Page 18 of That Last Summer

“It’ll pass. Trust me. Let’s get some sleep now, okay? It’s been a long day.”

I nod and we lie down side by side. Marcos stretches out his arm and turns off the light. All the scenes lived during the day come now to my mind. I guess it was inevitable, impossible to avoid. But there’s something nagging at me and I can’t stop thinking about it: Alex and the redhead. They didn’t give the impression of... being together. I mean, together. A couple.

“Can I ask you a question about Alex without making you angry?” I ask my brother.

“Shoot.”

“Does Alex have a girlfriend?”

“No,” he answers bluntly. “Alex has a wife.”

I just click my tongue, making an indignant sound.

“I’m serious. I’m asking you if he’s dating someone.”

“No, Pris. Alex doesn’t date. He hasn’t dated anyone since you left.”

“Are you really trying to make me believe that he hasn’t been with anyone in all these years?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Okay.

“Marcos?”

“Yes?”

I take a breath and let out those four words that nearly killed me back then. “Alex stopped loving me.”

“Listen, Pris, after what happened—”

“No,” I interrupt him. “I mean he stopped loving me before I left. That’s why I left. Seeing it with my own eyes... It was... It shocked me too much.”

Marcos shifts in bed and searches for my eyes in the dark.

“That’s not true. Alex was madly in love with you.”

“Maybe at some point in his life he was, but not at the end. So those pieces of Alex you said you picked up? It wasn’t me who broke him.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I didn’t do anything wrong.”

* * *

A pleasant morning breeze moves the curtains on my window, keeping me from getting out of bed; my eyes are half open, my gaze lost in that gentle to and fro.

I always leave my bedroom window open—in summer because it’s too hot, and in wintertime because... well, because I’ve been doing it since I was nineteen years old and discovered a ladder made of ropes going from the ground to my neighbor from the house across the street’s window; since I climbed it for the very first time and found out why it was there. And I wanted Alex to know that my window would always be open to him, just in case he needed it.

The light but constant snoring coming from the bulk sleeping next to me pulls me out of my memories. I tilt my head to find my brother Marcos sleeping like a log, sprawled out to the point he’s cornering me on the edge of the precipice at one end of my bed. Then I remember yesterday’s argument.

My relationship with my brothers isn’t just friendly, good, or fun. It’s pure, beautiful and humane. We love each other the way everyone should love, the way our parents taught us to; we protect each other the best way too, instinctively, as a lioness protects her cub. And, above all, we respect each other in that same way, without making excuses, even if sometimes we don’t agree with the decisions we make unilaterally. And sometimes those decisions are like potions—not knowing the ingredients we used in the brewing could lead us to misunderstand the final result. Neither River nor Hugo nor Marcos know the components of the potion that forced me to leave town almost four years ago, and it was obvious that once I came back, that fact would explode in our faces. It had to happen sooner rather than later. We had contained too much already.

And, in the end, it was Marcos and me who smashed the beaker.

When I hear my future sister-in-law’s singing voice downstairs, I get up carefully, put on some slippers with huge pompoms—I love extravagant shoes, the more colors, bows, and pompoms the better—and run downstairs to see her.

It’s a really hot day and I figure it must be past noon, because despite wearing light pajamas—shorts and a tank top—I’m sweating.