Chapter Twenty
Compared to the previous month, the month of July crawled by at a sloth’s pace. In some ways this was good since every day that passed was a day that took me further and further from the Spain version of Vera. It made the memories harder to recreate in detail, it made me forget conversations, forget myself. Every day brought me closer and closer to becoming the old Vera Miles, the one I didn’t want to go back to, so the slower the month went, the better it was.
There was only one thing that kept me going throughout the days, and that was Mateo. Sure, I was enjoying the summer weather and the gorgeous beaches now that the rain had let up. I had gone to Calgary to see my father and Jude, and that was a nice little escape where my dad still spoiled me rotten. I got my job at Waves Coffee back, only I couldn’t get full-time, so I just picked up shifts when I could. I even briefly saw Jocelyn when she came to town, which ended up in a night of debauchery on Granville Street and me in tears because I’d had too much to drink. I couldn’t blame her for hurrying back to Saskatchewan after that.
But, even with all that, it was Mateo who got me up in the morning, looking forward to each day. He was a busy man, still looking into opening a restaurant in London thanks to his fancy English skills, so we didn’t talk on the phone every day. But we texted as much as we could, and sent emails when texting wasn’t good enough.
Sometimes we would talk for hours about everything under the rainbow. Other times we would watch a movie together, trying to get our DVDs on our computer to synch up. The other night we tried phone sex, which was an absolute first for me. I never asked where he was when we were talking dirty to each other, but I tried not to think about it too much. He would pleasure himself while talking wildly in Spanish, and that was such a fucking turn on that it only took me seconds before I was coming. My vibrators definitely got a work out, as did my voice control. No one wants to be a screamer when you live with your mom and brother.
We were pushing the limits with that and yet it only felt natural.
So, in some ways, I was satisfied. My sex life was healthy in its own fantastical way, I was able to keep in contact with him, to hear his voice, to talk and understand and enjoy each other. It was like part two of the relationship, a slower, distant version of what we had at Las Palabras.
But in other ways, I was absolutely miserable. There were only so many times I could hear him whisper that he was biting my nipples without needing him to physically be there biting my nipples. There were only so many times he could tell me he loved me and wanted to hold me without me feeling that hollow ache that he couldn’t hold me in his arms.
The only high point in my day was him, and after a while, that just wasn’t good enough anymore. That depression, that descent into Crazyville that happened right after I landed, that was coming back to me. To make matters worse, I had to start picking courses for the school year and concentrate on what my future would bring—a future that didn’t contain the man who had my heart.
On one extraordinarily hot and humid day, I felt pretty close to snapping. It didn’t help that Mateo and I had a fight of sorts over the phone in the wee hours of the morning. It wasn’t even over anything in particular, I was just being super bitchy and snippy, and he didn’t take that attitude very well, so the angry Spanish stallion in him came out. I didn’t see that side of him very often, but it made me realize I couldn’t be a bitch for no reason and not get called out on it.
Sleep-deprived and even more pissed off because of our fight, I had spent the morning listening to angry music, which was Faith No More’s King for a Day album. I had it on repeat as I cleaned my room over and over again.
“All right, that’s it,” Josh boomed above the music, suddenly appearing in the doorway. He walked over to the iPod dock and pushed the volume slider down, then leaned against my desk and stared at me, arms folded across his chest. “This has got to stop.”
I spritzed Windex onto my window for the millionth time and frowned. “What?’
“This. Your angry music.”
“So? Don’t be a Patton hater.”
“I’m not a hater. But you’re fucking driving me crazy, Vera,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “To be honest with you, you’re worrying me a little bit.”
Now he had my attention. I turned around fully and faced him, putting the cleaner on the windowsill. “What are you talking about?” I asked, my heart picking up a beat.
He gestured to the music. “You’re playing your angry album every day. You’re cleaning and you never clean. I talk to you, and half the time you’re not even there. You’re just this ghost of who my sister used to be.”
That kind of hurt hearing it from him. Was I really that obvious? I opened my mouth to protest but he went on.
“Then later in the day, or sometimes in the morning, I don’t know anymore, you’re happy like a pig in shit. You’re all goofy, googly eyes, like a fucking muppet, and you’re smiling and it’s great. But you still don’t seem like you’re here. And then you descend into your daily bout of PMS again.” He threw his hands up. “Look, I know we don’t tell each other everything. I know you’re older and you’ve got your own problems and I get it. But, you know, just let me in a bit. It’s hard sometimes, just living life, you know? I feel like you never even came back from Spain at all.”
My throat hurt. My eyes stung. He was right. I hadn’t come back from Spain at all.
He reached over and shut the door. “You don’t have to tell me what happened over there, but…I think it might do us both some good.”
