It was only a four hour flight from Miami to Savannah, but sitting in rocking chairs sipping lemonade on my mother’s front porch while we watched the slow-moving traffic felt like we were on the other side of the world.

“It’s been too long since you’ve come to see me, Angel.” She raised a disapproving eyebrow. “You know I don’t like to go to Miami anymore.”

“I know, Mama.” I nodded.

She hadn’t been back there since my father was shot twenty years earlier. She’d said then that she’d never go back, and I always thought maybe she’d come around and change her mind once the pain and the memories had faded a little.

Now, though, she seemed perfectly at home in Georgia, and she still talked about Miami like it was hell on earth. She seemed content to live out the rest of her days in the hot, humid Savannah sun, and I seemed destined to keep disappointing her.

When she wasn’t worrying about what I got up to in Miami—a valid concern, though I’d never admit it to her—she was asking me when I’d settle down and get married, when I’d bring her some grandchildren on one of my not-frequent-enough visits.

“Have you found a nice woman to make your wife yet?”

I frowned. It was as if she’d been listening to my thoughts, but I knew the reality was that she was just going through her usual list of questions, bracing herself for another round of disappointment.

“Maybe,” I said, surprising both of us with the closest thing to a yes as I was likely to get. “But it’s complicated.”

Complicated didn’t even begin to describe the way I felt about Bella. The state of our… relationship—if it could even be called that—was so much more than complicated, but I didn’t have any other words to describe it. Anyway, it’s not like my mom would’ve understood.

And she definitely wouldn’t have approved if she’d known all the details. But just because I didn’t want to tell her all the details didn’t mean she wasn’t going to ask.

Repeatedly, if she didn’t get the answers she was looking for.

“Well?” She asked. “Is maybe all you’re going to say? I’m too old for riddles and mysteries, Angel. Tell me. Who is she? What does she do? When will you bring her here to meet your forgotten mama?”

I snorted and turned away so she wouldn’t see me roll my eyes. Old woman or not, she still wouldn’t have hesitated to cross that porch and slap my face for being disrespectful.

“It’s not like that, Mama,” I said, finally. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Even though I didn’t want to sit and answer twenty questions about my dysfunctional non-relationship with Bella, I also regretted getting my mother’s hopes up.

I knew that she only asked because she cared, because she wanted to see me happy—the way my parents had been when they were younger, back when we still lived in Cuba, back when the world had seemed like a simple place.

“It’s not like what, Angel? Do you love her?”

“Yes,” I said, without hesitating—without needing to even think about it. “I’ve loved her for a long time.”

It was the first time I’d said it out loud, but it was true. The way Bella made me feel went deeper than anything else I’d ever felt before. Deeper than friendship, deeper than sex. I would lay down my life for her if I had to—and for a man who had lived his life surviving, that was a pretty big revelation.

I’d never been in love before Bella, but that was the only word that could come close to expressing how I felt about her.

Her happiness meant everything to me. It’s why I knew I finally had to let her go—staying with me hadn’t made her fall in love with me the way I’d naively hoped it would.

In fact, it had probably made things worse between us.

“Does she love you?” My mother was still in twenty-question mode, and even though I was tired of playing, I still felt like I owed it to her to give at least a few more answers. I’d been the one to bring it up in the first place, after all.

“I don’t know, Mama…” I shrugged, and shoved a hand back through my hair. I did know, though—or at least I was pretty sure I knew. I just didn’t want to admit it. Still, that plan hadn’t really worked out for me, either, so… fuck it. “No, actually,” I corrected myself. “No, I don’t think she does.”

“Then she’s a fool.” She stated it in such a matter-of-fact way that it would’ve been hard to argue with her. “And it’s her loss.”

Except I knew that Bella wasn’t a fool. She was smarter—in book-smarts and street-smarts—that anyone else in my life. She was nobody’s fool.

“I feel like I’m the one losing out though, Mama.” I sighed. “I know I shouldn’t whine, but… how am I supposed to turn off my feelings for her?”

She gave me a hard look and then leaned in a little, squinting against the sunlight. “You really love her? You’re sure?”

“Yeah, there’s no question about that. I’ve tried to deny it for a while, but I just can’t fight it anymore.”

“And you’ve told her how you feel?”

I shook my head. “No… what’s the point?”

She clucked her tongue and rolled her eyes. “Silly boy. You have to tell her how you feel. If she loves you back—and I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t—then she’ll tell you. And if she doesn’t… at least you’ve been a man about it, and you can move on. But until you say something to her, you won’t be able to stop thinking about it. That’s just how it goes.”

I sat back in my chair and thought about my mother’s words. She’d loved and lost more than anyone I’d ever known, and she’d lived long enough to know what she was talking about.

Should I tell Bella how I felt? Was there any point to it? Would I at least be able to move on, no even if she shut me down?

Maybe…

Maybe it was worth a shot.

“You really think so, Mama? You think that’s what I should do? Just… tell her?”

She nodded and took another long sip of lemonade. “I know that’s what you should do. Have I ever given you bad advice before?”

“No,” I laughed. “You definitely haven’t.” I stood up and stretched, then crossed the porch and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Thank you, Mama. You’ve given me a lot to think about. And… I think I know now what I need to do.”

“What?” Her brow furrowed. “Are you leaving? Without even staying for dinner?”

“I’m sorry, Mama. I have to go back to Miami. I don’t want to waste any more time… but maybe the next time I come to visit, I’ll have a guest with me.”

Her dark brown eyes lit up as a wide smile spread across her face. “You’d better have this girl with you, Angel. I want to meet the future mother of my grandchildren.”

“Cross your fingers, Mama,” I said, giving her a little wave as I turned to go. “I’m going to need all the luck I can get.”

And whether or not I ended up being lucky enough for Bella to love me back, I’d made up my mind.

I had to tell her how I felt. I owed her the chance to hear it and respond to it, and I owed it to myself to say the words.

To tell her I loved her.