Page 136 of That Last Summer

“Priscila,” she interrupted. “It’s Priscila, right?” When Priscila nodded, she added “It’s better if you leave now. Alex is still shaken by everything that’s happened, and I don’t think your presence will do him any good. He’s trying to get over the failure that his marriage was, and you should be doing the same. Don’t stir things up any more. Go back to wherever you’ve been all this time and let him recover from his injuries.”

“He’s my husband, I have the right to—”

“This isn’t about rights, it’s about what’s best for him. And as a nurse, I’m telling you: you shouldn’t unsettle him.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t know that do we? It’s better if you go. Thank you for your concern, it’s nice of you considering you’re separated, but Alex is fine, he’ll be fine. He had a bad scare, that’s all. He’ll be back to normal life soon.”

She wasn’t going to give up, this nurse could say whatever she wanted. Priscila wasn’t leaving. But then the door of Alex’s room opened, and the redhead came out.

“Priscila?” she looked surprised. She even blinked several times to make sure it was her. She locked eyes with her sister. “What are you doing here? When did you come back?”

The impact of having her face to face, so close, was strong. The impact of the memories of her, and the certainty that Alex was rebuilding his life with her. For a moment, she’d forgotten that returning to her husband didn’t depend only on herself but on both of them. And Alex wasn’t up to it. Because it wasn’t infidelity that separated them—it was the fact that he’d chosen another life mate.

She shook her head and turned on her heels. She ran to the emergency exit and went down three floors until she was outside, breathing fresh air. But she didn’t leave the hospital. She refused to do that without seeing him. She’d see him one last time. She needed to check with her own eyes that he was okay.

And so she did.

As soon as Priscila saw the redhead leaving the hospital, she went back to the emergency stairs and went up to the third floor. When she got to Alex’s room, the door was closed. She put a hand on the handle, took a deep breath, and opened it.

Alex was alone, and asleep. Sound asleep. The hospital sheet covered him up to his chest and at least the visible parts of his body seem to be fine. Some bruises here and there, but nothing like the terrible and bizarre images of bones out of place that she’d had in her head.

She approached the bed and ran her hand through his hair, which she loved so much but which was now almost completely shaven. She closed her eyes as tears welled up. She loved him from the bottom of her heart.

The heart that gave its first bump! the instant she saw him, when he was just a kid; the same kid who gave her another bump! a year after that, when he cut his eyebrow; the same kid who, transformed into a teenager, had caused a bump, bump! with their first kiss, and so many others when they made love for the first time. The heart that went bump, bump, bump! for the man he was now.

She kissed him on the lips and left for the airport. She would wait there until her flight left. She called her family and lied to them—told them that, in the end, she couldn’t get a flight to Spain. She ignored their multiple protests and hung up. In the end, it turned out that she was going to return to Boston.

She started at her first job a day late. She was aware she didn’t start off on the right foot, and that she’d have to make merits from that very moment because life, sometimes, worked that way, tripping us up without warning. But everything was going well, at least until one of the editors broke the news in a meeting room where all the interns were gathered at that moment.

He interrupted the meeting to give them the exclusive. “Have you heard about the press conference the parents of that Spanish swimmer gave? The one who got injured?”

Priscila lifted her head from her notebook.

“He’s quitting.”

“He’s quitting... what?” she had to ask.

“Professional competition. Swimming, actually. Consequences of the accident. He won’t be able to swim again.”

“Excuse me.” Priscila ran out of the conference room.

Miraculously, she got to the toilets in time to throw up. She did that, crying nonstop.

When her stomach settled, she leaned against the wall, still sitting on the floor, and took her cell phone out of her pocket. She dialed Alex’s number—she knew it by heart—but didn’t dare press the call button. She tried for hours, days, months, but she couldn’t. For so many reasons... And although her heart asked her over and over again to return to him, her body would not obey in any way.

The whole truth and nothing but the truth

“What did you just say?”

“I... I did come to see you.”

Yet again, I relive those moments in the hospital. Those horrible moments. How many times have I visited them over these four years? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions of times? And every time I do it, I act in a different way. They all have the same outcome. They all hurt like I crashed to the ground from the ninth floor.

“No. You didn’t.”

“Of course I did. You didn’t see me.”