Time does a peculiar thing when you’re grieving. It runs slow, like syrup without the sweetness. For two weeks after Vera left, I barely remember even getting out of bed. The sun and moon rotated, the heat of late summer was replaced by an early autumn chill. I went to work—it was the only time I interacted with people. Every other moment I was by myself, nursing the hollowness that was growing inside me with glass upon glass of old scotch.
I try to have some sort of contact with Vera as much as I can. If I am not texting her, I am talking to her on the phone; if I am not hearing it that way, I am watching her grainy but still beautiful face over Skype. I send pictures to her and she sends pictures to me. My fingers trail down the screen as if I can feel her.
But we are both wounded, fighting our own battles now, in our own countries, with our own enemies. For me, my enemy is still fate. Isabel has let me take Chloe Ann on Wednesdays and weekends again, and the gossip has mercifully stopped. In the last week, I have not had my picture taken by a single photographer, and Carlos Cruz has agreed to take the settlement and the clause that he never post an article or picture about me again.
But the damage is done. I am here and she is there, and we are both suffering. I can read it in every one of her words, hear it in her voice, see it in the shadowy captures of her face. She is miserable and struggling through each day, just as I am. But sometimes, Vera seems more lost than I, and less determined to find her way back.
She is back in her mother’s house, in her old room. She says her mother isn’t being as bad as she feared but she’s certainly not welcoming. I guess at one point Vera was used to the distance and indifference, but now, perhaps after being in Spain with me, with my family, she’s learned what warmth feels like. I can attest, just from the few times I’ve met her, that Vera’s mother is as cold as ice, and I can’t imagine her thriving in that kind of environment anymore.
Josh, her brother, has been her savior like he has before, but even he can only do so much. Vera tells me that when she’s not hanging out with him, she’s not doing much of anything. He works at a restaurant and she has nothing to occupy her time. She’s not even sure if she’s going to get a job or not because every time she applies, it seems her mother brings up future plans. It sounds like she wants Vera to go live in Alberta if she can’t commit to Vancouver one hundred percent.
And Vera can’t. I am grateful for that, that she’s not throwing down roots where her roots used to be. She doesn’t want to apply for school in January because she thinks perhaps she can come back to me. Each time I talk to her, I tell her that her future is here, that if we can hold on through these months apart like we once did, we can be together again.
She never sounds very convinced. I feel like our connection is already starting to deteriorate, and I don’t know what I can do to fix it. I just try and talk to her as often as I can, tell her I love her as often as I can, and hold a lot of hope in my heart.
But the days are getting colder. Shorter. And yet it does nothing to make the time go faster, to get her in my arms sooner.
It’s a miserable day at work. The sky is swollen with dark clouds, and they flood the streets with rain. Even though it’s technically still summer, the sudden damp chills me to the bone. It seems everyone is feeling it.
Our main goaltender was injured two weeks after our first official game, and the back-up is having some conflict with Diego. Warren and I watch from the sidelines and you can see the tension rising among the players. There has been too much change for them lately, and it’s starting to show. They lost the first game which definitely didn’t help the season get off on the right foot and the fair-weather fans have already started to jump off the bandwagon, as they often do.
I am almost done with some paperwork on one of the players when Warren stops by my desk. I glance up at him, about to tell him I’ll see him tomorrow, but he just hangs around my work area.
“We need to get a drink,” he says to me, folding his arms and leaning against my desk.
“Right now?” I ask, surprised. We’ve never done anything outside of work together. I haven’t even seen Pedro or Antonio outside of work either, not since I started. Seems once you’re theirs, the wooing stops.
“It’s been a shit day,” he says. “Perfect excuse to have a drink, don’t you say?”
I shrug but find myself agreeing—every day has been a shit day since Vera left. I grab my jacket and follow him out the door. It’s four o’clock, which is a bit early, but it’s also the hour of the day that I find myself growing lighter, happier. It’s the time that means Vera will be getting up soon. The time difference between us is a terrible burden, and it’s hard having to go the majority of my work day without being able to talk to her.
Warren usually takes the metro to work, so we take my SUV and find a bar halfway between his apartment and mine. It’s a bit down at its heels and I immediately feel a rock of sadness in my chest, knowing that it’s the kind of place that Vera would like.
I miss her so fucking much it hurts.
We sit down and Warren goes to get us a drink. I’m surprised when he comes back with bourbon instead of beer.
“Had a hard day?” I ask him.
He only grins. “Nah, mate, you’ve had a hard day.” He clinks his glass against mine. “A hard few weeks, I would think.”
