Chapter Twenty-Seven
My hand gripped the phone tight. I swallowed painfully. “What?” I whispered, barely able to speak or breathe. The yelling continued and now I could make out Lucia’s voice, yelling back at someone. No, not someone.
At Isabel.
At Mrs. Casalles.
Oh, fuck.
I looked over at Mateo and waved him over. He was already halfway to me, having observed the phone call from across the room.
“What is it?” he said, his eyes searching mine.
“Isabel,” I managed to choke out. “She is downstairs fighting with your sister.”
His eyes widened. He nodded. “Stay here.”
Then he left the apartment.
I felt frozen in place, just staring at the door as it closed behind him. I picked up the phone. “He’s coming.” I hung up and looked behind me at the party. They were having a blast, dancing up a storm, totally oblivious to what was happening outside. And as much as I wanted to kick everyone out and tell them the party was most definitely over, I couldn’t because I would be kicking them right into the dirty little reality of my life.
My stomach churned. I was going to be sick.
With my hand to my mouth I ran over to the bathroom and promptly threw up all the red wine and half-digested flatbreads. I stood over the toilet, trying to catch my breath, to make the sickness go away.
Isabel was here.
She knew.
I threw up again until I heard a knock at the door and Claudia’s voice. “Vera?”
I flushed the toilet, rinsed out my mouth, and sprinkled cold water on my face while taking in the deepest breath possible. I held it until I was nearly blue then let it out.
I was going to have to get through this.
I opened the door and peered at her. “Wasn’t feeling well,” I tried to explain, in case anyone was within earshot.
She immediately hugged me. “Well, it is not going well,” she whispered into my ear.
I bit lip my lip. Hard. “What’s going on?”
Her big brown eyes creased with sympathy. “She won’t leave. She’s in the lobby now because she was making a scene on the street. Lucia is still down there. She’s making things worse. His sister is really…feisty.”
“She knows about the magazine…”
“Yes, she knows.”
“Fuck.”
“Yes, fuck.”
“How is Mateo…handling it?”
“Barely. That man has a lot of restraint.”
I nodded, knowing all too well. “I should go down there.”
Claudia eyed me like I’d gone batshit insane. Maybe I had.
“No, you should not,” she said sternly. “Stay here and Mateo will handle it.”
“But it’s not his problem alone.”
She grabbed me by the shoulders and held me firmly. “Vera, you were not married to her, okay? You do not owe this woman anything. Oh, and in case you didn’t understand my English, she is crazy.”
“You’d be insane too if you were in her shoes.”
She wagged her finger at me. “No, no, no, no, no. No, don’t start feeling guilty now. Your heart has no regard for right or wrong.”
“Claudia,” I snapped at her. “I have always felt guilty. Every day, all the time.” I ripped myself out of her grasp. “And my heart should have known better.”
I stalked off down the hall while she yelled after me, “This won’t make your guilt go away!” It was loud enough that I knew the partygoers heard it. But I didn’t care. This was my mess too. She was not my wife, but I had a part in it, and I had to face her. I owed her that.
I went out into the hall and took the stairs down, my adrenaline running too high for me to stand and wait for an elevator. I let that same adrenaline surge power my legs, keeping me putting one foot in front of the other, my brain on autopilot, until I pushed open the door to the lobby.
It was empty except for Lucia, Mateo, and Isabel. My eyes immediately went to Isabel, to the novelty of seeing her in the flesh for once. She was angry, that was for sure. Red face, red nose, face streaked with tears, a look that broke my heart. She still had this air of elegance about her, a royal blue shift dress, fancy Louboutin pumps, a Chanel purse. She was everything I wasn’t, though I knew deep down both our hearts had the same capacity to hurt.
But it was hard to hold on to that thought when she was beating Mateo’s chest with her fists and he was doing what he could to just stand there and take it. That didn’t last long though, for the moment the door shut behind me, she lifted her dark eyes over to see who the intruder was.