My brother was right. I hadn’t really told him anything. I told him I missed my friends and he knew what the trip had meant to me. But when it came to Mateo, I hadn’t uttered a word. Josh never even knew his name.
He was the only family I could truly trust, could truly count on. He’d been there for me when others hadn’t. I owed him the truth, as silly as it would probably seem in the end.
With a heavy sigh, I sat down on the bed and patted the spot beside me.
“Take a seat,” I said. “I’m about to go all Nicolas Sparks on your ass.”
He reluctantly took a seat, knowing full well how much I hated Nicolas Sparks’ books and movies. I launched into it, from the very moment I stepped on the bus in Madrid, to when I got in the cab and watched Mateo through the rear view mirror.
Josh was wide-eyed, speechless. I went and got myself a glass of water, my throat raw from talking, and then told him about the last month, about our phone calls and how it was all taking its toll on me.
“So,” I said, exhaling loudly. “That’s the whole story. That is the dirty, shameful truth. Do you hate me now?”
He frowned, giving me a puzzled look. “Why would I hate you?”
“Because,” I said. “I slept with a married man.”
“But you’re in love with him,” he said earnestly. “And I’ve never seen you like this before. You don’t do love, Vera. You keep everyone at a distance.”
“I do?”
He nodded. “You may not realize it, but you do. You’re just so wrapped up in your head sometimes, I think. All my girlfriends wouldn’t shut up over the slightest thing, but getting you to open up, it’s like pulling teeth. And this dude, this Mateo, if he can manage to get through to you…I don’t know. I think it’s a good thing.”
Hmmm. The things you find out about yourself.
“That said, I don’t envy you, like, at all.” He got up and stretched his arms above his head. “Because if the two of you are ever going to be together again, even if you just keep doing what you’re doing and talking on the phone like you are, there are going to be consequences. At some point, shit will hit the fan. It always does.”
“Like dad and Jude,” I said sadly, looking down at the fleur-de-lis pattern on my comforter, my fingers absently tracing the lines.
“Yeah,” Josh said grimly. “Like dad and Jude.” His tone lifted. “But that’s an extreme case. Dad and Jude were carrying on for years. He was just stringing mom along, even though I’m sure they weren’t even in love anymore. All I remember were the fights, like mom and dad had always hated each other and were only staying together because of us. But yeah, eventually she found out, and well…we know the rest.”
I couldn’t pretend that I wasn’t thinking about that every time my heart leaped for joy. It was like I hadn’t allowed myself to be happy this whole time because I knew that the happiness was coming from the potential misery of someone else.
“I have to say though,” he continued, “and I’m not excusing Dad because he was being a real dickhead. Totally. But…I see how happy he and Jude are, and part of me understands it. They went about it the wrong way. He should have broken it off with Mom the minute he was attracted to Jude…or at least, you know…I don’t want to get any visuals, but you get what I’m saying. There were always going to be consequences for what they did, but they could have saved a lot of extra heartache by not keeping it such a secret.”
I looked up at him, surprised to see my brother being so insightful and serious for once. Maybe we’d all grown up recently. “I just don’t understand how something like love can be wrong.”
He shrugged. “I don’t think it can be wrong if it comes from a pure place. I suppose you could be like one of those chicks who just keep it all inside and secretly pine for someone for their whole life until it kills them. But you’re not. What you feel isn’t wrong, Vera…it’s not black and white like that.” He cleared his throat. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go get high and purge this estrogen from my system.” He gave me a wink before he left.
With the door closed, leaving me to get back to my thoughts, I felt a little better having confided in Josh. It made me feel like I wasn’t so alone anymore. Unfortunately, talking about it hadn’t solved the problem. I couldn’t really go on like this, every day a battle between my heart and mind, between right and wrong, between the dreams and the reality.
I had to start getting over him.
I started by not answering his phone call later that night.
Then the next.
And the next.
It had been three days since I last talked to Mateo, since I had the talk with my brother. I had hoped, foolishly, that by ignoring his calls, his texts, his emails, that I could pretend he didn’t exist. It wasn’t really working. I was a wreck. I even took after Isabel and mentally began to put my chaos and heartache into tiny little boxes, but I wasn’t sure how long they would hold. I wasn’t as strong as Mateo had been.
On the third night, Josh, sick and tired of my moping, invited me out with his friends again. This time we were going to the Cambie, which was one of my favorite bars. It was situated beneath a somewhat scummy-looking backpacker hostel, and had really cheap pitchers of beer. There were large picnic tables for seating, so you often shared a table with a whole bunch of people you didn’t know. The food wasn’t too bad and there were pool tables and arcade games. The bathrooms were always disgusting though, with stall doors that barely covered you from view and rarely locked. Apparently in the men’s bathroom, you all had to pee into a long trough.
Still, I loved it. It was cheap and relaxed, with no pretension, and at least one fight every night. Plus in the summer, there was a large patio area where you could sit and drink and ignore the junkies who would pester you for money.