I nod slowly, watching him as we tip the liquid into our mouths. When he first asked me for a drink, I had wondered if he wanted to talk about him leaving and me taking over his position, but now I am not so sure.
“How are you holding up?” he asks me. He’s curious, but there is no malice in his voice, just true concern.
I take in a long breath. I haven’t talked about this—Vera and I—with anyone. When Lucia or my parents breach the subject, I have to walk away. Their voices and faces hold so much emotional attachment to her that it breaks my heart all over again and reminds me what I am missing. Their loss only adds to mine.
But Warren is a somewhat impartial outside party. He has no emotional attachment to her, or to me. He won’t even be around for much longer. And because of this, somehow I feel it is safe to tell him the truth, even though it pains me to admit it.
I look down at my glass, swirling the amber liquid around. “I am not holding up,” I tell him. “And that is the truth.”
His eyes turn sympathetic though not pitying. “I know how that is.”
I down the rest of the bourbon, relishing the burn. “I thought I did,” I say, clearing my throat. “I thought that because we went through this before I would be able to handle it again. But the person I was back then, the person she was . . . we have both changed so much since then. We have grown. With each other. Into each other, if that makes sense. Before it was tough . . . but this, this is killing me.”
It’s not like me to ever admit that with someone I don’t know but it feels good—freeing—to say it. Hearing it come from my own mouth makes me realize how much it is true. How badly I am being affected. Vera is everywhere, every moment of the day, every crevice of my mind, and yet I cannot build her out of my memories, I cannot conjure up her taste, her smell, her skin, her smile, and make a real flesh and blood version of her. She is a prisoner of my mind and heart and soul, and it’s not enough for me. I want her real, I want her here. Now. Today. Tomorrow.
Warren sighs, and from the sound of it, I know he understands. He’s remembering what it was like for him, how being this in love can warp your whole life. But he can’t know this pain, he can’t know what it’s like to lose Vera because he never had Vera. If he had, then he would really know how I’m handling things. With scotch. With numbness. With a bleeding heart.
“And so what are you going to do about it?” he asks me, giving me a pointed look.
I shrug. “Wait, I guess. I don’t have a choice. She can only get into school in January, if she can get in.”
“What if she doesn’t get in?”
I give him a wry look. “She will. I have ways.”
“You have money,” he says matter-of-factly.
I tilt my hand up and down. “More or less. Money. Influence. Sometimes those things work in my favor. Sometimes they don’t.”
“So, if you’re so sure she’s going to get into the school in January, why are you waiting?”
I frown, not sure what he’s saying. He raises his hand to get the bartender to bring over two more of the same drink, and I ask him, “What do you mean?”
He gets the same expression on his face as he does when one of our players trips over someone on the field. “I mean, if I were you, and lord knows I’m not, and I had this money and influence and star power and large balls and whatever you have, and I could get my girlfriend into a university just because, I wouldn’t make her wait until January. I would get her in the university right now. Like, next week if I bloody could.”
“The semester has already started,” I protest. “There are transcripts that need to come in on time.”
He briefly rolls his eyes. “Yes. Your point? Bribe your way in, Mateo. You were prepared to do that anyway. Who cares if the transcripts aren’t in, enroll her in something, anything. Start fresh.”
And suddenly there is a light bulb going off, but it’s not in my mind, it’s in my chest, and it’s growing brighter, warmer, illuminating everything.
“She would have to fill in the application from Canada,” I say. “What if I . . . what if she . . .” What I’m afraid to say is, what if she won’t come? What if she has too many excuses? What if it’s already too late?
The bartender plunks down the glasses in front of us and Warren lifts his in a salute at me. “You know how it is. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. You’ve got only a short amount of time before you become assistant coach and then another short amount before you are coach. This is the last freedom you’ll have—I should know. Maybe you should take advantage of that.”
Maybe I should go to her, is what he is saying. Maybe I should go to Vancouver and make sure this happens.
Maybe I should go and bring Vera back home.
I raise my glass and clink it against his, but my mind is already elsewhere. It’s already calculating fees and plane tickets and how I’m going to ask the university and how I’m going to ask Pedro for time off. It’s thinking about Vera and showing up at her door and touching her, kissing her, holding her.
It’s thinking about how having her in front of me will put my worried heart to rest, and that everything will feel whole again. That the world will become balanced once more and the time waiting for the student visa won’t feel like time at all because we’ll be together.
When I say goodbye to Warren, my heart is already in another time zone. I rush back to the apartment to start getting everything in order.
I won’t even tell Vera what’s going on until she’s in my arms again.
And I will recreate our destiny.