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Chapter 26
Fight of Fights
My driver witnessed my breakdown on the car ride home. The tears I was so hell-bent on keeping from Hector spilled over with gusto. The driver looked in his rear-view mirror several times and asked if I was okay. I could only nod.
When I arrived at my apartment, I didn’t even try to get to bed. I knew I wouldn’t sleep. My entire body was the nucleus of a bomb amassing energy before it detonated.
I’d loved him, and he had loved me back, but he took our chance away. I had no say in the outcome. I’d never felt so powerless.
It was like mourning, but I went straight to the second stage of grief: Anger. I left his house because I wanted to hit him and didn’t like the violence that was building in me. A violence fueled by the passion of the moments leading up to the argument.
I rummaged through the storage bin under my bed and pulled out a gift box almost nine years old. It was wrapped in navy blue paper and tied off with an orange ribbon.
Opening the gift in front of everyone hadn’t seemed appropriate, but then I’d forgotten about it after the party. It was placed in a box when I moved into a larger apartment. By the time I came across it again, the fallout had already taken place, and I couldn’t bring myself to open it.
I’d come close a few times but never committed. Over the years, I would think about him and wonder what was in the box, but then the anger would wash over me, and I’d always put it away again.
I undid the frayed ribbon. Hopefully, it wasn’t chocolate or something edible that had long ago turned rancid. I felt the heavy weight of it in my hands as I had so many times before. Breaking through the paper, I realized it was a book. I ran my fingers over the soft leather-bound tome. I turned it over to read the front cover and found the title ofJane Eyre.
When he went to my house on my birthday that day so long ago, I had found him in my room, frozen in place as he stared at the wall. I’d always assumed it was the copy of his paper that had glued him to his spot. I had thought he believed me to be a stalker but realizing now what he had brought as a gift, I had to believe he was in awe that he’d unknowingly selected my favorite book.
My eyes stung with tears. Anger and empathy battled within my body for a place in my heart. I wanted to forgive him, and I wanted to scratch his eyes out, all in the same breath.
It was reckless to drive back to his place with the rage still blinding me, but I was drawn to him even in my anger. We’d almost slept together, and I was too restless to go to sleep.
I gave myself several hours to calm down and returned to his house at four in the morning.
“Carolina?” Hector asked sleepily as he opened his front door. His bedhead waves fell over his forehead, and he wore a white t-shirt with light-blue pajama bottoms.
Not waiting for an invitation, I let myself in. As I closed the door, I leaned on it, needing the balance for strength.
“How could you do it?” I asked, and a tear rolled down my cheek.
“How could I not? Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing had the situation been reversed and it had beenyouthreateningmycareer. You wouldn’t have stayed away too?”
“I don’t know. But I would have talked to you about it.”
“I couldn’t.” He swallowed hard, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “I knew you would convince me that we could work it out, and I would have been weak. I couldn’t chance it. I’m so,so, sorry.”
He stepped forward and wiped away my tear with his thumb. “Please believe it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”
I nodded but took his hand away from my cheek. He kept his hand in mine and led me to the couch to sit next to him. The entire house was dark; he hadn’t turned on a single light when he opened the door.
“I’m glad you came back.”
“I’m not sure why I did. I mean, I had to cool off. Your instincts were right. I did want to hit you earlier.”
He chuckled. “My instincts are always right.” His white teeth almost glowed in the dark through his grin.
“I can think of at least one time when they weren’t,” I said, and I knew it was like a dagger to him.
“What’s it going to take for you to forgive me?”
“Forgiving has never come hard to me, Hector. It’s not about forgiveness. I’m not sure I cantrustyou.” And that was the truth of it. I wasn’t one to hold a grudge, with scarce exception. It was incredibly easy to forgive the people I loved, but this was so different. A grudge I didn’t know I’d been holding, for perhaps the first time in my life, had been brewing for years.
“That hurts,” he admitted.
“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be hurtful—just honest.”
