Page 29 of We Shouldn’t Do This Again

“And I don’t need it,” she replies in that soft voice that sends shivers down my spine.

Before I can say anything else, Miriam returns with the masks and snorkels in her hands.

“Team ready!” she exclaims enthusiastically. “Come on, let’s see who jumps in first.”

“Me,” my father announces, and without a second thought, he yanks off his T-shirt. “I’m not going to let you beat me, you know.”

“So competitive, please,” Miriam teases with a laugh.

The atmosphere relaxes instantly. There’s laughter, movement, preparations. I grab one of the masks, grateful for the distraction that pulls me out of the whirlpool of thoughts.

“Are you coming in yet?” Miriam asks me as she adjusts her fins.

“I’m coming,” I reply. “Give me a second.”

I only need one. I walk over to the railing again and look at the water. It’s so clear it’s almost frightening, as if it has nothing to hide. And then I jump.

The impact is cool and enveloping. The water embraces me all at once, washing away the sticky heat of the air, the noise of the world, even the weight of my own thoughts for a precious moment. Below the surface, everything changes. Sound fades away, replaced by a liquid, eerie silence that envelops everything. Sunlight filters through in irregular rays, casting dancing shadows on the seabed, and in my ears, I hear only my heart.

I swim slowly, letting my body get used to the sway of the water. Fish brush past me, indifferent. The corals open up like tiny living cities, full of colors and textures that seem otherworldly. For a moment, I manage to forget about Valencia, about Alex, about Barbara, and about how complicated everything has become—about what still hurts when I take a deep breath.

But then my attention returns to her.

Barbara is a few feet away from me, moving cautiously, still a little stiff, as if her body doesn’t quite trust its balance yet. Even so, there’s something about the way she glides, the way she tilts her head to look at the water, that feels painfully familiar to me. All too familiar.

I stand there watching her, and it’s a huge mistake. Because the moment I do, the memories come flooding back like a cold current dragging me backward. To those weeks when it all began without either of us seeing it coming. To the first time I realized that her laughter had stolen everything from me in two seconds. To how she gradually crept into my head and into my heart. And then to everything else: the accidental brush of her fingers that stopped being accidental, the closeness that became more and more necessary, the warmth of her skin against mine on those nights we didn’t want to end, and the way she looked at me when she thought I didn’t notice.

A shiver runs down my spine, and it has nothing to do with the water’s temperature. I try to look away, but I can’t. There’s something magnetic about her that’s always been there, and now, surrounded by this endless blue and this absolute silence, it grows stronger.

My mind tries to make sense of it all. She reminds me of Alex. Of her easy laugh, of how effortless it is to be with her, of how good she makes me feel, of how much we could build if I let myself go completely. But my body won’t listen to reason. My body remembers. And it desires. It desires as if time had stood still, as if the wounds had suddenly healed and nothing existed beyond this moment.

I press my lips together beneath the mask, struggling to maintain control, to raise the barriers I worked so hard to build. But then Barbara turns her head and sees me. Through the fogged-up glass, despite the distance between us, I know she’s looking at me and can read in my eyes everything I’m holding inside.

My heart is racing down here, where everything should be calm and still. I feel noise inside me, too much noise. I move closer without realizing it, just a little, just enough for the space between us to shrink and the past to blend with the present in a dangerous way.

I could reach out my hand. I could brush her arm, check if her skin still feels the same beneath my fingers. The thought pierces me with an intensity that frightens me. Because I want to do it. I want to know if she’s still her, if I’m still me when I’m this close. But I don’t do it because I know what’s at stake. I know how hard it was for me to climb out of that pit. I know there are things that, once broken, can’t be put back together.

Even so, neither of us moves away. We remain suspended in the midst of that seemingly endless blue, looking at each other as if there were no world above filled with all those things we abandoned, those promises we broke, and those dreams we never made come true. As if it were enough to just let ourselves go.

But it isn’t enough. It has never been enough. And we both know it.

Finally, I look away. It’s a small gesture, almost insignificant, but it costs me everything. I swim in the other direction, searching for air, even though my lungs aren’t asking for it, searching for distance, even though my skin rejects it.

When I lift my head out of the water, the sun hits me hard again, bringing me back to reality with almost cruel clarity. I take a deep breath, too deep a breath.

“Everything okay?” Miriam asks from the boat’s rail, her voice cheerful.

“Yes,” I reply, forcing a normalcy I don’t feel. “It’s… incredible.”

And it is. But not because of the corals or the fish. Not for the reasons they think.

I rest my hands on the edge of the boat without climbing back on yet. I need one more second. One to pull myself together, to remember who I am now, who I want to be. But as I close my eyes to give myself that moment, I know that no matter how much I want to move forward, there are emotions that, like the water surrounding me, always find a way to envelop you and drag you back to the place where it all began.

CHAPTER 16

THE SAME OLD MISTAKE

Lidia