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Before I can take my hand from his, his fingers intertwine and close around mine in response.He doesn’t say anything, but he also doesn’t let me go, giving me another feeling I can’t handle.
Tonight there was someone other than me fighting the world for Isabella, and I don’t have a clue what to make with it.
It was just sex, Marcos..
Two weeks later, Antonella’s words the night we returned from the island still haunt me.Should they?Not at all, after all, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said the same vowels, consonants and spaces in exactly that order, including to Antonella herself, in what seems like a lifetime ago.
Why is this time different?Because every time I used those words, I was telling the truth, Antonella.No. If I’m sure, it’s that whatever happened between us, it wasn’t just sex.
Sex wouldn’t have gotten me hooked after just three days.
Sex wouldn’t tattoo this aura of continuity around us even after two weeks without me even kissing her mouth.
Sex wouldn’t scare me day and night with memories and a fucked-up need for more.
Sex would not have reduced me to a pathetic man who never tires of waiting, of chasing, of saying how much he wants more, even though he knows he will receive the same lying response as before.It wasn’t just sex, and I’m getting tired of Antonella pretending it was.
I can understand her motivation.She’s scared, after all, as she’s told me countless times, she has Isabella and, if this goes wrong, she won’t be the only one affected.But we are married, living under the same roof and we have a deadline until our divorce.You can’t go more wrong than a marriage, and a marriage with an expiration date.
It’s not like she’s in any risk of me not calling the next day.Or to come to my house and find another woman.It’s not as if I haven’t already made it clear that I will treat her with respect.I may be an asshole, as she loves to call me, but not even I would be able to risk my own peace for the next twenty-four months out of sheer stupidity.
But she doesn’t even give me a chance.No matter how I act, her head has already determined that I’m not good enough.And I want to laugh at myself, because another behavior that I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve reproduced?To repel a woman’s approach, determined that anything but a night, two or three, was out of the question.
Things are definitely not that much fun on the other side of the bridge.And the worst part is that my efforts to get closer seem to have just the opposite effect.
The night Isabella had the nightmare, for example.I obviously did nothing but be guided by despair and common sense, which led me to one of the most unbelievable moments of my life.Me, lying in my own bed, with a woman I haven’t touched any part of her body but her hand, and a child wrapped and surrounded by an infinity of blankets.
The situation was ridiculous.Absolutely ridiculous.Just like I was earlier that night.However, whenEllareached out to me, I held her, because I was sure that it would all be field day for her impostor syndrome, and that if left alone, the first thought that would cross her mind was to be a bad mother for the simple fact that she could not be in two places at once.
Absurd. But still, so real, I knew it would happen, even though Antonella has invested far more time in running away from me since we got back from the trip than in letting me know her.
And less likely than the situation, only Antonella’s reaction, which turned something that had everything to bring us closer into yet another clumsy justification for running away from me.After that night, she finally learned that if she left a bottle of water in her room, she wouldn’t have to go through the house overnight.
I take a deep breath, thinking about anything and everything involving Antonella instead of what I should be paying attention to, the board meeting unfolding around me.
“The decision, taken at an ordinary meeting of the board of directors of the law firm Valente & Camil Lawyers is to appoint Marcos Valente as successor to the current managing partner, Joaquim Valente, at the time of his retirement, in exactly seventy-five days, as of today.” Hearing my name finally gives me something besides Antonella to focus on, and I smile, accepting silent greetings from the men and women around the table.
None of them come from any of the board’s members. No. These do not even try to hide their dissatisfaction with the decision they have just announced.Fucking hypocrites!The meeting is over, and the greetings stop being silent nods and go on to hugs and handshakes as people leave the meeting room, until only my father and I are there.
The smile on his face is huge, and again Antonella’s words hit me hard like a cannonball.Not the ones I thought about before, others.Her claim that my father’s greatest legacy is me, not the company.And what he says next seems to want to confirm Antonella’s certainty.
“Are you happy?” I join my eyebrows and laugh, confused.
“Wasn’t I supposed to be asking that?”
“My answer depends on yours, Marcos...If I wanted this day to come so badly, it’s because I believe this is something you really want, always wanted.” He approaches, stopping beside me, leaning on the meeting table. “My sadness at the possibility of another succeeding me had nothing to do with me, never had…I was just worried that at some point you’d look back and feel unhappy that you’d given up something you’d always wanted...”
“I’m happy, dad...” I answer sincerely and hug him.
“So am I.” His eyes are looking at mine, and with the palms of his hands to my face, he leaves light pats, just like he did when I was a child. “Now give yourself the day off and go celebrate with your wife,” he suggests, making me laugh.All I don’t need is to add even more tension to my relationship with Antonella at a dinner.
If I thought I was in deep shit after seven days since I had her that close, I definitely don’t know where I am now, except in a much, much more intense state of agony.
Evidence A? I have returned to the very stage of premarital despair where I now, at the age of thirty-two, jerk-off more than I did during my teenage years.
First and last time my ass.I don’t have a romantic vision or explanation for what happened on that island, but, after reliving those moments inside my own head, over and over again, in an infinite loop, any doubts I might have had about whether or not it had been different, died.
That is a bad idea. Antonella said.But it can’t be worse than spending the next two years dying to have it.That, without a doubt, is a shit idea.