It was me. Me in my cleavage-baring, retro dress, hair curled with red-coated lips.
The jezebel, the harlot, the whore.
There I was, standing face to face with the wife of the man I loved.
She wasted no time. She pulled away from Mateo, her eyes lit up like firecrackers, sizzling with the madness of the moment.
“Puta coñio!” she screamed, coming toward me. “You’re the stupid slut!”
And then I remembered that she spoke English very well. I was going to understand all of her insults.
“Vera!” Mateo yelled at me, upset that I didn’t listen, but I couldn’t even look at him. I had to watch for her because she was coming at me and coming fast.
I backed up until I was against the stairwell door and she stopped less than a foot away, smelling like booze and expensive perfume. She thrust a well-manicured finger in my face, jabbing it dangerously close. “You little beast, you fucking whore. Who the fuck do you think you are, coming here and fucking my husband? Huh?!”
I’d never been so terrified. I couldn’t even breathe or think or speak. What could I even say? What could I ever say other than that I was sorry, that I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, that I thought our love would make up for everything else.
“Talk to me!” she screamed, the veins in her forehead throbbing. “Tell me what you have to say for yourself! You’ve ruined my marriage! You’ve ruined my poor daughter’s life. You’re a homewrecker! You should be ashamed of yourself.”
But I am ashamed, I cried inside.
“Well?” she sneered. “You don’t even have the guts to say anything to me, to my face, yet you have no problem fucking my husband. You stupid little bitch!” She spat on my chest. “You’re disgusting, just look at you.”
“Vete a la mierda, Isabel!” I heard Lucia yell from somewhere.
“You’re a horrible human being.” Isabel glared at me, ignoring Lucia’s insults. The spit on my chest slowly slid down, feeing cold as ice. “An insult to women and families everywhere. Fucking whore.”
“Isabel,” Mateo warned her sternly, and out of the corner of my eye I could see him approaching us.
“Talk to me!” she screamed, until I had to shut my eyes to her, her voice rattling through me.
The back of my throat pinched in pain. “I-I’m sorry,” I managed to whimper.
Her eyes widened. “You’re sorry? You are sorry? That is all I get?”
And just like that, she whacked me across the face, backhanding me.
Stars. Everywhere. Burning stars.
I didn’t care how much I deserved it though, because I knew I did. But something inside me snapped for just a moment.
“Oh, fuck right off, you bitch,” I barked at her, trying to get away from another hit I knew was coming for me.
Suddenly Mateo was behind Isabel, holding her arms down at her sides, preventing her from striking me again. But his gaze was focused on me as I held my throbbing cheek, his eyes blazing into mine. “Vera, this is the mother of my child,” he said to me, his voice dark, his brow furrowed. “Please show her some respect.”
My mouth dropped open, my cheek on fire. The fuck? Show her respect? She hit me!
He quickly turned Isabel around and she was back to yelling in Spanish, though now it sounded more like crying. He led her outside and disappeared into the night. Meanwhile I just stood there, dumbfounded and humiliated beyond repair. I felt utterly foolish at what had happened and so embarrassed by what Mateo had said to me that I wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere and never ever come out.
“I am sorry,” Lucia said, coming over to me. She put her arm around my shoulder and tucked a curl behind my ear. “I didn’t want any of this to happen. We were smoking outside and she started yelling at me about you. I knew she wouldn’t go away until she saw Mateo.”
“It’s okay,” I said absently, unable to tear my attention away from the pain in my heart.
“Mateo is trying hard to do what is best for Chloe Ann, you know this,” Lucia said. “And Isabel has not always been the best wife, so she cannot point the finger too much, but she is very proud. That magazine, what she read, she does not take that well. That damages her image.”
“I damaged her,” I said quietly. “I damaged Chloe Ann.”
“No,” she said. “Do not say these things. Isabel’s ego will return to normal one day and Chloe Ann is very strong. Things will be okay.”
I looked up at Lucia’s pretty eyes. She honestly believed what she was saying. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was lying to herself.
