Page 42 of We Shouldn’t Do This Again

We both laugh, and breakfast arrives shortly afterward. Everything seems normal. Everything should be normal. But deep down, I know it isn’t. Because something is still there, lurking, waiting for its moment. And no matter how much I try to ignore it, hide it, or bury it beneath layers and layers of logic and sensible decisions, it doesn’t disappear. Part of me already knows that what happened last night was just fate’s way of making me see that, no matter how much I keep running away, no matter how hard I try to cling to the peace and stability I find with Alex… it’s Barbara I love. But that’s not the real question. The real question is whether I want to keep running away or finally face it again.

CHAPTER 22

THE TRUTH AND JEALOUSY

Barbara

I wake up with a strange sensation clinging to my skin. It’s not just the sticky heat that wraps around these islands even at dawn, nor the heavy humidity seeping through every crack in the bungalow and soaking everything. It’s something deeper, something my body recognizes even before my mind fully wakes up, as if an internal alarm had gone off without my permission.

Lidia crosses my mind with overwhelming clarity, so sharp and vivid that my chest aches. I blink slowly, letting the soft dawn light awaken in my memory the traces of a night filled with brutal sex. The silence around me is thick, broken only by the distant murmur of the sea rolling in steady, gentle waves.

I turn my head toward the left side of the bed and find nothing but cold, empty space, as if no one had slept there just a few hours ago. As if her body hadn’t been pressed against mine, sharing the same warmth, the same air, the same whispers that now echo through my memory with a force that almost steals my breath. I swallow hard, feeling my throat tighten slightly, and sit up slowly, letting the sheet slide across my bare skin with a caress that suddenly feels far too lonely. The memory of what happened last night crashes into me so abruptly that my body instantly reacts to the sensations burned into my skin: the feel of her body against mine, soft and burning at the same time; the quick rhythm of her breath brushing against my stomach; the delicious perfection of the way our bodies fit together.

I close my eyes for a moment and clench my jaw tightly, because yes, it was incredible. It was real. It was intense. Too intense. Too intimate. But…

“Damn it, Barbara, you really screwed up,” I murmur, my voice still hoarse with sleep, letting my head fall back onto the pillow that still carries the faint trace of her perfume.

The weight of what happened settles in my chest so heavily that I’m afraid it might crush me. Ingrid’s face appears in my mind against my will, and suddenly I realize I’ve crossed a line of no return—a line I drew with my own hands and now have no idea how to erase.

I hug one of the pillows tightly, burying my face in it as if that useless gesture could somehow give me answers, as if the cotton could absorb the emotional storm inside me and erase it from my body.

“How could you cheat on a woman who’s given everything so you could move forward?” I whisper, my voice breaking with guilt. “No one, Barbara. Absolutely no one. Ingrid is wonderful, and she loves you, damn it—she really loves you!”

The answer is so obvious it hurts. Because I haven’t just put my relationship with Ingrid at risk—that relationship we built little by little over the years. I’ve put everything at risk: my life in London, the job I fought so hard to adapt to and that gives meaning to my life most days, that stability I built with so much effort and that now teeters on the edge because of one mistake, one night when I let myself get swept away by something I thought was buried. But it’s obvious now that it isn’t.

Last night I recovered something I thought I’d lost forever. Something essential. Something that has nothing to do with rational decisions, future plans, or what I’m supposed to want at this point in my life. It has to do with her. With Lidia. With what we become when we’re together. What happens when the world disappears and only the two of us remain, with that connection that’s always been there, pulsing beneath the surface, even though we tried to ignore it for months, even years.

I press the pillow harder against my chest and let out a long, trembling sigh that seems to carry part of me away with it.

“This is a fucking mess,” I say, and it truly is—a beautiful and terrible mess all at once.

Because I don’t know what weighs more right now: the guilt squeezing my stomach and leaving a bitter taste in my mouth, or that dangerous, sweet feeling of having come home for a moment, even if only for a few stolen hours, even though I know that home no longer belongs to me.

The day drags by with exasperating slowness, or maybe it’s me who’s trapped inside every minute, replaying every caress, every word, every look we shared. I decide to leave the bungalow because I need space, because I need air that isn’t heavy with her scent, her presence, the memories clinging to my skin. Inside those four walls, everything reminds me of us: the unmade bed, the echo of her moans bouncing off the walls, the invisible imprint of her body on the sheets, the bottle of water we shared between laughs when the heat left us breathless…

The sand is warm beneath my feet when I reach the beach, almost hot. The sea has regained its calm after last night’s storm; small gentle waves lap at the shore as if nothing happened, as if the world could simply reset itself while I remain here tangled up inside. I sit near the waterline with my knees drawn to my chest, letting the waves occasionally wash over my feet, and I force myself to think, to sort through the chaos inside me, to put a name to everything I’m feeling.

But it isn’t easy. Everything is tangled together: Lidia and her laughter, Ingrid and the trust she places in me, the past that refuses to stay buried and the present slipping through my fingers, what I truly want and what I should want according to all the rules I imposed on myself over the years just to survive and climb out of the hole I was in.

“What the hell are you doing, Barbara?” I ask myself softly, almost without realizing it, my voice barely audible over the murmur of the sea.

There’s no answer. Only the endless sound of the waves breaking gently and that lump in my throat that refuses to disappear, tightening every time I breathe.

· · ·

Night falls almost without warning, gliding softly over the island. The heat eases a little with the breeze coming off the sea, but the air remains heavy, charged with electricity. I enter the resort restaurant intending to have a light dinner, to go unnoticed among the people laughing and chatting at nearby tables, and above all, not to think—to let my mind go blank, even if only for a little while. I sit at a secluded table in a corner half-hidden behind a large green plant. I order something simple—salad and grilled fish—and let the murmur of other people’s conversations surround me, as though I could disappear into the noise.

For a few minutes, I manage it. Or at least I think I do.

Then, at one point, I glance toward the gardens and spot Lidia walking slowly with her phone pressed to her ear. She’s smiling. And it’s not just any smile; it’s different, more open, more radiant, as though something inside her has finally found a little peace after all the chaos. The sight catches me off guard and leaves me frozen in my chair. I frown without realizing it and stare at her, unable to look away.

I can’t hear what she’s saying, but I don’t miss a single detail. I watch her tilt her head back when she laughs, the way her eyes sparkle beneath the golden glow of the lamps, how she pauses for a moment and leans casually against the wooden railing while continuing to speak softly. Then a name forms on her lips, and suddenly everything clicks into place: Alex.

“Seriously?”

“No,” I murmur, forcing myself to look away and down at my plate. “Don’t start this now, please. She’s free to be with whoever she wants.”

But suddenly it all fits together in my mind: the closeness between them, that bond they’ve always shared, the chemistry, the laughter. A sharp sting pierces my chest, a quick burning pain that steals my breath for a second.