Unfortunately, the patio was full by the time we got there, and we barely managed to snag the end of a picnic table inside. The other half of it had been taken over by a bridal party, the bride wearing bunny ears and a veil and looking totally shit faced. It made me cringe internally. Not that they were drunk and having fun, but that she was getting married to someone—someone wealthy, by the look of the rock on her finger—and despite her drunken antics, she looked completely happy and in love.
I was jealous. I wasn’t completely happy, I was only in love.
I knew it was going to be a weird night. I started drinking my beer fast, going through the pitcher I was sharing with Josh in just ten minutes. Every time the bridal chick mentioned her fiancé, I felt my heart turn black and cold. Meanwhile, I had Adam sitting next to me, who kept rapping his hands on the table and wiping his nose. He’d obviously been doing lines in the bathroom, and I watched Josh carefully to see if he’d been doing the same. We’d both left cocaine behind in high school, though I knew he still did it on occasion.
It just wasn’t for me anymore, so I just got myself another pitcher and proceeded to drink the night away. Soon the pitchers were starting to pile up on the table, and I found myself leaning into Adam, almost like I was flirting with him. I suppose I really was becoming Old Vera again.
I bummed a cigarette from Josh’s friend Brad and staggered out into the warm night air. I felt like I was losing myself, very slowly, draining away like the empty glasses. I had no idea what I was doing, I just needed something, anything to mend my heart, to distract me from the cave inside my chest, to make it all go away. All I could think about was Mateo and where he was, and if he was with his wife. Was he in bed with her? Was he kissing her? Was he falling back in love with her? Each thought was another dagger to my gut, the feelings so physical that my shoulders were curling over as I stood there on the street, enveloped in cigarette smoke.
I thought by ignoring him, I could make it all go away. But I couldn’t. It only got worse.
“Hey,” I heard Adam say, coming up to me. “Can I have a drag?”
I gave him a small smile, trying to straighten up through the pain. I handed it to him and his finger brushed against mine. I felt nothing. He kept staring at me, blinking rapidly, nose twitching as he puffed on the cigarette.
“So how are you?” he asked. “How are you feeling right now?”
I pursed my lips. “Drunk. I’m feeling drunk.”
He smiled. It was somewhat predatory. “Good. There’s nothing wrong with feeling loose.”
I shrugged. “Guess not.”
I reached back for the cigarette, almost falling over. He caught me by my arms, his hands squeezing me, and straightened me up. “You look like you could use a walk,” he said.
I nodded dumbly, numbly. He took hold of my hand and led me up the street and around into a smelly, dark and dirty alley.
Suddenly he flicked the cigarette to the ground, pushed me back against the slimy brick wall and stuck his tongue in my mouth. He tasted like beer and nicotine. For a moment I was shocked, and then something in me let him kiss me. I even kissed him back. It felt good to be in someone else’s arms, the object of someone else’s affections.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t just a kiss. His hands were groping me, squeezing painfully at my breasts, trying to undo my jeans. The warning bells went off in my head, breaking through my drunken, emotionally damaged haze. This wasn’t going well.
“Adam,” I said, “stop.”
“What happened to the girl who used to flirt with me?” he said, biting my neck so hard I thought he was drawing blood.
“I mean it,” I said. I tried to get out of his grasp but he grabbed me by the throat and pushed me back to the wall, my head striking it hard. I blinked through the stars, fear coming over me. Oh my god. What if he didn’t let go?
“You mean it,” he snarled. “Everyone knows what a slut you are, that you spread your legs for everyone. What’s wrong with me, huh? Not good enough for your whore ass?”
“Please, Adam,” I said, trying to speak, my throat pressing into his palm as I did so. What the hell drugs was he on? “I’m sorry if it seems like I led you—”
“You’re such a liar,” he said, then kissed me again, trying to yank down my jeans. “Fucking whore thinks she’s suddenly too good for me.”
“You’re drunk. You’re fucked up.”
“You’re mine.”
I couldn’t move, his grip on my throat like iron. I opened my mouth to yell but he quickly put his other hand over it, leaving my jeans alone for the moment. His pupils were crazy big, darting back and forth, his face red, mouth curled in a sneer. I’d never seen anything uglier.
“You’re going to shut up and take it,” he said. “I know you want it. You’re suddenly too much of a prude to say so. A slut doesn’t change her spots.”
“What the fuck are you doing?” I heard Josh bellow from behind Adam. I looked over his shoulder to see Josh running toward us. In seconds he had his hand on Adam’s shoulder, ripping him off of me.
I gasped for air, sliding down along the sticky wall until I was on the ground, and watched as Josh punched Adam right in the face.
“The fuck is your problem?” Adam cried out, holding his nose.