Things would never be okay.
Mateo never came home that night.
After the incident with Isabel in the lobby, Lucia and I went back upstairs. Even though I had never told anyone that the party was over, they all knew. When I walked in the door, they were all hanging around the kitchen and giving sympathetic smiles and sad eyes. I gave Claudia a look and she only shrugged apologetically.
They were good people though and they each gave me a heartfelt hug goodbye, promising to go out for dinner and drinks soon. Even Jerry mentioned a possible position at Las Palabras, if I was planning on staying in the city for a long time.
Funny how a few weeks ago I never would have questioned my permanency. Now, even with true friends who cared for me, I was prepared to be run out of town.
Claudia hugged me hard and said she would come and get me for lunch since it was the weekend. My heart swelled at how she was trying to distract me, to make me feel better. Lucia, too, was the same and told me to call her. I was so happy that I had her on my side, though now I wondered whose side Mateo was on.
I went to bed alone, those thoughts swirling around in my head. Why wasn’t Mateo back yet? What was he doing? Did I really anger him by calling Isabel a bitch? Did it not piss him off that Isabel had physically hurt me, that her insults were much more vile? Or did it not matter because I deserved it—because I had always had this coming.
I had no answers and no Mateo.
At four a.m., I got a text from him.
I’m staying the night at the old house, for Chloe Ann. I love you. I will call you tomorrow.
I was going to be sick again. He was staying at their old house? With Isabel? Oh god. I knew he had written that he loved me, and I knew he said he was staying for his daughter, but that didn’t make the sick, sticky feeling go away, the one that gripped my gut from the inside out, robbing me of breath. The feeling knotted itself until I had to roll over into the fetal position and pray for sleep to take me away.
When I woke up the next morning, the sun streaming in through the curtains I forgot to close, the feeling was still there. I couldn’t shake it. It was working its way through me and driving me mad.
Mateo had said we would be our own universe. He made me promise not to give up on us. He had given me so many reasons to believe that what we were doing was right, that love was good, that we could make it work, that the risks were worth taking, that it would be worth it in the end. And I just didn’t know if that was true anymore. And the more I thought about it, about us, the worse the pain inside me got. There were tiny strands of my brain that wanted to latch on to one thought, one thought that I was too afraid to look at clearly. The thought represented pain.
The thought was realizing that maybe this relationship wasn’t going to work.
That it would have to end.
That I would have to end it.
And that by doing so, I would lose everything I tried so hard to get—I would lose my life in Spain, my friends here, my new family, my chance at happiness. I would lose love. I would lose Mateo.
That thought broke me. It fucking broke me. So I dismissed it, I pushed it aside, because it was too great of a task to think about it, and it was too life-altering to even consider. I didn’t want to think about it and realize that it was true, because once I realized it was true, then I would have to do something about it.
I didn’t want to do something about it. I just wanted things back to the way they were.
But really, when was our love ever fucking free?
I didn’t know how long I lay in bed, waiting for Mateo to call me or come home. But after a while it was obvious that he wasn’t.
When the phone finally did ring, it was Claudia. She practically forced me to get dressed and go and meet her. She threatened bodily harm, which I didn’t find very funny considering my cheek was still a bit red from where Isabel had hit me. One of her rings had left a mark that I spent a long time trying to cover up with concealer. Unfortunately, it didn’t cover up the deep humiliation I felt.
The weather had started off sunny when I woke up, but by the time I was heading out the door to meet her, the clouds rolled in and there was a chill in the air. I held my jean jacket around me tight, sad to say goodbye to the hot summer, and hurried along the streets until I got to the Prado museum. Claudia thought the art would take my mind off of things.
It was only as I was running up to the entrance to meet her that I got a text from Mateo.
Where are you? I am on my way home now.
My heart leaped with uncertainty. I quickly texted back.
I just got to the Prado. Meeting Claudia here. Will be back later, going to look at some art.
