Page 75 of We Shouldn’t Do This Again

“Let me speak, please. Just listen to me.”

She nods slowly, swallowing hard.

My pulse thumps in my temples like a drum.

“I’ve always loved you,” I say, and the words finally come pouring out. “I loved you even when I was trying to convince myself otherwise. I was wrong about you. I was wrong to believe I could build a life without you. I was wrong to think that time would fix what I myself had broken. I was wrong to believe that my work would keep me busy enough not to think about you. Ever since I got here… ever since I saw you again… I’ve realized that it doesn’t matter how much I run, how much I work, how much I try to distract myself with other things or other people. There isn’t a single place in the world where I feel more like myself than with you, Lidia. With you, I feel at home.”

Emotion trembles on her lips. I see how she tries to hold back something rising from her chest. How she takes a deep breath so she doesn’t break down.

“Why are you telling me this now?” she asks, almost in a whisper, her voice trembling. “Why tonight of all nights?”

“Because I lied to you. Because I’m a coward. Because the world we’ve built these past few days could come crashing down in a matter of hours when Ingrid arrives. Because I’m afraid of losing you again,” I think.

But this time I don’t shy away from the truth. I cup her face in my hands and smile.

“Because I love you,” I tell her, feeling that I’m finally speaking the only pure truth I have left. “Because I don’t want to lose you again. Because this second chance, even if it’s complicated and we have to rebuild so many things, I want to fight for it with you. I want to really try, without holding anything back.”

Lidia’s eyes fill with tears that reflect the moonlight. And seeing her like this, fragile and brave at the same time, breaks my heart.

“You’re a mess, Barbara.”

I let out a small, stifled laugh, full of relief and fear at the same time.

“I know. I’m a complete mess.”

“You made me cry at my father’s pre-wedding party. I’m going to look like a raccoon. That should be a crime,” she adds, wiping a tear with the back of her hand.

“I’ll make it up to you. I promise. I’ll make up for every tear, every doubt, every night I made you spend alone.”

She slowly shakes her head, laughing through her tears, and then she strokes my cheek with that tenderness only she knows how to give, the kind that has always made me feel like I’m worth it.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen when we leave this island,” she says in a firmer voice. “I don’t know how we’re going to fix everything that broke us back then. I’m scared. So, so scared. But I also know one thing that’s stronger than all of that.”

I swallow, waiting.

“What?”

She stands on tiptoe and rests her forehead against mine. Our breaths mingle.

“That I love you too. That I’ve never stopped. And that if you’re serious this time… I’m not going to let you get away so easily. This time we’ll fight together, Barbara.”

Emotion overwhelms me and I kiss her. I do it slowly at first. As if I wanted to memorize the tremor of her lips, the way she sighs when she feels me, the heat that flows between us upon contact. Then she wraps her arms around my neck and everything becomes deeper, more real, more ours. We kiss with the moon as our witness, with the sea lapping at the shore and the party in the distance.

I don’t know how much time we have left, but I allow myself to believe there is still hope. Even though the fear is still there, throbbing deep inside. Even though the truth is still waiting for me like an approaching storm. Even though Ingrid’s arrival could shatter it all.

Tonight, at least tonight, Lidia is in my arms. And her mouth on mine reminds me of something I should never have forgotten: that there are loves that never end. They’re just waiting for the moment to awaken again.

CHAPTER 38

WHEN LOVE CHANGES EVERYTHING

Lidia

Dancing with Barbara is like forgetting the world. It doesn’t matter where we are or what’s part of the moment: it doesn’t matter if we’re on the street in a downpour, in the kitchen of our old apartment while the pasta boils on the stove and a silly song plays in the background, or here, in the middle of the Maldives, with the sea lapping at the shore just a few feet from us and the restaurant’s golden lights enveloping everything.

All it takes is for her hands to find mine, for her to look at me, for me to place a hand on her chest and feel her heart beating, steady and fast, for everything to fall into place again, as if the broken pieces of my life were returning to where they belong.

After what she told me on the beach, after that confession that left my soul trembling, I feel like I can finally breathe for real. It’s as if I’d been holding my breath for years without realizing it, and now, suddenly, my chest opens up completely and the oxygen flows in—clean, sweet, almost painful because it was so necessary.