“That’s my fucking sister, you fuckhead!” Josh yelled, decking him in the side of the head. I had never seen my brother fight anyone before, I didn’t think he had it in him. But now, he was so livid he looked like he was about to beat Adam into oblivion.
“She’s been after me from day one,” Adam cried out, his arm out, trying to get Josh to stop. “She wanted it.”
“No,” Josh said, pointing at me, a shivering, quaking mess on the ground. “She did not fucking want it.”
“Whatever, you know she’s a big slut.”
And Josh punched him one more time, this one bringing Adam to the ground with a thump. Then he came over to me and grabbed me gently by my hands, pulling me to my feet. “Are you hurt?” he asked, peering at me.
I shook my head, a lump in my raw throat, unable to speak.
He put his arm around me. “Come on, I’m taking you home.”
I nodded feebly and he led me to the road, hailing a cab.
Once inside, he took off his leather jacket and placed it around my shoulders.
We were silent for a few blocks, the neon glow of the cold city lights flashing across our laps.
“Vera,” he said quietly, “I’m just your brother. I’m not Mercy or Mom. I’m not going to tell you how to live your life. But you can’t keeping doing this either.”
I gave him a look, shadows rising and falling on his face. “Doing what?” I asked testily. “You think I asked for that?”
“No,” he said quickly. “I know you didn’t. No one does ask for that, no matter who you are, no matter who spins it. But…I feel like you’re on a path that you don’t want to be on. Drinking away your sorrows and putting yourself into these kind of situations where you’re acting out of loneliness. You need to treat yourself better.”
You should treat yourself better than that, Mateo’s words came ringing into my head.
I let out a sob, caught unaware by the pain of that memory, the memory of him after he caught me with Dave. Mateo. He’d been right, always so right about me. And I was pushing him away because it was too hard. He deserved to be treated better than that.
Josh brought me to him in a hug. I stayed that way for the whole ride.
Once I got home, I staggered to my room, locked the door, and called Mateo. I needed him right then, more than anything.
It rang for a long time before he answered. “Hola, es Mateo,” he said slowly, almost questioningly. I knew I had called him at a bad time; he would have seen my phone number and now he was pretending.
“Mateo,” I choked out, the tears rising up, my chest tight.
“Si,” he said.
“I am so sorry. I’m so sorry and I’m so sorry I’m calling you right now like this, but I just needed to speak to you…” I trailed off and started sobbing.
I heard a female voice in the background. “Quien es?” I couldn’t breathe.
“Si,” Mateo said to me, his voice strained. “Te llamaré de Nuevo, estoy teniendo el desayuno.”
And then he hung up. I had no idea what he said. I felt the cold grip of dread, wondering if I had made a mistake by calling him. I lay back in bed, then rolled over onto my side, curling into a ball. I tried to imagine his arms around me, his lips on my forehead, the kindness and complete understanding in his eyes, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. He was right. It would never be enough.
I was half-asleep, my face coated with tears, the blanket soaked beneath me, when the phone rang. It was Mateo. I gripped it in my hands, afraid to let go.
“Mateo?” I cried softly.
“Vera, Vera,” he said, his voice shaking. “Oh, Vera, my Estrella, what happened?”
I couldn’t speak for some time. Finally I was able to say, “I miss you. I miss you so much.”
“I miss you too. Oh, Estrella, my star. You have no idea. No idea. I have been so worried about you, you haven’t answered my calls or my emails. I think you don’t love me anymore. My heart has been breaking.”
I made a fist at my chest. “Mine too. This is just so hard. I can’t do this anymore.”
“Please, please, Vera, don’t say that. There is always a way.”
There wasn’t. There was only one way, and every time I entertained the notion, it made me feel sick with guilt.
“I need you,” I told him. “I need you too much, miss you too much. I thought if I ignored the problem, it would go away.”
“The problem?”
I licked my dry lips. “Yes. The problem of us.”
“There can be good problems to have,” he said quietly. “I would rather have this problem than not have you at all. Don’t you feel the same?”
I wasn’t sure. All I knew is that I hurt, constantly, and his voice was the only thing that could make it go away. Even his voice sounded like home. “I think I feel too much,” I told him. I took in a deep breath, trying to concentrate on my breathing. What a fucking night.
“I’m glad you feel so much.”
I laughed caustically. “I don’t. My heart is a whore.”
I heard the changing gears of the engine in the background. “Where are you right now? I’m so sorry I called you like that. I know it’s…risky.”
“It is fine, I am glad you did,” he said. “I was just having breakfast. Heading to work now.”
I didn’t dare ask who he was with, I knew it had been his wife. “What did you have?”
“Lots of mam and chess,” he said.
A grin spread across my face and I giggled. “My favorite.”
The next day I woke up hung over but still feeling better than the morning before. That was a good start.