’s not just attraction. It’s love. And being with him again means... It feels like...” I sigh. “I feel like I’m betraying myself, my past self, but the love I feel for him is stronger than that. And I know it’ll most likely end up destroying me, but... I couldn’t help it. I didn’t try to avoid it either. I love him. Do you think I’d sleep with him if I didn’t? You know the answer.”

“Fuck, Priscila.”

My brother ruffles his hair and sits on my bed. He rests his forehead in his hands and sighs. Repeatedly. I sit down next to him.

“There’s the difference you were looking for. The difference between Alex and Carolina.”

It’s easy to stick to your purpose if nothing from the outside reaches you, if you remain immutable, but oh, when your heart goes bump, bump! again, when your body wakes up after so long asleep, when it screams after so many years in silence... when that happens, it’s impossible to look past it.

I think all of this started with a smile. One of Alex’s, on the beach after that rescue. A smile that gave me a lot to think about.

What if I thought I was happy in Boston, but I wasn’t? What if I convinced myself that there were different ways of living your life, different ways of being happy, but I was fooling myself because one way had nothing to do with the other? What if I was just settling for it?

“You’ve forgiven him.” He declares it as if it were our lives’ greatest defeat. And he really thinks it is.

“I don’t know. I really don’t. I’m acting on instinct rather than thinking, but I’ve realized that forgiving is easier when it’s been years instead of days. I guess time makes you see things in a different light.”

“What’s going to happen now?”

“What do you mean?”

“What is going to happen with you. With Alex. With me. With Carmen. With this shitty situation we’re in.”

“I’m wondering that same thing.”