I waited a few moments for the next text to come. By now Claudia had spotted me and joined my side, looking on curiously but not being nosy. She knew what was up.
He responded: Enjoy the museum, it is very important. See you when you get home. I love you.
I love you too, I texted back. I meant every single word of that. Despite that thought in my head, the one I didn’t want to touch, to feel, to look at, I knew without a doubt that I loved Mateo deeply and with every part of me. It was that love that made things hurt so much.
“What did he say?” Claudia asked.
I sighed. “Nothing really, just that he’s coming back home now.”
I stared at the grand entrance to the palace-like building. People of all ages were lining up to get in. Suddenly I knew that the last thing I wanted to be doing was staring at paintings and sculptures all while I was thinking about Mateo.
“Go,” Claudia said to me with a knowing smile. “We can always go to the museum another day. This will not take your mind off of Mateo if Mateo is in your home, waiting for you.”
“Are you sure?” I asked her.
She nodded. “I’ve lived in Madrid my whole life. I have seen the exhibits two times already this year. We will come back another day, maybe the four of us, like a double date. But believe me, you’re going to get a hatred for Goya if you go in there in this state.”
I smiled at her. “Well, I wouldn’t want to do that to Mr. Goya.”
She kissed me quickly on each cheek and waved as I walked away. “Good luck.”
Usually I got annoyed when people told me “good luck” because it sounded like I needed luck, needed help with something when I didn’t. But this time, I really did need it. I wanted to get back home and see Mateo and fall into his arms and have him bury that bad thought far, far away. I wanted him to take the burden away, to take everything away, and make me believe we had a way to get through this mess.
I decided not to tell him I was coming home early. In fact, I thought perhaps I could get home before him and make it a surprise, lay out some coffee and cookies and prepare for some soul-searching.
I took the Metro for a bit, trying to hurry, and walked quickly from the metro station to the apartment. I was about a block away, doing my best to ignore the little kicks of hurt that still swirled in my gut, that terrible feeling of dread I was convinced I could overcome.
And that’s when I saw Mateo.
He was across the street, getting out of a shiny red Audi. It wasn’t his car at all. Then I noticed the blond head of Isabel in the driver’s seat, and I realized that Mateo had driven Isabel home in her car last night.
I immediately retreated backward into the doorway of a shop, hoping the shadows would hide me, and watched the scene unfold. There was no way I wanted her to see me again; she’d probably leap out of the car and finish what she started.
Mateo walked around to her side of the car, with the same clothes on as last night, and she rolled down the window.
She said something to him. I couldn’t read her expression because she had sunglasses on.
Mateo put his right hand at her jaw, holding her intimately, like a husband would with a wife, nodding at whatever she was saying.
Then he kissed her.
Right on the lips.
A soft, sensual kiss.
And she kissed him back.
My lungs dropped to the floor, the fractures in my heart all blowing up at once, shattering every piece of me, shards slicing me from head to toe. All while my eyes stayed wide open, glued to the scene.
Finally he pulled away and smiled. But there was no time left in this universe to decipher what that smile meant, if it even meant anything.
Because I realized what that thought had meant, what it was trying to tell me, trying to get me to pay attention to.
I was watching Mateo and his wife, or soon-to-be-ex-wife, act affectionate with each other. I was watching them act like they’d been married for years, because of course they had been. I was watching this and I was dying inside, my heart stomped on and crushed, my veins full of black liquid jealousy, choking me from the inside out. I was feeling like I was never going to survive this.
And that was wrong.
Because they had a daughter together.
And me and my feelings, I was standing in the way.
I never wanted my father to leave my mother, not deep down. If there ever had been a way to spare me of all the pain I went through, I would have wanted it. Right now, I was the obstacle between Mateo and Isabel’s marriage. If there was ever a chance, even the smallest chance, that the two of them could ever get back together, I couldn’t be the one to get in the way of that.
They had a family together.
I needed to do the right thing, for everyone.
Fuck my own heart.
I had to leave Spain.